Cesare Valletti

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Cesare Valletti, 1958

Cesare Valletti ( December 18, 1922 in Rome - May 13, 2000 in Genoa ) was an Italian opera singer ( tenor ). He has sung on important stages and with famous partners, including Maria Callas , Anna Moffo , Birgit Nilsson , Leontyne Price and Renata Tebaldi .

He was considered the best " tenore di grazia " of his time, was a sought-after song singer and played a key role in the renaissance of Rossini's operas in the 1960s.

Live and act

Cesare Valletti, born the son of a doctor , first studied in his hometown of Rome and later became a student of the famous Italian tenor Tito Schipa . He made his stage debut in 1947 at the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari as Alfredo in La Traviata , whereupon a rapid career developed at the Italian opera theaters, especially in Mozart operas and with parts from the classical bel canto tradition.

In 1947/48 he was engaged at the Rome Opera. In 1950 he appeared together with Maria Callas and Mariano Stabile as partners at the Teatro Eliseo in Rome in Il turco in Italia . From 1950 he sang regularly at La Scala in Milan , where he had great success, especially in lyrical roles such as Count Almaviva , Lindoro and Nemorino . With the Ensemble of La Scala in Milan, he first appeared in 1950 as Fenton in Falstaff at the Covent Garden Opera House in London , where he also sang Alfredo in La Traviata in 1953, again with Maria Callas as a partner . In 1951 he was a guest at the Mexico City Opera House .

He made his US debut in 1953 as Werther at the San Francisco Opera . In December 1953 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni . Valletti was a permanent member of the Metropolitan Opera for the next seven seasons and sang roles such as Tamino, Ferrando, Ernesto, Count Almaviva and Des Grieux in a total of 80 performances. Valletti's last unplanned performance at the Metropolitan Opera took place in February 1960 as Don Ottavio under Karl Böhm . In the 1960/61 season Valletti was to sing Nemorino in a new production of L'elisir d'amore ; However, after a dispute with the then MET general manager Rudolf Bing , whose background was never known, he was replaced by Dino Formichini after the costume rehearsals and never appeared there again.

Valletti has also made guest appearances at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires , at the Rio de Janeiro Opera House , in Chicago , Paris and Amsterdam at numerous international opera and music festivals. In 1950 he appeared on stage as Count Almaviva as part of the Zurich Festival. He sang at the Glyndebourne Festival , the Aix-en-Provence Music Festival, in Verona and at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino .

At the Salzburg Festival in the summer of 1960 he appeared as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni under Herbert von Karajan , sang two Mozart arias as part of a Mozart matinee and gave a recital , accompanied by Leo Taubmann , with works by Handel , Sarti, Pasquini, Scarlatti, Pizzetti, Berlioz and Robert Schumann .

His repertoire also included the German art song and the popular Italian canzoni . As encores in his recitals, he occasionally chose arias from operas that he did not sang on stage, for example from Boito's Mefistofele or Federico's “Lamento” from Cilea's L'Arlesiana .

In 1967 he officially ended his career, but in 1968 he appeared again at the Caramoor Festival in Katonah , New York State , as Nerone in Monteverdi's opera L'incoronazione di Poppea .

Valletti was married to Nicoletta Braibanti, a granddaughter of the composer Ildebrando Pizzetti . After completing his singing career, he joined his father-in-law's Milan company, which manufactured machines for Italian pasta , and became its director. Valletti, who lived in Milan, died at the age of 77 of a heart attack in his hotel room in Genoa, where he was staying for liver cancer treatment.

Roles (selection)

Bellini :

Borodin :

Cimarosa :

Donizetti :

Mascagni :

Massenet :

Mozart :

 

Puccini :

Rossini :

Johann Strauss Jr. :

Richard Strauss :

Verdi :

Wolf-Ferrari :

Audio documents

Cesare Valletti had a "very lyrically educated, expressive" voice (according to Kutsch / Riemens), which was particularly effective in the roles of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti and Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari .

The voice of Cesare Valletti is documented by numerous complete opera recordings and various live recordings. The record label Palladio gave a sampler of arias from the 1950s entitled "The Last Tenore di Grazia".

Selected complete recordings

literature

Web links

Commons : Cesare Valletti  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Cesare Valletti, 77, Tenor Of a Vanished Lyrical Style . In: New York Times, May 20, 2000. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
  2. ↑ Don Giovanni . Metropolitan Opera House: 10/12/1953. Cast list and reviews. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
  3. ^ Valletti, Cesare tenor . Performance directory. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g CESARE VALLETTI . Biography at Naxos.com. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
  5. ↑ Don Giovanni . Metropolitan Opera House: 02/25/1960. Cast list. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
  6. ^ Archives of the Salzburg Festival : Cesare Valletti , performance database . Retrieved July 4, 2020
  7. ↑ https://www.norpete.com/v1364.html
  8. ↑ In. Operas on records. A catalog of the complete recordings . Selected and commented critically by Karl Löbl and Robert Werba . Volume I. Adolphe Charles Adam to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. ECON Taschenbuch Verlag. Düsseldorf 1983. Page 46. ISBN 3-612-10021-1 .


personal data
SURNAME Valletti, Cesare
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian opera singer (tenor)
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome , Italy
DATE OF DEATH May 13, 2000
Place of death Genoa , Italy