Gianni Raimondi
Encyclopedia
Gianni Raimondi was an Italian lyric tenor
, particularly associated with the Italian repertory.
Born in Bologna
, Raimondi studied at the Music Conservatory of his native city with Antonio Melandri, and Gennaro Barra-Caracciolo and in Mantua
with Ettore Campogalliani
. He made his stage debut in 1947 in Rigoletto
at the Teatro Consorziale in Budrio
, a small town near Bologna. The following year he made his debut at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
, as Ernesto in Donizetti
's Don Pasquale
.
After singing throughout Italy (notably in Florence, in a rare 1952 revival of Rossini's Armida
, opposite Maria Callas
), he made guest appearances in Nice, Marseille, Monte-Carlo, Paris, and London. His La Scala
début occurred in 1955, as Alfredo in La Traviata
, again opposite Callas, in the famed Luchino Visconti
production. He took part in another famous Visconti-Callas production, as Percy in Donizetti's Anna Bolena
, in 1957. Later he participated in many important revivals at La Scala, including two Rossini works: Mosè in Egitto
in 1958, and Semiramide
, opposite Joan Sutherland
, in 1962. In particular he was much appreciated for his skill with high-lying lyric tenor roles such as Arnoldo in Rossini's Guglielmo Tell, Arturo in Bellini
's I Puritani
, Fernando in yet another Donizetti piece, La favorita, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor
, and the Duke in Rigoletto.
In 1957 Raimondi made his debut at the Vienna State Opera
where he continued to perform until 1977. There he sang Alfredo (La traviata), the Duke (Rigoletto), Cavaradossi (Tosca), Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), and Riccardo (Un ballo in maschera
). In 1963 he was Rodolfo to Mirella Freni
's Mimí in Franco Zeffirelli
's legendary production of La bohème
, with Herbert von Karajan
conducting.
His American debut was at the San Francisco Opera
in 1957; he also appeared at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, in 1959. He made his Metropolitan Opera
début on September 29, 1965, as Rodolfo in La bohème, opposite another débutante, Mirella Freni. Other roles at the Met included Edgardo
, Faust
in the Gounod
opera (this being among his few ventures into non-Italian vocal territory), and some Puccini: once more, Cavaradossi and Pinkerton.
During the 1970s, Raimondi expanded his repertory and added roles such as Pollione in Norma
, and Gennaro in yet another Donizetti piece, Lucrezia Borgia
, in which role he appeared opposite Leyla Gencer
and Montserrat Caballé
. He also appeared in some of Verdi's
less frequently performed operas such as I masnadieri
, I Vespri Siciliani, and Simon Boccanegra
.
Raimondi made disappointingly few studio recordings, given the length of his career and the sheer number of internationally distinguished opera houses where he sang. Even recorded versions of his live performances are not as frequent as they could and should have been. The most famous of his surviving recorded interpretations is probably La Traviata, opposite Renata Scotto
and Ettore Bastianini
. He also appeared in a film version of La bohème with Freni, and conducted by Karajan.
Gianni Raimondi was married to the Italian soprano Gianna Dal Sommo and in retirement spent much of his time at his seaside villa in Riccione
. He
died at his home in Pianoro
near Bologna at the age of 85.
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...
, particularly associated with the Italian repertory.
Born in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, Raimondi studied at the Music Conservatory of his native city with Antonio Melandri, and Gennaro Barra-Caracciolo and in Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
with Ettore Campogalliani
Ettore Campogalliani
Ettore Campogalliani was an Italian composer, musician and teacher.Campogalliani studied piano in 1921, graduating from the Conservatory of Bologna. He then studied composition at the Conservatory of Parma in 1933...
. He made his stage debut in 1947 in Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
at the Teatro Consorziale in Budrio
Budrio
Budrio is a town and comune in the province of Bologna, in Emilia-Romagna, Italy; it is located 15 km E of Bologna.Budrio has two high schools, including a lyceum, a post office, banks, a communal theatre, a swimming pool and several squares...
, a small town near Bologna. The following year he made his debut at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Teatro Comunale di Bologna
The Teatro Comunale di Bologna is an opera house in Bologna, Italy, and is one of the most important opera venues in Italy. Typically, it presents eight operas with six performances during its November to April season....
, as Ernesto in Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
's Don Pasquale
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 ....
.
After singing throughout Italy (notably in Florence, in a rare 1952 revival of Rossini's Armida
Armida (Rossini)
Armida is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Schmidt, based on scenes from Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso.-Performance history:...
, 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...
), he made guest appearances in Nice, Marseille, Monte-Carlo, Paris, and London. His 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...
début occurred in 1955, 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...
, again opposite Callas, in the famed Luchino 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. He took part in another famous Visconti-Callas production, as Percy in Donizetti's Anna Bolena
Anna Bolena
Anna Bolena is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both telling of the life of Anne Boleyn...
, in 1957. Later he participated in many important revivals at La Scala, including two Rossini works: Mosè in Egitto
Mosè in Egitto
Mosè in Egitto is a three-act opera written by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, which was based on a play by Francesco Ringhieri, L'Osiride, of 1760....
in 1958, and Semiramide
Semiramide
Semiramide is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini.The libretto by Gaetano Rossi is based on Voltaire's tragedy Semiramis, which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Babylon...
, opposite Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
, in 1962. In particular he was much appreciated for his skill with high-lying lyric tenor roles such as Arnoldo in Rossini's Guglielmo Tell, Arturo in Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
's I Puritani
I puritani
I puritani is an opera in three acts by Vincenzo Bellini. It was his last opera. Its libretto is by Count Carlo Pepoli, based on Têtes rondes et Cavaliers by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine, which is in turn based on Walter Scott's novel Old Mortality. It was first produced at...
