Saturday, July 31, 2010
1904 Addio fiorito asil -- role created by Zenatello
Giovanni Zenatello (2 February 1876 - 11 February 1949) was an Italian opera singer. Born in Verona, he enjoyed an international career as a dramatic tenor of the first rank.
Zenatello showed musical promise from a young age.
His singing teacher in Verona originally tried to train him as a baritone, but he never felt comfortable in this range and later switched to the higher tenor register.
Nonetheless, it was as a baritone that he made his professional debut at Belluno in 1898.
His tenor debut (as Canio in Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci) did not come until the following year, at Naples.
Zenatello's operatic career gathered momentum during the early years of the 20th century, and on February 17, 1904, he created the role of Pinkerton in the world premiere of Puccini's Madama Butterfly at La Scala, Milan.
La Scala was Italy's leading opera house, and he remained a member of its company of singers until 1907.
He also sang at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in 1905-06, 1908–09 and 1926; at the Manhattan Opera House in 1907-1910; and with the New York Metropolitan Opera company, on tour, replacing Enrico Caruso, in 1909.
He sang often, too, in South America and Mexico and in various cities of Continental Europe.
Zenatello's voice had matured into that of a clarion-voiced dramatic tenor during his La Scala years, and he succeeded Francesco Tamagno (1850–1905) as the world's greatest exponent of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello.
He performed this extremely taxing role more than 300 times during his career and recorded highly acclaimed extracts from the work.
After a final stage appearance (in New York City) in 1933, Zenatello retired from opera and taught singing.
Lily Pons was one of his pupils.
As to his private life, he lived with the Spanish mezzo-soprano Maria Gay from 1906 until her death in 1943.
They were often described as husband and wife although they may never have actually married.
In 1913, Zenatello was instrumental in having the Verona Arena, built originally by the ancient Romans, restored and turned into a world famous open-air venue for opera performances.
That same year the arena was used to mount a grand production of Aida, marking the centenary of Verdi's birth.
In 1947, Zenatello arranged for a promising young soprano named Maria Callas to appear at the arena's Summer Festival in Amilcare Ponchielli's operatic masterpiece, La Gioconda.
This appearance would give Callas invaluable exposure in Italy and help set her on the path to future stardom.
Zenatello died in New York City in 1949, aged 73.
Zenatello left an important musical legacy in the form of a considerable number of commercial recordings of his voice, made both acoustically and, after 1925, with the aid of microphone technology.
His first discs were made in Italy by The Gramophone Company in 1903, followed by a long series for Fonotipia Records. Later, he recorded for the Columbia, Edison and HMV labels.
These recordings of operatic arias, duets and ensembles, as well as of a few song titles, have been reissued on CD in recent years, most notably by the English firms Pearl and Symposium Records and the Austrian Preiser label.
They reflect the wide range of his repertoire and confirm the impressive power, thrust and ardency of his singing at its best.
A radio interview with an elderly Zenatello, recorded in 1947, includes a creditable (if transposed dowanwards, due to the singer's age) performance of the aria Niun mi tema from Otello. This interview was reissued in the 1960s and can be heard on CD.
Roles created
1903: Vassili in Siberia (Giordano).
1903: Init in Oceàna (Antonio Smareglia)
1904: Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly (Giacomo Puccini).
Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, (Oxford University Press), 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5
Scott, Michael (1977), The Record of Singing, Volume One, (Duckworth, London), 243 pages, ISBN 0 7156 1030 9.
[edit] External links
History of the Tenor - Sound Clips and Narration
1853 Di quella pira -- role created by Firenze-born tenor C. Baucarde
Carlo Baucardé or Boucardé (1825–1883) was an Italian operatic tenor who sang leading roles throughout Italy, as well as in London, Madrid, Paris, and New York.
He is most remembered today for creating the role of Manrico in Verdi's opera Il trovatore and the title role in Donizetti's Poliuto.
