Gottardo Aldighieri
Encyclopedia
Gottardo Aldighieri was an Italian opera
tic baritone
who had a major opera career in Italy from 1858-1885. He possessed a powerful and beautiful voice and appeared on the stages of most of Italy's great opera house
s. He sang a broad repertoire which encompassed works by Italian, French, and German composers. His vocal range
was wide, which enabled him to tackle some tenor
roles during his career, although he mostly stayed within the baritone repertory. The composer Luigi Arditi
devoted his famous waltz song, Il bacio, to him. He was married to the soprano Maria Spezia-Aldighieri
, who also had an important opera career in Italy. He is the great grandfather of singer George Aaron
.
, Aldighieri studied with Domenico Foroni
in Verona and Francesco Lamperti
in Milan. He made his professional opera debut in 1858 at the Teatro Nuovo di Novara as Germont in Giuseppe Verdi
's La traviata
. He spent the next two years performing in primarily minor Italian theatres. In 1861 he made his debut at La Scala
in the title role of Verdi's Nabucco
opposite his wife as Abigaille.
Aldighieri was committed to the Teatro di San Carlo
in 1862 where he notably performed in the world premieres of Ernesto Viceconte
's Luisa Strozzi, Vincenzo Moscuzza
's Don Carlo (title role), and Enrico Bevignani
's Caterina Blum. He also performed roles in the house premieres of Giacomo Meyerbeer
's Les Huguenots
(Comte de Nevers), Verdi's Un ballo in maschera
(Renato), and Daniel Auber
's La muette de Portici
. He appeared as a guest artist with major opera houses throughout Italy during the 1860s. He returned to the Teatro di San Carlo in 1869 to perform the role of Raoul in the world premiere of Gaetano Donizetti
's Gabriella di Vergy
.
Aldighieri continued to be active at major Italian theatres during the 1870s. He performed at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
in 1872 as Faraone in Gioachino Rossini's Mosè in Egitto
and Wolfram in the Italian premiere of Richard Wagner
's Tannhäuser
. That same year he returned to the Teatro di San Carlo to sing roles in the world premieres of Errico Petrella
's Manfredo (Hermann) and Viceconte's Selvaggia. In 1873 he returned to Bologna to perform the title role in Rossini's William Tell
and create the role of Antonio in Ciro Pinsuti
's Il mercante di Venezia. He was also heard that year in the world premiere of Giuseppe Libani
's Il Conte Verde at the Teatro Apollo in Rome. He returned to the Apollo in 1874 to portray the title role in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's Don Giovanni
.
In 1875-1876 Aldighieri was committed to La Scala in Milan where he was heard in several Verdi operas, including the roles of Germont, Renato, and Montfort (I vespri siciliani). He also sang the role of Barnaba in the world premiere of Amilcare Ponchielli
's La Gioconda
. He appeared as a guest artist at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome in 1875 as Amonasro in Aida
. He returned to the Teatro di San Carlo in 1879 to portray Yermolov in Meyerbeer's L'étoile du nord
, and again in 1880 in Meyerbeer's Dinorah
. He sang the role of Figaro in The Barber of Seville
at the Teatro Regio di Turino in 1880 and in 1881 returned to Bologna to create the role of Ercole in the world premiere of Stefano Gobatti
's Cordelia. He appeared at La Scala again in 1881-82 as Rossini's William Tell and in the premieres of Antonio Smareglia
's Bianca de Cervia and Giulio Litta
's Il violino di Cremona. His last stage appearance was at La Scala in 1885 as Alfonso in Donizetti's La favorita. He died in Verona in 1906.