, Fernando in yet another Donizetti piece, La favorita, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
, and the Duke in Rigoletto.
In 1957 Raimondi made his debut at the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
where he continued to perform until 1977. There he sang Alfredo (La traviata), the Duke (Rigoletto), Cavaradossi (Tosca), Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), and Riccardo (Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
). In 1963 he was Rodolfo to Mirella Freni
Mirella Freni
Mirella Freni, birth name Mirella Fregni, is an Italian opera soprano whose repertoire includes Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and Tchaikovsky...
's Mimí in Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
's legendary production of La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, with Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
conducting.
His American debut was 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 1957; he also appeared at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, in 1959. He made his 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...
début on September 29, 1965, as Rodolfo in La bohème, opposite another débutante, Mirella Freni. Other roles at the Met included Edgardo
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
, Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
in the Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
opera (this being among his few ventures into non-Italian vocal territory), and some Puccini: once more, Cavaradossi and Pinkerton.
During the 1970s, Raimondi expanded his repertory and added roles such as Pollione in Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
, and Gennaro in yet another Donizetti piece, Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia (opera)
Lucrezia Borgia is a melodramma, or opera, in a prologue and two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after the play by Victor Hugo, in its turn after the legend of Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia Borgia was first performed on 26 December 1833 at La Scala, Milan with...
, in which role he appeared opposite Leyla Gencer
Leyla Gencer
Leyla Gencer, or Ayşe Leyla Çeyrekgil was a world-renowned Turkish operatic soprano.Known as "La Diva Turca" and "La Regina" in the opera world, Gencer was a notable bel canto soprano who spent most of her career in Italy, from the early 1950s through the mid-1980s, and had a repertoire...
and Montserrat Caballé
Montserrat Caballé
Montserrat Caballé is a Spanish operatic soprano. Although she sang a wide variety of roles, she is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi....
. He also appeared in some of Verdi's
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
less frequently performed operas such as I masnadieri
I masnadieri
I masnadieri is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Andrea Maffei, based on Die Räuber by Friedrich von Schiller....
, I Vespri Siciliani, and Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra by Antonio García Gutiérrez....
.
Raimondi made disappointingly few studio recordings, given the length of his career and the sheer number of internationally distinguished opera houses where he sang. Even recorded versions of his live performances are not as frequent as they could and should have been. The most famous of his surviving recorded interpretations is probably La Traviata, opposite Renata Scotto
Renata Scotto
Renata Scotto is an Italian soprano and opera director.Recognized for her sense of style, musicality and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered one of the preeminent singers of her generation, specializing in the bel canto repertoire with excursions into the verismo and Verdi...
and Ettore Bastianini
Ettore Bastianini
Ettore Bastianini was an Italian opera singer who was particularly associated with the operas of Verdi. He had a prolific international career between 1945 and 1965 which was cut short by throat cancer. He began his professional career as a bass working in opera houses throughout Italy and in...
. He also appeared in a film version of La bohème with Freni, and conducted by Karajan.
Gianni Raimondi was married to the Italian soprano Gianna Dal Sommo and in retirement spent much of his time at his seaside villa in Riccione
Riccione
Riccione is a comune in the Province of Rimini, Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy. As of 2007 Riccione had an estimated population of 34,868.-History:...
. He
died at his home in Pianoro
Pianoro
Pianoro is a town and comune in the province of Bologna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, in the hills of the Tusco-Emilian Apennines .Highway SS 65 connects the town to Bologna and Florence across the Apennines...
near Bologna at the age of 85.
Selected Recordings
- Donizetti - Anna Bolena - Maria Callas, Giulietta Simionato, Gianni Raimondi, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni - Coro e Orchestra del Teatro all Scala, 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...
- EMI (1957) - Donizetti - La Favorita - Fedora Barbieri, Gianni Raimondi, Carlo Tagliabue, Giulio Neri - Coro e Orchestra della Rai Torino, Angelo Questa - Warner-Fonit (1955)
- Donizetti - Linda di Chamounix - Margherita Carosio, Gianni Raimondi, Giuseppe Taddei, Giuseppe ModestiGiuseppe ModestiGiuseppe Modesti was an Italian bass-baritone.Giuseppe Modesti made his operatic debut at La Scala in 1940, as Schelkalov in Boris Godunov...
, Rina Corsi, Carlo Badioli - Coro e Orchestra della Rai Milano, Alfredo Simonetto - Walhall Eternity Series (1953) - Bellini - I puritani - Anna Moffo, Gianni Raimondi, Ugo Savarese, Rafaelle Arié - Coro e Orchestra della Rai Milano, 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...
- MYTO (1959) - Verdi - La Traviata - Renata Scotto, Gianni Raimondi, Ettore Bastianini - Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Antonino VottoAntonino VottoAntonino Votto was an Italian operatic conductor. Votto developed an extensive discography with the Teatro alla Scala in Milan during the 1950s, when EMI produced the bulk of its studio recordings featuring Maria Callas...
- DG (1962)
External links
- Tribute of the Teatro alla Scala to Gianni Raimondi
- Luigi Boccia, "Gianni Raimondi: a Glorious Italian Tenor", Italian/American Digital Project, January 28, 2008. (A portrait of Raimondi with video interviews and sound clips)
- History of the Tenor - Sound Clips and Narration