Mississauga’s first maven of the opera Eleanor Calbes has had a profound and long-lasting impact on the city’s arts community.

Calbes, a past winner of the Mississauga Musician of the Year award and the prestigious Laurie Pallett Patron of the Arts award, died earlier this month after a battle with cancer. She was 76.

Throughout her career, Calbes performed in several shows on Broadway.

One memorable story involved the young singer having landed the role of Liat, a relatively minor part, in South Pacific. However, after Richard Rodgers heard her sing, Liat was given a singing role and Calbes became the first soloist to perform the song Bali H'ai.

Longtime friend Paul Fletcher first met Calbes in 1989 when looking for a music teacher for his daughter. He spent more than two decades as president of City Centre Musical Production, an organization Calbes founded and where her husband Jack Thomson served as president.

“Friend, mentor, surrogate mother; Eleanor had a profound impact on my life and the life of my family,” said Fletcher. “She was an incredible woman who was so full of passion about everything.”

Calbes was born in the Philippines and started singing in the church in Aparri, the town where she was born. After coming to Canada, she studied at the Royal Conservatory Opera School in Toronto on scholarship and performed with the Canadian Opera Company before landing parts on Broadway shows such as The King and I as well as Lovely Ladies and Gentlemen.

She appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and once gave a performance for Prince Philip with pianist Victor Borge. She also starred as Maria in a German production of West Side Story.

While she delighted audiences and luminaries around the world, perhaps her biggest impact came close to home. She was responsible for founding the Mississauga City Centre Opera company in the mid-1980s and also Calbes Voice Studio and the Fiesta Filipino Dance Company.

Her work as a vocal teacher has helped generations of young Mississauga singers.