When asked where her passion for singing opera comes from, Rose Guccione answers with one word: grief. She is referring to the untimely death of her father when she was 24, a tragedy that prompted her to question what she wanted to do with her life, she explains.
“The answer was an immediate question,” Guccione recalls. “Could I make a living from music? I made a pact with myself to work hard on developing my voice in order to audition for Chicago’s classical music venues for the six years that followed. I lived as a musical monk. I would practice in a church basement for two hours a night after work unless I was at a voice lesson.”