Carlo Baucardé was born in Florence to a family of French origin.
According to contemporary accounts, he had originally been employed in the palace kitchen of the Grand Duke of Tuscany where he first attracted attention by his talent for cookery, and later by his talent for singing which enabled him to receive musical training.[1]
His earliest known appearance was in Florence in 1847 as Carlo ("Il bravo") in Mercadante's Il bravo.[2]
Between 1848 and 1850, he sang frequently in Naples at the Teatro San Carlo.
He appeared in three operas by Verdi, all in their first performances at that theatre: I Lombardi alla prima crociata as Arvino (1848), Macbeth as Malcolm (1849) , and I masnadieri as Carlo (1849).
He also sang there in the premiere of Donizetti's Poliuto in the title role (1848) and in the theatre's first performance of his La favorita as Fernando (1850).[3]
Baucardé made his London debut to considerable popular acclaim as Oronte in I Lombardi alla prima crociata during the 1850 season of Italian opera at Her Majesty's Theatre.
During that season he also performed the leading tenor roles in Verdi's I due Foscari, Bellini's I puritani, and Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia. Benjamin Lumley, the Director of Her Majesty's Theatre at the time, wrote of Baucardé
Nothing was expected, yet great results were achieved. With a charmingly sweet, but still robust voice of wonderful extension; with a style wherein the use of the falsetto was at once sparingly and judiciously employed, this young artist won easily upon a public accustomed to give a preference to natural gifts over the display of skill. Not that Baucarde was deficient in skill; on the contrary, his " school" was excellent. As an actor he rose scarcely above mediocrity, but any deficiency in this respect was overlooked in the splendour of his "organ". [4]
In 1851, Baucardé sang the title tole in the world premiere of Gualtiero Sanelli's Camoëns at the Teatro Regio in Turin where he also sang Gualtiero in Bellini's Il pirata (1852), Arturo Talbot in his I puritani (1852), and the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto (1852).
Baucardé achieved particular success as the Duke, both in Turin and elsewhere.[5]
Verdi then cast Baucardé as the first Manrico in Il trovatore, although he had previously wanted Raffaele Mirate for the role.[6]
The premiere at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853 was a great success not only for Verdi, but also for Baucardé.
************************ DI QUELLA PIRA ********************
His popular acclaim in the role increased when
he substituted a high C
for the original G in the finale of
"Di quella pira"
during a later performance of Trovatore in Florence.[7]
---------------
He went on to sing Manrico for the Paris premiere of the opera on 23 December 1854 at the Théâtre-Italien.
The following month, he again appeared at the Théâtre-Italien in the title role of Pacini's now forgotten opera, L'ultimo dei Clodovei.[8]
Despite his great popularity in Italy, Baucardé failed to impress one British observer, Frances Minto Elliot.
Writing under the pseudonym "Florentia", she described his 1854 Rome performance in Lucrezia Borgia thus:
"Boucarde is a fat and stupid Gennaro, the real and veritable "pescatore ignobile",[9] and not the high-bred, unmistakable patrician Mario appears, even in his dingy dress."
"There is not a grain of romance about Boucarde, and his voice is no more comparable to Mario's silvery tones than his appearance."
"The fact is, he drinks like a fish, and is rapidly ruining a naturally fine organ."
"He made a good point in giving the words "Era mia madre, ah! misera", with an expression of deep pathos that brought down rounds of applause, and a particular kind of roar peculiar to a gratified Italian crowd, very savage and bloodthirsty to the ears, reminding one of revolutions and all kinds of horrors.[10]"
Baucardé was married to a prominent, but notoriously temperamental soprano, Augusta Albertini (1827-1898) and often sang with her.
When she was proposed for the role of Mina in the 1857 premiere casting of Verdi's Aroldo, Verdi wrote to his librettist Francesco Maria Piave:
"In short, as regards Albertini, I tell you, no. I've had more than enough of her husband, and I don't want anything more to do with lunatics. [11]"
From 1859 to 1860, the couple sang at the Academy of Music in New York, but the venture was not successful.
