Mario Ancona

Mario Ancona

Mario Ancona (born February 28, 1860 in Livorno , † February 23, 1931 in Florence ) was an Italian singer (baritone) and singing teacher.

Life

Ancona, son of bassist Raffaele Ancona , studied social sciences and law and initially embarked on a diplomatic career. After taking singing lessons with Giuseppe Cima in Milan, he made his debut as an amateur singer at the Concerto Maglioni in 1880 . He made his first professional appearance in Trieste in 1889 as Scindia in Jules Massenet's Le roi de Lahore . In 1890 he sang King in Massenet's Le Cid at La Scala in Milan . At the Teatro Dal Verme he sang Silvio in Ruggiero Leoncavallos Pagliacci in 1892 .

From 1892 Ancona appeared for seventeen seasons at the Covent Garden Opera . In 1893 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera , where he had 92 appearances in seventeen different roles over three seasons. From 1906 to 1908 he was engaged at the Manhattan Opera , 1913–14 at the Boston Opera and 1915–16 at the Chicago Opera. He gave guest appearances in Cairo, Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, Warsaw, Moscow, St. Petersburg and various cities in South America. His repertoire included roles in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Don Giovanni, Figaro), Giuseppe Verdi (Germont, Rigoletto, Renato, Amonasro, Iago, Don Carlo in Ernani), Richard Wagner (Wolfram, Telramund, Hans Sachs), Giacomo Puccini (Lescaut, Marcello), Pietro Mascagni (Alfio, David in L'amico Fritz ) Giacomo Meyerbeer (Nevers in Les Huguenots ) and Charles Gounod (Valentin in Faust ). In 1916 he ended his career and settled as a singing teacher in Florence.

His repertoire included almost all of the classical and veristic Italian roles in his vocal field, plus some French and some Wagner roles (Telramund, Wolfram and Hans Sachs), which he even sang in German.

swell

• Mario Ancona at Operissimo  on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
• Forgotten Opera Singers - Mario Ancona
• Online Archive of Canada - Guide to the Mario Ancona Collection