Cesare Curzi

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Cesare Curzi (front left) at a charity ball of the German Red Cross (1976)

Cesare Curzi (born October 14, 1926 in San Francisco ) is an American opera singer ( tenor ).

Life

Curzi was born the son of Italian immigrants ; his father Francesco Curzi was a tenor. Curzi received his first singing lessons from him . At the age of 15 he first appeared in an operetta theater, in an operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan . Curzi studied singing at the San Francisco Conservatoire. After completing his military service , he joined the San Francisco Opera choir in 1947 and made his debut in 1948 as a soloist in a small role in the opera Madama Butterfly . He remained a member of the ensemble of the San Francisco Opera until 1954, where he appeared in small and medium-sized roles: Parpignol in La Bohème , Edmondo in Manon Lescaut , Iseppo in La Gioconda , Normanno in Lucia di Lammermoor and as Nathanael in Hoffmann's Tales .

In 1955 Curzi came to Europe . He first sang in the 1955/56 season at the Stadttheater Kiel . At the beginning of the 1956/57 season, Curzi was engaged at the Nuremberg Opera House ; he remained loyal to the Nuremberg Opera until his final stage farewell in 1992. On the occasion of his departure, he was made an honorary member of the House.

Curzi also made guest appearances at the Vienna State Opera (1964 as David in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg ) and at the Salzburg Festival (1959 as Ecclitico in Die Welt auf dem Monde ; 1965/66 as Don Anchise in La finta giardiniera ). In 1957 he sang Alfredo in La Traviata at the Frankfurt Opera with great success ; then he was tied to this house from 1960 to 1971 with a regular guest contract. Guest performances have also taken him to the Deutsche Oper Berlin , the Bavarian State Opera in Munich , the State Opera Stuttgart and the Cologne Opera . Since 1965 he has been a regular guest at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein .

At the beginning Curzi sang in particular the lyric tenor subject (Ferrando in Così fan tutte , Almaviva in The Barber of Seville in the 1966/67 season, Ernesto in Don Pasquale ); later the big roles in the lyrical and dramatic Italian tenor subject were added (Rodolfo in La Bohème , Herzog in Rigoletto , Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor ). In later years Curzi increasingly took on roles for tenor buffo and roles from the character field (Kent in Lear , Alcindoro in La Bohème ) in opera . Curzi was also a popular operetta tenor at the Nuremberg Opera House . Danilo in The Merry Widow and Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus were among his brilliant roles in this area . He also sang Alfred in Die Fledermaus , the Duke, Caramello and Pappacoda (all three tenor roles) in One Night in Venice , Barinkay in The Gypsy Baron and the title role in Orpheus in the Underworld .

Even in television , he was repeatedly seen. For example, on January 13, 1968, he appeared as a guest on the television show One Will Win . He also appeared in TV programs such as Zum Blauen Bock or Do you recognize the melody? With.

In 1973, Curzi founded an import and export company for Italian delicatessen products , which one of his sons later ran; the company is based in Leinburg in the Nuremberg region .

Curzi had been married to Rosemarie Ginocchio († 2017) since 1950; the marriage had four children, a daughter and three sons. Curzi lived with his family in Schwaig near Nuremberg for many years . In 2000 he and his wife returned to their native California, where they live in Concord .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b A singer who enjoys singing . Cesare Curzi biography. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
  2. ^ Curzi Import - Export GmbH & Co. KG . Internet presence. There under the heading: To the company founder. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b Rosemarie Antoinette Curzi Curzi . Death notice and obituary. In: East Bay Times. March 26, 2017. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Curzi, Cesare
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American opera singer
DATE OF BIRTH October 14, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH San Francisco