Graciela Rivera year she made her operatic debut as Rosina in "The Barber of Seville" by Gioachino Rossini at the New Orleans Opera. In December 1951, she became the first Puerto Rican to sing a lead role at the New York Metropolitan Opera as Lucia in the production of Lucia di Lammermoor. She earned accolades for her performance from critics around the world. In 1953, Rivera was proclaimed "Citizen of the Year" by the City of New York. In 1954 Rivera was featured as a guest singer in Name That Tune, and later that year, at an instance of Your Show of
Demetrio e Polibio Demetrio e Polibio Demetrio e Polibio (; "Demetrius and Polybius") is a two-act operatic "dramma serio" by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Vincenzina Viganò-Mombelli. The opera was orchestrated for strings only. "Demetrio e Polibio" was Rossini's first attempt at a full-scale opera, "assembled piecemeal" during his student days at the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna in 1806. Because it was commissioned by tenor Domenico Mombelli (whose wife wrote the libretto) and was performed privately by Mombelli and his two daughters, a performance which Rossini did not attend, it was not his first fully staged opera. The opera was not professionally