During World War I

Rosina Buckman was a New Zealand soprano who became a prima donna during World War I and later a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music. She was born in Blenheim, grew up mostly in the North Island and went to England when still a teenager to get a formal singing education from Charles Swinnerton Heap. After Heap's death, she moved to the Birmingham School of Music. Graduating in 1903, she could immediately sustain herself from singing engagements but fell ill and returned to New Zealand the following year. She advanced her career in the country of her birth and had her operatic debut in 1905. Also performing in Australia, she worked for the dominant soprano, Nellie Melba. Encouraged by Melba to apply her talent in England, Buckman moved in 1912. From 1914, she performed alongside Melba, who called her New Zealand's \"Queen of Song\". Her breakthrough came after she joined the Beecham Opera Company in 1915. She had a broad repertoire but is most noted for her lead performances in Madama Butterfly and Tristan und Isolde. She toured widely and in 1922, Buckman, her tenor-husband Maurice d'Oisly, a pianist and a cellist embarked on a tour of New Zealand and Australia with 110 performances during a ten-month period. She continued performing into the 1920s, and recorded prolifically. From the 1930s, she concentrated on teaching.