Cesare Valletti
Encyclopedia
Cesare Valletti is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
) was an Italian operatic tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
, one of the leading tenore di grazia
Tenore di grazia
Leggiero Tenor, also called tenor leggiero or tenore di grazia, is a lightweight, flexible tenor type of voice. The tenor roles written in the early 19th century Italian operas are invariably leggiero tenor roles, especially those by Rossini such as Lindoro in L'italiana in Algeri, Don Ramiro in La...
of the postwar era. He was much admired for his polished vocal technique, his musical refinement and elegance, and beauty of tone.
Valletti studied in Rome, and privately with Tito Schipa
Tito Schipa
Tito Schipa was an Italian tenor. He is considered one of the finest tenori di grazia in operatic history...
. He made his debut in Bari, as Alfredo in La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
, in 1947. He came to prominence in 1950, when he sang in Il turco in Italia
Il turco in Italia
Il turco in Italia is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The Italian-language libretto was written by Felice Romani...
, opposite Maria Callas
Maria Callas
Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
, in Rome. In the same year he made his debut at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan, singing Fenton in Falstaff
Falstaff (opera)
Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...
, a role he reprised when the company took the production to Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
later that year.
In 1951 Valletti went to Mexico City to sing La traviata with Maria Callas, he also partnered her in the famous Visconti
Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
production of La sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, at La Scala in 1955, and again in La traviata at Covent Garden in 1958.
In September 1953 he made his American debut at the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
in the title role of Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
, opposite Giulietta Simionato
Giulietta Simionato
Giulietta Simionato was an Italian mezzo-soprano. Her career spanned from the 1930s until her retirement in 1966.-Life:Born at Forlì, Romagna, she studied in Rovigo and Padua, and made her operatic debut at Montagnana in 1928...
as Charlotte, and later that same year, in December, he debuted at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York, singing Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, other roles at the Met included; Tamino
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, Almaviva, Nemorino
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
, Ernesto
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
, Alfredo
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
, des Grieux
Manon
Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
. His career at the Met ended abruptly in November 1960 when manager Rudolf Bing substituted Valletti, for no apparent reason, after dress rehearsal in a new production of L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
. Valletti left the Met and thereafter refused numerous offers to return.
In 1958 ,he sang ,with Maria Callas and Mario Zanasi, the "London Traviatta"that is known as one of the best performances of this opera.
In the 1960s Valletti returned to Italy, where he was particularly popular at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is an annual opera festival which was founded in April 1933 by conductor Vittorio Gui with the aim of presenting contemporary and forgotten operas in visually dramatic productions. It was the first music festival in Italy. The first opera presented was Verdi's early...
in Florence. He extended his range to art song
Art song
An art song is a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano or orchestral accompaniment. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the genre of such songs....
, and became a highly respected recitalist. Valletti officially retired in 1967, but returned in 1968 to appear at the Caramoor
Caramoor
Caramoor may refer to:*Caramoor International Music Festival, held at*Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts Inc., a former estate listed on the National Register of Historic Places near Katonah, New York...
Festival in New York. There he sang his last role, Nerone in Monteverdi's
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian baroque opera comprising a prologue and three acts, first performed in Venice during the 1642–43 carnival season. The music, attributed to Claudio Monteverdi, is a setting of a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello...
.
After retirement he flourished in a new career in his father-in-law's pasta machine making business. Valletti was married to Nicoletta Braibanti, a granddaughter of Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti was an Italian composer of classical music.- Biography :Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions...
.
Valletti died of a heart attack in Genoa, Italy, while undergoing treatment for liver cancer.
He can be heard on "live recordings" in the two aforementioned historical performances of La sonnambula and La traviata with Maria Callas. Valletti can also be heard in a "lighter" cast version of Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
which paired him with Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...
, which was produced as an accompaniment to the "heavier" cast of Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...
and Richard Tucker
Richard Tucker
Richard Tucker was an American operatic tenor.-Early life:Tucker was born Rivn Ticker in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of Romanian immigrants from Bessarabia. His father, Shmul Ticker, and mother Fanya-Tsipa Ticker had already adopted the surname "Tucker" by the time their son entered first...
; both of these recordings are conducted by Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
.
Selected studio recordings
- Cimarosa - Il matrimonio segretoIl matrimonio segretoIl matrimonio segreto is an opera in two acts, music by Domenico Cimarosa, on a libretto by Giovanni Bertati, based on the play The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick...
- Alda NoniAlda NoniAlda Noni was an Italian soprano leggiero, one of the leading soubrette of the immediate postwar period.Born in Trieste, she first studied voice and piano in her native city, and completed her studies in Vienna...
, Ornella Rovero, Giulietta Simionato, Sesto BruscantiniSesto BruscantiniSesto Bruscantini was an Italian baritone, one of the greatest buffo singers of the post-war era, especially renowned in Mozart and Rossini....
, Antonio Cassinelli - Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Manno Wolf-FerrariManno Wolf-FerrariManno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian conductor, nephew of composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari.He studied in Venice and Siena, and quickly established himself as a leading conductor of the Italian opera repertory, which he performed widely in Italy but also abroad, notably in Monte-Carlo, London, Madrid, etc...
- Mozart - Don GiovanniDon GiovanniDon Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
- Giuseppe TaddeiGiuseppe TaddeiGiuseppe Taddei was an Italian baritone, who performed mostly the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi....
, Italo TajoItalo TajoItalo Tajo was an Italian operatic bass, particularly associated with Mozart and Rossini roles.Tajo was born in Pinerolo, Piedmont, and studied violin and voice at the Music Conservatory of Turin with Nilde Stichi-Bertozzi. He made his stage debut in 1935, as Fafner , under Fritz Busch...