By then, Baucardé was past his prime.
He retired from the stage in 1863 and died in his native Florence on 22 January 1883.
1.^ Lumley (1864) p. 275
2.^ Lawrence (1999) p. 552
3.^ Casaglia
4.^ Lumley (1864) p. 275
5.^ Rescigno (2001) p. 85
6.^ Phillips-Matz (1993) p. 308. Raffaele Mirate (1815-1885) created the role of the Duke in the world premiere of Rigoletto.
7.^ Rescigno (2001) p. 86
8.^ Casaglia
9.^ Italian, literally "ill-bred fisherman"
10.^ quoted from Florentia (1854) p. 412
11.^ Letter from Giuseppe Verdi to Francesco Maria Piave, 31 October 1856, quoted in Rescigno (2001) p. 86. Original Italian:
"Intanto, ti dico per l'Albertini, no. Ne ho avuto abbastanza di suo marito e non voglio più avere che fare coi matti."
[edit] References
Casaglia, Gherardo, Almanacco Amadeus. Accessed 7 March 2009.
Florentia, "Diary of a first Winter in Rome – 1854", in The New Monthly Magazine Vol. 101, Richard Bentley, London, 1854.
Lawrence, Vera Brodsky, Strong on Music: Repercussions, 1857-1862, 2nd Edition, University of Chicago Press, 1999. ISBN 0226470156
Lumley, Benjamin, Reminiscences of the Opera, Hurst and Blackett, 1864.
Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane, Verdi: A Biography, Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0193132044
Rescigno, Eduardo, Dizionario verdiano, Biblioteca universale Rizzoli, 2001. ISBN 8817866288,
1896 Un di all'azurro spazio -- Giordano "A. C." role created by Borgatti
Giuseppe Borgatti (born Cento, March 17, 1871—died Reno di Leggiuno, October 18, 1950) was an Italian dramatic tenor with an outstanding voice.
He created the title role in Umberto Giordano's opera Andrea Chénier and became famous for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner.
Borgatti sang leading roles at La Scala, Milan, from 1896 until 1914, but deteriorating eyesight caused by the disease glaucoma put a premature end to his stage career.
Borgatti was born into a poor rural family from the Province of Ferrara in northern Italy and grew up illiterate, according to the music-performance historian John Rosselli.
This handicap did not prevent Borgatti from finding work as a bricklayer/stone-cutter.
He was also called up by the authorities to discharge a compulsory period of military service.
Luckily, a wealthy patron happened to hear him sing.
Struck by the inherent quality of Borgatti's voice, the patron arranged for him to have professional singing lessons and acquire basic educational skills.
His voice teachers included Alessandro Busi in Bologna and, later, Carlo d'Ormeville.
In 1892 (some sources say 1893), Borgatti made his operatic debut at Castelfranco Veneto, singing the role of "Dottore Faust" in the opera of the same name by Charles Gounod. (Cavatina: "Salve, dimora casta e pura").
A string of performances at other Italian opera houses ensued in mainly lyric parts.
Eighteen ninety-four saw Borgatti successfully undertake the role of the Chevalier des Grieux in a notable production in Venice of Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut."
"Donna non vidi mai simile a questa".
Later that same year he appeared at another major venue, the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan, as Lohengrin (his first assumption of a Wagnerian part).
His career was now gaining real momentum but he would not become a major opera star until 1896 when, at Milan's La Scala, he sang in the premiere performance of Andrea Chénier to great acclaim.
"Un di all'azzuro spazio"
Although Borgatti continued to appear in a number of Italian operas after 1896, earning particular renown for his performances in works by Giuseppe Verdi, Puccini and the verismo composers, he fell strongly under the spell of Wagner's music dramas.