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...
tic baritone
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...
who had a major opera career in Italy from 1858-1885. He possessed a powerful and beautiful voice and appeared on the stages of most of Italy's great opera house
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
s. He sang a broad repertoire which encompassed works by Italian, French, and German composers. His vocal range
Vocal range
Vocal range is the measure of the breadth of pitches that a human voice can phonate. Although the study of vocal range has little practical application in terms of speech, it is a topic of study within linguistics, phonetics, and speech and language pathology, particularly in relation to the study...
was wide, which enabled him to tackle some 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...
roles during his career, although he mostly stayed within the baritone repertory. The composer Luigi Arditi
Luigi Arditi
Luigi Arditi was an Italian violinist, composer and conductor.Arditi was born in Crescentino, Piemonte . He began his musical career as a violinist, and studied music at the Conservatory of Milan. He made his debut in 1843 as a director at Vercelli, and it was there that he was made an honorary...
devoted his famous waltz song, Il bacio, to him. He was married to the soprano Maria Spezia-Aldighieri
Maria Spezia-Aldighieri
Maria Spezia-Aldighieri was an Italian operatic soprano who had an active international career from 1849 up into the 1870s. She excelled in the coloratura soprano repertoire and was particularly admired for her portrayals in the operas of Giuseppe Verdi...
, who also had an important opera career in Italy. He is the great grandfather of singer George Aaron
George Aaron
George Aaron is an Italian singer known for his dance music. He first came to prominence in 1984 with the release of his album She's A Devil. He released four more albums over the next five years, selling over 10 million records worldwide. After 14 years away from the recording studio, he released...
.
Life and career
Born in LaziseLazise
Lazise is a comune in the Province of Verona in the Italian region Veneto, located about 120 km west of Venice and about 20 km northwest of Verona. It is situated on the eastern shore of Lake Garda...
, Aldighieri studied with Domenico Foroni
Domenico Foroni
Domenico Foroni was an Italian composer, conductor, and music educator. He was born in Valeggio sul Mincio into a family of landowners. On 7 November 1818 he married Teresa Zovetto with whom he had five children, two of whom became famous: the operatic soprano Antonietta Foroni-Conti and the...
in Verona and Francesco Lamperti
Francesco Lamperti
Francesco Lamperti was an Italian singing teacher.A native of Savona, Lamperti attended the Milan Conservatory where, beginning in 1850, he taught for a quarter of a century. He was director at the Teatro Filodrammatico in Lodi. In 1875 he left the school and began to teach as a private tutor...
in Milan. He made his professional opera debut in 1858 at the Teatro Nuovo di Novara as Germont in Giuseppe Verdi
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...
's 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 spent the next two years performing in primarily minor Italian theatres. In 1861 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 the title role of Verdi's Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
opposite his wife as Abigaille.
Aldighieri was committed to the Teatro di San Carlo
Teatro di San Carlo
The Real Teatro di San Carlo is an opera house in Naples, Italy. It is the oldest continuously active such venue in Europe.Founded by the Bourbon Charles VII of Naples of the Spanish branch of the dynasty, the theatre was inaugurated on 4 November 1737 — the king's name day — with a performance...
in 1862 where he notably performed in the world premieres of Ernesto Viceconte
Ernesto Viceconte
Ernesto Viceconte was an Italian composer. Born in Naples, Viceconte was a child prodigy and was admitted to the Naples Conservatory at the age of 8. He composed 5 operas; three of which premiered at the Teatro di San Carlo: Evelina , Luisa Strozzi , and Selvaggia . The latter work was his most...
's Luisa Strozzi, Vincenzo Moscuzza
Vincenzo Moscuzza
Vincenzo Moscuzza was an Italian composer. Born in Syracuse, Sicily, he was the son of composer Luigi Moscuzza and his initial musical training was from his father. He later studied at the Naples Conservatory with Saverio Mercadante...
's Don Carlo (title role), and Enrico Bevignani
Enrico Bevignani
Enrico Modesto Bevignani was an Italian conductor, harpsichordist, composer, and impresario. He studied in his native city with Giuseppe Albanese, Salvatore Lavigna, Giuseppe Lillo and Giuseppe Staffa...
's Caterina Blum. He also performed roles in the house premieres of Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
's Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
(Comte de Nevers), Verdi's 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...
(Renato), and Daniel Auber
Daniel Auber
Daniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer.-Biography:The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy. Though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments...
's La muette de Portici
La muette de Portici
La muette de Portici originally called Masaniello, ou La muette de Portici, is an opera in five acts by Daniel Auber, with a libretto by Germain Delavigne, revised by Eugène Scribe...
