Giuseppe Valdengo
Encyclopedia
Giuseppe Valdengo was an Italian operatic baritone
. Opera News
said that, "Although his timbre lacked the innate beauty of some of his baritone contemporaries, Valdengo's performances were invariably satisfying — bold and assured in attack but scrupulously musical."
in 1936. Shortly thereafter he made his Teatro alla Scala debut, as Germont in La traviata
. He was drafted into military service in 1939 by the Italian government and did not appear on the stage for the next three years. His opera career recommenced in 1942 with a lauded performance of Marcello in La bohème
at Parma.
Valdengo made his American debut at the New York City Opera
as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly
in 1946. He remained on that company's roster through the spring 1948 season, singing the title role in Rigoletto
, Tonio in Pagliacci
, Escamillo in Carmen
and Giorgio Germont in La Traviata
. He was also a regular performer at the Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company
between 1946–1948, singing Amonasro in Aida
, the Count di Luna in Il trovatore
, Rigoletto, and Valentin in Charles Gounod
's Faust
. In September 1947 he made his San Francisco Opera
debut as Valentin.
Valdengo first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera
was on December 19, 1947 as Tonio with Licia Albanese
as Nedda and Raoul Jobin
as Canio. He remained at the Met for seven seasons, portraying such roles as Amonasro, Belcore in L'elisir d'amore
, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Lescaut in Manon Lescaut
, Marcello in La boheme
, and Paolo Albiani in Simon Boccanegra
among others. His final and 121st performance at the Met was as Germont on January 27, 1954 with Jean Fenn
as Violetta and Jan Peerce
as Alfredo.
During the 1950s Valdengo sang in most of the principal European opera houses, most often portraying roles from the Verdi baritone repertory. Some of his notable engagements during the mid 1950s included appearances at Opéra de Paris as Rigoletto and Raimbaud in Le comte Ory
for the 1955 Glyndebourne Festival where he later returned to sing the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni
. He also sang Captain Balstrode in Peter Grimes
at the Rome Opera and the title role in Prince Igor
at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
. He also sang in other American houses. In 1953 he made his debut with the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company
as Iago
in Verdi's Otello
, returning there to sing Sharpless (1954), Valentin (1955, 1959), and Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor
(1959).
He retired from the stage in 1966 and taught in Turin. He published his autobiography Ho cantato con Toscanini in 1962.
Valdengo is probably best remembered for his NBC
radio broadcasts of Otello (1947, as Iago), Aida
(1949, as Amonasro), and Falstaff
(1950, as the title role), with Arturo Toscanini
conducting. (All of these operas were performed in concert versions.) The Toscanini Aida (with Herva Nelli
in the name part) was simulcast
on both television and radio, one of the first instances of such an event, and the telecast has been released on both VHS and DVD. Valdengo also appeared in one film, MGM's movie, The Great Caruso
(1951), starring Mario Lanza
as the famous tenor.
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
. Opera News
Opera News
Opera News is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City...
said that, "Although his timbre lacked the innate beauty of some of his baritone contemporaries, Valdengo's performances were invariably satisfying — bold and assured in attack but scrupulously musical."
Biography
Valdengo first studied the cello and oboe before turning to vocal studies with Accoriti in his native Turin. He made his operatic debut as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, at the Teatro Regio di ParmaTeatro Regio di Parma
Teatro Regio di Parma is a famous 19th century opera house and opera company in Parma, Italy. The theatre was originally known as the Teatro Ducale....
in 1936. Shortly thereafter he made his Teatro alla Scala debut, as Germont 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...
. He was drafted into military service in 1939 by the Italian government and did not appear on the stage for the next three years. His opera career recommenced in 1942 with a lauded performance of Marcello in 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...
at Parma.
Valdengo made his American debut at the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
as Sharpless in 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...
in 1946. He remained on that company's roster through the spring 1948 season, singing the title role 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...
, Tonio in Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
, Escamillo in Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
and Giorgio Germont 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...
. He was also a regular performer at the Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company
Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company
The Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company was an American opera company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that was actively performing at the Academy of Music between 1925 and 1954...
between 1946–1948, singing Amonasro in Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
, the Count di Luna in Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
, Rigoletto, and Valentin in Charles 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:...
's 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 September 1947 he made his 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...
debut as Valentin.
Valdengo first appearance 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...
was on December 19, 1947 as Tonio with Licia Albanese
Licia Albanese
Licia Albanese is an Italian-born American operatic soprano. Noted especially for her portrayals of the lyric heroines of Verdi and Puccini, Albanese was a leading artist with the Metropolitan Opera of New York from 1940 to 1966...
as Nedda and Raoul Jobin
Raoul Jobin
Raoul Jobin, was a French-Canadian operatic tenor, particularly associated with the French repertory.- Life and career :...
as Canio. He remained at the Met for seven seasons, portraying such roles as Amonasro, Belcore in 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...
, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Lescaut in Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut (Puccini)
Manon Lescaut is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini. The story is based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost....
, Marcello in La boheme
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...
, and Paolo Albiani in 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....
among others. His final and 121st performance at the Met was as Germont on January 27, 1954 with Jean Fenn
Jean Fenn
Jean Fenn is an American soprano who had an active opera career in North America during the 1950s through the 1970s. An attractive blond with a statuesque figure, Fenn was a disciplined, well-schooled singer with an excellent technique, wide range, and a highly polished sound...
as Violetta and 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....
as Alfredo.
During the 1950s Valdengo sang in most of the principal European opera houses, most often portraying roles from the Verdi baritone repertory. Some of his notable engagements during the mid 1950s included appearances at Opéra de Paris as Rigoletto and Raimbaud in Le comte Ory
Le comte Ory
Le comte Ory is an opéra written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera Il viaggio a Reims written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X...
for the 1955 Glyndebourne Festival where he later returned to sing the title role in Mozart's 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...
. He also sang Captain Balstrode in Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough...
at the Rome Opera and the title role in Prince Igor
Prince Igor
Prince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...
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....
. He also sang in other American houses. In 1953 he made his debut with the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company
Philadelphia Grand Opera Company
The Philadelphia Grand Opera Company was the name of four different American opera companies active at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the twentieth century. The last and most well known of the four was founded in November 1954 with the merger of the Philadelphia Civic...
as Iago
Iago
Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello . The character's source is traced to Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio's tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi . There, the character is simply "the ensign". Iago is a soldier and Othello's ancient . He is the husband of Emilia,...
in Verdi's Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
, returning there to sing Sharpless (1954), Valentin (1955, 1959), and Enrico 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....
(1959).
He retired from the stage in 1966 and taught in Turin. He published his autobiography Ho cantato con Toscanini in 1962.
Valdengo is probably best remembered for his NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
radio broadcasts of Otello (1947, as Iago), Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
(1949, as Amonasro), and 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...
(1950, as the title role), with Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
conducting. (All of these operas were performed in concert versions.) The Toscanini Aida (with Herva Nelli
Herva Nelli
Herva Nelli was an Italian-born operatic soprano.-Biography:Named after the French socialist Gustave Hervé, she was born in Florence, where she attended a convent school...
in the name part) was simulcast
Simulcast
Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...
on both television and radio, one of the first instances of such an event, and the telecast has been released on both VHS and DVD. Valdengo also appeared in one film, MGM's movie, The Great Caruso
The Great Caruso
The Great Caruso is a 1951 biographical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Joe Pasternak with Jesse L. Lasky as associate producer from a screenplay by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig. The original music was by Johnny Green and the cinematography by...
(1951), starring Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza
right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....
as the famous tenor.
Abridged Discography
- Verdi: Otello (Nelli, Vinay; Toscanini, 1947) [live] RCARCARCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
- Verdi: Aïda (Nelli, Tucker; Toscanini, 1949; special re-takes in 1954) [live] RCA
- Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Steber, Madeira, Tucker; Rudolf, 1949) CBS/Sony
- Verdi: Falstaff (Nelli; Toscanini, 1950) [live] RCA
- Leoncavallo: Pagliacci (Amara, Tucker; Cleva, 1951) CBS/Sony
- Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (Curtis-Verna, Tagliavini; Questa, 1954) CetraCetraCetra Records was an Italian company which produced opera recordings from the 1930s onwards. Its roster of artists included Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Lina Pagliughi, Ebe Stignani, Carlo Bergonzi, Galliano Masini, Giovanni Malipiero, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Carlo Tagliabue, Rolando Panerai,...
- Donizetti: Don Pasquale as Malatesta (Rizzoli; Molinari-Pradelli, 1955) PhilipsPhilipsKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
- Puccini: La bohème (Albanese, Schuh, di Stefano, Treigle; Cellini, 1959) [live] VAI
- Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore as Dulcamara (Ciano, Tagliavini, Maffeo; Ino Savini,19/27 August 1968) Supraphon/Fratelli Fabbri
- Donizetti: Don Pasquale as Don Pasquale( Nino Verchi, 1968) Fratelli Fabbri
- Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia as Bartolo (Guglielmi, Cappuccilli; G. Zani, 1969) Supraphon/Fratelli Fabbri
Videography
- Verdi: Aïda (Nelli, Tucker; Toscanini, 1949) [live] RCA
- Puccini: La rondine (Carteri, Gismondo; Bellezza, NN, 1958) [live] Hardy/VAI
Sources
- The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia, edited by David Hamilton, (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1987), ISBN 0-671-61732-X
- Opera News, Obituaries, February 2008.