Nello Santi

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Nello Santi (born September 22, 1931 in Adria , Veneto , † February 6, 2020 in Zurich ) was an Italian opera conductor .

Act

Nello Santi was born in the small town of Adria in the north of the Po Delta. His mother was a primary school teacher, his father a grocer . Since his first visit to an opera as a boy - Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto - he was enthusiastic about operas and listened to numerous records with opera recordings. He learned to play the piano, violin, viola, trumpet and double bass. During his first engagement as a prompter at the Padua Opera House , he stepped in from time to time when a musician was missing.

He studied composition and singing at the Liceo musicale in Padua. In 1951, at the age of twenty, he conducted Rigoletto for the first time at the Teatro Verdi in Padua . He made his debut at the Zurich Opera House on September 3, 1958 at the age of 27 with the Verdi opera La forza del destino , at that time still in German. He then worked in Zurich as music director until 1969, but remained closely associated with the house as a guest for over 60 years. He conducted 94 premieres in Zurich and stood at the podium well over a thousand times. In 2019 he staged a revival of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor , which was enthusiastically received by the Zurich audience.

In addition to Zurich, Santi has conducted with all the great singers around the world at numerous opera houses such as the Scala di Milano , the Arena in Verona , the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Vienna State Opera , the Opéra National de Paris and the New York Met , where he often appears the young Luciano Pavarotti performed. 1986–1994 Santi was chief conductor of the Basel Symphony Orchestra .

Nello Santi had a photographic memory, knew the sheet music and the texts of all instrumental and vocal parts of most of the works by heart and basically conducted without a score , even in rehearsals. So in rehearsals, if a singer was canceled, he could also sing his part.

He couldn't do anything with modern productions, and he wasn't interested in newer works; he loved the Italian bel canto composers Verdi, Donizetti and Bellini . He just accepted Alban Berg's Wozzeck from 1925.

His repertoire comprised over 60 operatic titles as well as numerous concerts from the classics to the romantics to the beginning of the modern age.

Recordings (selection)

Awards (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary in the Tages-Anzeiger of February 8, 2020, p. 36.
  2. ↑ Marianne Zelger-Vogt: He was a monolith in the opera world: Nello Santi, the former music director of the Zurich Opera House, is dead. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . February 6, 2020, accessed February 7, 2020 .
  3. ^ Radio SRF: Obituary, February 7, 2020
  4. ↑ Peter Hagmann: The Italian opera and its advocate. Encounter with the conductor Nello Santi. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 22nd of November 2013.
  5. ↑ Susanne Kübler: He not only conducted - he lived the music. In: Tages-Anzeiger. February 7, 2020
  6. ↑ Nello Santi on arcoartists.ch
  7. ↑ Nello Santi passed on parts of his price. ( Memento from January 26, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. November 5, 2001
  8. ^ Art Prize 2013 of the City of Zurich goes to Nello Santi. In: Swiss music newspaper . 14th of June 2013
personal data
SURNAME Santi, Nello
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian conductor
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Adriatic Sea , Veneto
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 2020
Place of death Zurich