Maria Cebotari (original name: Ciubotaru, 10 February 1910 – 9 June 1949) was a celebrated Bessarabian-born Romanian soprano and actress, one of the greatest opera and singing stars in the 1930s and 1940s. Beniamino Gigli considered Cebotari one of the greatest female voices he ever heard. Maria Callas was compared to her, and Angela Gheorghiu named Maria Cebotari among the artists she admires the most. Her funeral was "one of the most imposing demonstrations of love and honor any deceased artist has ever received" in the history of Vienna, with thousands of people attending.