Cesare Valletti
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 :
Mascagni :
Massenet : Mozart :
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Puccini :
Rossini :
Verdi :
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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
- 1950 - Cimarosa: Il matrimonio segreto , live recording with Alda Noni , Giulietta Simionato , Sesto Bruscantini , Ornella Rovero , Antonio Cassinelli ; Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino , conductor: Manno Wolf-Ferrari , Cetra.
- 1950 - Donizetti: La fille du régiment (Italian), with Lina Pagliughi , Sesto Bruscantini, conductor: Mario Rossi ; Choir and Orchestra of the RAI Turin, Cetra.
- 1950 - Rossini: La Cenerentola , with Giulietta Simionato , conductor: Mario Rossi ; Choir and Orchestra of the RAI Turin, Cetra.
- 1951 - Verdi: Falstaff , with Renata Tebaldi , Mariano Stabile , conductor: Victor de Sabata ; Choir and Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala Milan, Urania Records.
- 1952 - Donizetti: Don Pasquale , with Alda Noni , Mario Borriello , Sesto Bruscantini, conductor: Mario Rossi; Choir and Orchestra of the RAI Turin, Cetra.
- 1952 - Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore , with Alda Noni , Afro Poli , Sesto Bruscantini, conductor: Gianandrea Gavazzeni ; Choir and Orchestra of the RAI Turin, Cetra.
- 1952 - Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia , with Dora Gatta , Gino Bechi , conductor: Victor de Sabata ; Live recording La Scala 1952, ed.GOP / Memories / Urania.
- 1953 - Mozart: Don Giovanni , with Giuseppe Taddei , Italo Tajo , Maria Curtis Verna , Carla Gavazzi , Elda Ribetti , conductor: Max Rudolf ; Choir and Orchestra of the RAI Turin, Cetra.
- 1955 - Bellini: La sonnambula , with Maria Callas , Giuseppe Modesti , Eugenia Ratti , Gabriella Carturan , Pier Luigi Latinucci , Giuseppe Nessi , conductor: Leonard Bernstein ; Choir and orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala (the “legendary Scala production” by Luchino Visconti , premiere: March 5, 1955), Cetra Opera Live, later also with Opera d'Oro / Myto.
- 1958 - Puccini: Madama Butterfly with Anna Moffo , Rosalind Elias , Renato Cesari , conductor: Erich Leinsdorf ; Roman Opera Choir and Orchestra , RCA.
- 1958 - Verdi: La traviata , live recording with Maria Callas (Violetta), Mario Zanasi (Germont), conductor: Nicola Rescigno ; Choir and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House London, Arkadia.
- 1959 - Donizetti: Linda di Chamounix , with Antonietta Stella , Renato Capecchi , Giuseppe Modesti, Fedora Barbieri , Giuseppe Taddei , conductor: Tullio Serafin ; Choir and Orchestra of the Teatro San Carlo Naples , Philips.
- 1959 - Mozart: Don Giovanni , with Cesare Siepi , Birgit Nilsson , Leontyne Price , Fernando Corena , conductor: Erich Leinsdorf ; Choir of the Vienna State Opera , Vienna Philharmonic , Decca .
- 1960 - Mozart: Don Giovanni , live recording of the Salzburg Festival , with Eberhard Waechter , Leontyne Price , Elisabeth Schwarzkopf , Walter Berry , conductor: Herbert von Karajan ; Choir of the Vienna State Opera , Vienna Philharmonic , Movimento Musica.
- 1965 - Rossini: La gazza ladra , heavily abbreviated live recording from Florence, with Gino Orlandini (Fabrizio Vingradito), Flora Rafanelli (Lucia), Nicoletta Panni (Ninetta), Paolo Montarsolo (Fernando Villabella), Paolo Washington (Gottardo), Anna Maria Rota (Pippo), Roberto Ferraro (Isacco), conductor: Bruno Bartoletti ; Choir and Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino , Opera d'Oro OPD.
literature
- Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . Volume 7: Suvanny – Zysset, page 4836. Fourth, expanded and updated edition. Munich 2003, ISBN 3-598-11598-9 .
Web links
- Works by and about Cesare Valletti in the catalog of the German National Library
- Cesare Valletti at Discogs (English)
- Cesare Valletti - biography and recordings
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Don Giovanni . Metropolitan Opera House: 10/12/1953. Cast list and reviews. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
- ^ Valletti, Cesare tenor . Performance directory. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
- ↑ a b c d e f g CESARE VALLETTI . Biography at Naxos.com. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
- ↑ Don Giovanni . Metropolitan Opera House: 02/25/1960. Cast list. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
- ^ Archives of the Salzburg Festival : Cesare Valletti , performance database . Retrieved July 4, 2020
- ↑ https://www.norpete.com/v1364.html
- ↑ 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 | |
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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 |