, Mary Curtis VernaMary Curtis VernaMary Virginia Curtis Verna was an American operatic soprano, particularly associated with the Italian repertory....
, Carla GavazziCarla GavazziCarla Gavazzi was an Italian operatic soprano, largely based in Italy, and particularly associated with theverismo repertory....
, Elda Ribetti, Vito Susca - Coro e Orchestra della Rai Torino, Max Rudolf
- Rossini - L'italiana in AlgeriL'italiana in AlgeriL'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...
- Giulietta Simionato, Graziella SciuttiGraziella SciuttiGraziella Sciutti was an Italian soprano opera singer and later vocal teacher and opera producer.-Career:Sciutti was born in Turin, Italy. Her parents were musical, her father being an organist; her mother was French...
, Mario PetriMario PetriMario Petri was an Italian operatic bass particularly associated with Mozart and Rossini roles....
, Marcello Cortis - La Scala Chorus and Orchestra, Carlo Maria GiuliniCarlo Maria GiuliniCarlo Maria Giulini was an Italian conductor.-Biography:Giulini was born in Barletta, Italy, to a father born in Lombardy and a mother born in Naples; but he was raised in Bolzano, which at the time of his birth was part of Austria...
- Rossini - Il barbiere di Siviglia - Robert MerrillRobert MerrillRobert Merrill was an American operatic baritone.-Early life:Merrill was born Moishe Miller, later known as Morris Miller, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, to tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife Lillian, née Balaban, immigrants from Warsaw, Poland.His mother...
, Roberta PetersRoberta PetersRoberta Peters is an American coloratura soprano.One of the most prominent American singers to achieve lasting fame and success in opera, Peters is noted for her 35-year association with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York...
, Fernando CorenaFernando CorenaFernando Corena was a Turkish Swiss bass who had a major international opera career from the late 1940s through the early 1980s. He enjoyed a long and successful career at the Metropolitan Opera between 1954 and 1978, and was a regular presence at the Vienna State Opera between 1963 and 1981...
, Giorgio TozziGiorgio TozziGiorgio Tozzi was for many years a leading bass with the Metropolitan Opera, as well as playing lead roles in nearly every major opera house worldwide.-Career:Tozzi was born George John Tozzi in Chicago, Illinois...
- Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Erich LeinsdorfErich LeinsdorfErich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
- Rossini - La cenerentolaLa CenerentolaLa Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
- Giulietta Simionato, Saturno MelettiSaturno MelettiSaturno Meletti was an Italian operatic bass-baritone particularly associated with the standard Italian repertory and contemporary works....
, Cristiano Dalamangas - Coro e Orchestra della Rai Torino, Mario RossiMario RossiMario Rossi was an Italian conductor, noted for his solid and meticulous readings of a repertory ranging from Italian classics to Russian moderns such as Prokoffiev, to the German operatic classicist Christoph Willibald Gluck.He studied composition in Rome with Respighi and conducting with Giacomo...
- Donizetti - L'elisir d'amoreL'elisir d'amoreL'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
- Alda Noni, Afro PoliAfro PoliAfro Poli was an Italian operatic baritone, particularly associated with the Italian repertory.-Life and career:...
, Sesto Bruscantini - Coro e Orchestra della Rai Roma, Gianandrea GavazzeniGianandrea GavazzeniGianandrea Gavazzeni was an Italian pianist, conductor , composer and musicologist.Gavazzeni was born in Bergamo. For almost 50 years, starting from 1948, he was principal conductor at La Scala, Milan, in 1966-68 being its music and artistic director.He had his Metropolitan Opera debut on 11...
- Verdi -Maria Callas and Mario Zanasi, the "London Traviatta director Nicola Rescigno and Covent Garden Orchestra
- Donizetti - La fille du régimentLa fille du régimentLa fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.La figlia del reggimento, a slightly different Italian-language version , was...
- Lina PagliughiLina PagliughiLina Pagliughi was an Italian-American opera singer. Based in Italy for the majority of her career, she made a number of recordings and established herself as one of the world's finest lyric coloratura sopranos of the 1930s and '40s.-Career:Pagliughi was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian...
, Sesto Bruscantini, Rina Corsi - Coro e Orchestra della Rai Milano, Mario Rossi (sung in Italian)
- Donizetti - Don PasqualeDon PasqualeDon Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
- Alda Noni, Mario Borriello, Sesto Bruscantini - Coro e Orchestra della Rai Torino, Mario Rossi
- Verdi - La traviataLa traviataLa traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
- Rosanna CarteriRosanna CarteriRosanna Carteri was an Italian soprano primarily active in the 1950s through the mid-1960s.Rosanna Carteri was born in Verona but was raised in Padua. She studied with Cusinati and started singing in concert at the age of twelve...
, Leonard WarrenLeonard WarrenLeonard Warren was a famous American opera singer. A baritone, he was a leading artist for many years with the Metropolitan Opera in New York.-Biography:...
- Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Pierre MonteuxPierre MonteuxPierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, Monteux later became an American citizen.-Life and career:Monteux was born in Paris in 1875. His family was descended from Sephardi Jews who came to France in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition. He studied violin from an early age,...
- Puccini - Madama ButterflyMadama ButterflyMadama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
- Anna MoffoAnna MoffoAnna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...
, Rosalind EliasRosalind EliasRosalind Elias is an American mezzo-soprano, a rich-voiced singer of fine musicianship who enjoyed a long and distinguished career at the Metropolitan Opera.-Life and career:...
, Renato Cesari - Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf
Sources
- Opera News, Obituaries, August 2000.
- The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera, edited by Paul Gruber, (W.W. Norton, 1993) ISBN 0-393-03444-5