NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rose Bampton, a soprano who was a New York Metropolitan Opera mainstay during the 1930s and 1940s, has died. She was 99.

Bampton died on Tuesday in the Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Mawr, said Marilyn Callaghan, office manager of St. David's Episcopal Church in nearby Wayne, where a memorial service will be held for the singer on Saturday.

Born in Ohio, Bampton made her Met debut in "La Gioconda" in 1932, according to an obituary on the "Opera News" Web site, www.operanews.com, which is affiliated with the Metropolitan Opera.

After Bampton's first performance at the Met in New York, New York Times critic Hubbard Hutchinson praised her "big flexible voice," for its "round and velvety richness."

She sang with some of her era's most important opera figures, including Arturo Toscanini, Kirsten Flagstad and Giovanni Martinelli.

After leaving the Met in 1950, Bampton judged vocal competitions, taught at the Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard School and performed in recitals and concerts.