. He appeared as a guest artist with major opera houses throughout Italy during the 1860s. He returned to the Teatro di San Carlo in 1869 to perform the role of Raoul in the world premiere of Gaetano 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 Gabriella di Vergy
Gabriella di Vergy
Gabriella di Vergy is an opera seria in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti written in 1826 and revised in 1838, from a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, which was based on the tragedy Gabrielle de Vergy by Dormont De Belloy...
.
Aldighieri continued to be active at major Italian theatres during the 1870s. He performed 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....
in 1872 as Faraone in Gioachino Rossini's 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....
and Wolfram in the Italian premiere of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
. That same year he returned to the Teatro di San Carlo to sing roles in the world premieres of Errico Petrella
Errico Petrella
Errico Petrella was an Italian opera composer.Petrella was born at Palermo. A conservative of the Neapolitan school, he was the most successful Italian composer, second only to Verdi, during the 1850s and 1860s. He also earned the latter's scorn for his compositional and dramatic crudities,...
's Manfredo (Hermann) and Viceconte's Selvaggia. In 1873 he returned to Bologna to perform the title role in Rossini's William Tell
William Tell (opera)
Guillaume Tell is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years...
and create the role of Antonio in Ciro Pinsuti
Ciro Pinsuti
Ciro Pinsuti was an Anglo-Italian composer.He was born in Sinalunga , Italy, and educated in music, for a career as a pianist, partly in London and partly at Bologna, where he was a pupil of Rossini. From 1848 he made his home in England, where he became a teacher of singing, and in 1856 he was...
's Il mercante di Venezia. He was also heard that year in the world premiere of Giuseppe Libani
Giuseppe Libani
Giuseppe Libani was an Italian composer. Born in Rome, he is chiefly remembered for his three operas: Gulnara Il Conte Verde , and Sardanapalo . He died at the age of 35 in Rome.-References:...
's Il Conte Verde at the Teatro Apollo in Rome. He returned to the Apollo in 1874 to portray the title role in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
'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...
.
In 1875-1876 Aldighieri was committed to La Scala in Milan where he was heard in several Verdi operas, including the roles of Germont, Renato, and Montfort (I vespri siciliani). He also sang the role of Barnaba in the world premiere of Amilcare Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli was an Italian composer, largely of operas.-Biography:Born in Paderno Fasolaro, now Paderno Ponchielli, near Cremona, Ponchielli won a scholarship at the age of nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old.Two years...
's La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...
. He appeared as a guest artist at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome in 1875 as 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...
. He returned to the Teatro di San Carlo in 1879 to portray Yermolov in Meyerbeer's L'étoile du nord
L'étoile du nord
L'étoile du nord is an opéra comique in three acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe....
, and again in 1880 in Meyerbeer's Dinorah
Dinorah
Dinorah, originally Le pardon de Ploërmel , is an 1859 French opéra comique in three acts with music by Giacomo Meyerbeer and a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré...
. He sang the role of Figaro in The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
at the Teatro Regio di Turino in 1880 and in 1881 returned to Bologna to create the role of Ercole in the world premiere of Stefano Gobatti
Stefano Gobatti
Stefano Gobatti was an Italian opera composer.Bergantino was born in 1852 in the Province of Rovigo in a poor and humble peasant family. He passionately studied music and immediately had results, and was taught under Giuseppe Busi and Lauro Rossi...
's Cordelia. He appeared at La Scala again in 1881-82 as Rossini's William Tell and in the premieres of Antonio Smareglia
Antonio Smareglia
Antonio Smareglia was an Austro-Hungarian opera composer of Italian ethnicity.-Life:Antonio Smareglia was born in the town of Pola , in a house on Via Nettuno which still stands and in which there is now a small museum of his life and work...
's Bianca de Cervia and Giulio Litta
Giulio Litta
Giulio Litta was an Italian composer. He was trained at the Milan Conservatory where his first opera, Bianca di Santafiora, premiered in 1843. He composed several more operas, most of which premiered at theatres in Milan. His last opera, Il violino di Cremona, was heard at La Scala in...
's Il violino di Cremona. His last stage appearance was at La Scala in 1885 as Alfonso in Donizetti's La favorita. He died in Verona in 1906.