Mario del Monaco

Mario del Monaco ( born July 27, 1915 in Florence, † October 16, 1982 in Venice) was Italian opera singer (tenor ).

Biography

Mario del Monaco came from a wealthy Florentine family. His mother Flora Giachetti was a good ( amateur ) singer, who called the singer later as " his first muse ." His father was a music critic. Because of his profession, the family lived for a time in Cremona and later in Tripoli and finally in Gioacchino Rossini's birthplace Pesaro, where Mario studied at the Conservatorio Rossini at Arturo Melocchi.

After a failed intermezzo at the Opera School of the Roman opera 1936 - he came up with the teachers can not cope and accused them of trying to retrain him to the lyric tenor - he returned to Pesaro back to his former teacher Melocchi, where he also completed his training.

Although he was officially drawn to a transport unit during the Second World War, he made it in this time to finish his studies:

On December 31, 1940, he made ​​his debut as Pinkerton in Puccini's Madame Butterfly at the Teatro Puccini in Milan, the start of a successful career.

On June 21, 1941, the tenor married his former co- singing schoolgirl Rina Filippini, with whom he had two sons, Giancarlo ( now a well known opera director ) and Claudio.

In the following years, followed by engagements in Verona, Florence and Cairo before he made his debut in 1945 at La Scala - the real beginning of a world-class career, the other positions, including Buenos Aires (Teatro Colón, where he sang Otello in 1950 his first, his most important role ), Vienna (State Opera ), San Francisco, and finally New York City (Metropolitan Opera) denominated.

In the 1950s, he was next to the lyrical Giuseppe Di Stefano and Franco Corelli later one of the most famous tenors and was Renata Tebaldi as an opera together with dream couple. Also in the recording studio he was at this time a permanent guest; Renata Tebaldi, he played with a 14 complete recordings of Italian opera.

Early 60s began del Monaco star to fall, his voice lost its appeal. In 1962, he was replaced at short notice for the season - opening of the MET by Corelli and retired then from this stage back. In 1963, he had to interrupt his career for a year after a serious accident.

1975 ended the tenor of his career final. He died only seven years later, with only 67 years. At his own request he was buried in his Otello costume.

Repertoire / Meaning

While the singer had sung at the beginning of his career still lots of lyrical compartment as the Pinkerton, Alfredo, Edgardo ( Lucia di Lammermoor ), he confined himself in his great time in the fifties almost exclusively on heroic tenor roles such as Canio (I Pagliacci ), Manrico ( Il Trovatore ), Ernani, but especially Radames ( Aida ) and Otello, which he is said to have sung allegedly more than 400 times. He also had the Lohengrin in the repertoire, but ventured unlike his Chilean colleague Ramón Vinay or later Plácido Domingo not get to the heavier roles in the operas of Richard Wagner as Parsifal, though he had in 1965 tried a change of subject with Siegmund in Die Walküre. Especially in later years, he had great success with plate Neapolitan songs.

Del Monaco, who also appeared in several movies because of his good looks, had an enormously expansive voice that decreed in his best time over metallic brilliance in height and an almost baritone sound in depth. But as he almost always designed his games in fortissimo and without dynamic and tonal nuances, he is more than natural talent with great stage presence and charisma.

Monument

In Treviso there is a memorial showing him as a singer. It was unveiled at the opening of the " Istituto del monaco mario lirico " on October 8, 2011.