Giuseppe Boghetti was an American voice teacher

Voice teacher

A voice teacher or singing teacher is a musical instructor who trains adults and children in the art of singing. This generally involves training in breath control and support, proper tone production, pitch control and musical intonation, proper formation of vowels and consonants as well as...

 and 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...

. He was the teacher of several famous American opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 singers, including Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...

, Jan Peerce

Jan Peerce

Jan Peerce was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce....

, Blanche Thebom

Blanche Thebom

Blanche Thebom was an American operatic mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, and opera director. She was part of the first wave of American opera singers that had highly successful international careers. In her own country she had a long association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City which...

, and Helen Traubel

Helen Traubel

Helen Francesca Traubel was an American opera and concert singer. A dramatic soprano, she was best known for her Wagnerian roles, especially those of Brünnhilde and Isolde. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, she began her career as a concert singer and went on to sing at the Metropolitan...

.

Life and career

Born with the name Joe Bogash to Russian-Jewish parents in Philadelphia, Boghetti was trained at the Milan Conservatory

Milan Conservatory

The Milan Conservatory is a college of music which was established by a royal decree of 1807 in Milan, capital of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. It opened the following year with premises in the cloisters of the Baroque church of Santa Maria della Passione. There were initially 18 boarders,...

. It was while in Italy that he changed his name to something that sounded Italian in the hopes that it would help bolster his career. He appeared as a concert tenor in several European cities, but was never able to gain enough momentum to make a full time living as a singer. He accordingly returned to the United States in 1918 where he opened studios in both his native city and New York City. He continued to teach in both cities up until his death in 1941.

In 1919, at the age of 23, Boghetti began teaching the great American contralto

Contralto

Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

 Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...

. He remained Anderson's teacher, and trusted advisor and friend up until his death 22 years later.