He worked closely with La Scala's principal conductor, Arturo Toscanini, from 1898 through into the early 1900s, and proceeded to master all the main tenor parts of the Wagnerian repertoire, namely, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Walther, Tristan, Siegmund, Siegfried and, finally, Parsifal.
---------------- IN BUENOS AYRES ----------
In 1898, he toured South America with a first-class troupe of Italian singers which included his fellow tenor Francesco Tamagno (the creator of the role of Otello in Verdi's opera), the soprano Luisa Tetrazzini and the baritones Mario Sammarco and Eugenio Giraldoni.
He also visited Spain and Russia.
Then, in 1901, he took part in a "grand concert" at La Scala that had been organised to mark the recent death of Verdi.
Toscanini conducted the concert and among the array of soloists participating in it with Borgatti were Tamagno and the rising tenor star Enrico Caruso.
Borgatti became the first Italian tenor invited to sing at Germany's Bayreuth Festival in 1904. Both Cosima Wagner (the composer's widow and the festival's director) and the important Wagnerian conductor Hans Richter praised Borgatti's voice and artistry.
In 1906, he made a different venture into the field of German opera when he sang Herod in the La Scala premiere of Salome by Richard Strauss.
******************************************************
Good looking, intelligent and robustly built, Borgatti is said to have possessed abundant reserves of stamina and strong histrionic ability in addition to a smooth, limpid voice of large size.
******************************************************
Critics lauded him, too, for the clarity of his diction and the beauty of his phrasing.
**************************
Oddly enough, despite his exceptional attainments as a singer and interpretive artist, he never performed in London or New York City.
************************
At the height of his career, in 1907, Borgatti began losing his sight due to glaucoma. This affliction grew steadily worse, obliging him to retire from the operatic stage seven years after its onset, even though his voice was still in prime condition. He kept giving concerts, however.
The theatre in his home town of Cento was named in his honour in 1924.
By this juncture, he was blind in both eyes.
His last public performance occurred in Bologna in 1928.
He taught singing in Milan following the curtailment of his opera house career.
His best known pupils were the English lyric tenor Heddle Nash (1894–1961) and the German baritone Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender (1897–1978).
Borgatti married one of his singing teachers, Elena Cuccoli.
They had a daughter, Renata Borgatti (1894–1964), who became a concert pianist.
Borgatti died at a resort town near Italy's Lake Maggiore in 1950, aged 79.
Giuseppe Borgatti's impressive singing is preserved on fewer than 20 acoustic discs that he made in Milan for Fonotipia Records and the Pathé company in 1905 and 1919 respectively.
They include extracts from four different operatic works by Wagner, all sung in Italian, and one aria each by Verdi ("Niun me tema" from Otello) and Puccini ("E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca.
Borgatti had been La Scala's original Cavaradossi in 1900.
For some reason, he recorded nothing from his breakthrough opera, Andrea Chénier, or from some of the other Italian operas with which he had become especially associated, such as Mefistofele, Aida, La traviata, La Gioconda, Pagliacci, Manon Lescaut and Fedora.
He did, however, commit to wax his interpretations of two short examples of lieder by Robert Schumann.
Like the Wagner pieces, they are sung in Italian.
All Borgatti's surviving acoustic recordings are available on CD re-issues.
In 1928, he recorded several rare sides electrically for the Columbia company.
Scott, Michael, The Record of Singing, Volume 1, Duckworth, London, published 1977.
Rosenthal, Harold & Warrack, John, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, second edition, Oxford University Press, London, published 1979.
Steane, John, The Grand Tradition: Seventy Years of Singing on Record, 1900-1970, Duckworth, London, 1974.
Freestone, John, liner notes to Symposium Records, UK, Compact Disc 1199, published 1997.
Rosselli, John, Singers of Italian Opera, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, published 1992 and reprinted 1995.
Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane, Puccini: A Biography, Northeastern University Press, Boston, published 2002.
This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the Italian Wikipedia.
Biographical sketch
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