Kaja Eide Norena was one of the foremost sopranos in her profession, celebrating triumphs on the world's leading opera stages in the 1920s and 1930s. She was a student of Ellen Gulbranson. In 1905 she made her debut in Oslo. After several years at the National Theater, she came to the big stages: La Scala, Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Metropolitan. Norena was present in New York when Flagstad made her debut at the Metropolitan in 1935.