Scipio Colombo

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Scipio Colombo (born May 25, 1910 in Vicenza , Italy ; † April 13, 2002 in Gernsbach , Germany ) was an Italian opera singer with a baritone voice .

Life

Education and career

Scipio Colombo first studied philosophy at the University of Padua before he found his way to music. Violin studies with Orlando Sabbatini and Vasco Zaccaria in Milan were followed by a brief activity as a violinist in opera orchestras. Then, however, he found his way as an operatic baritone while studying singing at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, which he graduated with Giuseppe Venturini and Giuseppe De Luca (Rome). He won several competitions, including at the Teatro Sperimentale in Alessandria ( Piedmont ), paving the way for his successful debut in 1937 as Marcello in La Bohème (Puccini).

Participation in world premieres

During World War II he sang in most of the major opera houses in Italy, including La Scala in Milan . In 1947 he sang there in the first performance of Prokofiev's Love for the Three Oranges , and Britten's Peter Grimes , later Poulenc's Conversations of the Carmelites . He also took part in the world premieres of Igor Stravinsky’s Canticum Sacrum in 1956 and Ildebrando Pizzetti's Cagliostro (Milan, 1953). He was also known for his roles in contemporary Italian works, above all in Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero (Florence, 1950).

International career

Appearances at the Vienna State Opera ( Tosca , Troubadour , Rigoletto by G. Verdi) and at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London ( Tosca , Puccini) as well as in Aix-en-Provence ( Don Giovanni , Figaros Hochzeit and Cosi fan tutte , WA Mozart ) and at the Bregenz Festival made him known internationally. Scipio Colombo sang almost all of the great baritone roles in the Italian repertoire; Rigoletto, di Luna, Germont, Count Almaviva, Don Giovanni, Guglielmo, Lescaut, Marcello, Cavaradossi - there are over 80 major roles in his personal catalog raisonné. He has appeared in almost all famous opera houses in Europe, such as the Scala in Milan , the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome , the Teatro San Carlo in Naples , the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels and other opera houses, as well as at the Maggio Musicale in Florence .

Teaching in old age

From 1959 he worked as a singing teacher, including teaching at the Musikhochschule in Karlsruhe and at the Musikakademie in Basel . Up until old age he taught singing students in his secluded but idyllically located house in Gernsbach, including the mezzo-soprano Xenia Maria Mann , the mezzo-soprano Eva Günschmann , who lives in Trier, and the opera tenor Jeroen Bik .

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Colombo, Scipio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian opera singer with a baritone voice
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Vicenza , Italy
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 2002
Place of death Gernsbach , Germany