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
Gioachino Rossini produced 20 operas. Of these, "Otello" formed the climax to his reform of serious opera ("opera seria"), and offers a suggestive contrast with the treatment of the same subject at a similar point of artistic development by the composer Giuseppe Verdi. In Rossini's time, the tragic ending was so distasteful to the public of Rome that it was necessary to invent a happy conclusion to "Otello". Conditions of stage production in 1817 are illustrated by Rossini's acceptance of the subject of Cinderella for a libretto only on the condition that the supernatural element should be omitted. The opera "La Cenerentola"