Mario (tenor)
Encyclopedia
Giovanni Matteo "Mario" (October 18, 1810, Cagliari
, Sardinia
– December 11, 1883, Rome
) was an Italian opera
singer. The most celebrated tenor
of his era, he was lionized by audiences in Paris and London.
Sir Giovanni Matteo De Candia was born in Cagliari
on October 17th, 1810. He came from an aristocratic family that belonged to Sardinia
's social elite, part of the Kingdom of Savoy
-Sardinia. His relatives were members of the Royal Court of Turin
, while his father held the rank of general and was aide-de-camp
to King Charles Felix of Sardinia
Savoy.
In order to free himself from the burdensome ancestral traditions which he had inherited, and mitigate his father's opposition to a member of the high-born De Candia family pursuing a 'lowly' musical career, the budding singer adopted the one-word stage name of "Mario" when he made his debut on November 30th 1838. (Sometimes, however, he is referred to in print by the fuller appellation of "Giovanni Mario" and in many portraits in the Bibliothéque Nationale de Paris he is also called "Mario De Candia".)
Mario's decision to become a professional singer arose from accidental circumstances. He was 12 years old when he moved from Cagliari to Turin, where he studied at the Northern Italian city's military academy. Among his fellow students at the academy was the future Prime Minister of Italy, Camillo Cavour. While serving as a second-lieutenant in the King of Sardinia
's Guards in Turin, he expressed liberal political ideas. He was required to leave Piedmont because of this, and travelled to Paris. The fugitive nobleman was made to feel welcome in Parisian salons and in the city's radical milieu. For a time he earned his living by giving fencing and riding lessons.
to become a singer. He took singing lessons from two teachers, a Frenchman named Ponchard and the former Italian tenor Marco Bordogni
, and proved so gifted that he was swiftly offered an engagement with the Opéra
. The young tenor made his debut there in 1838 as the hero of Meyerbeer
's Robert le Diable
.
Despite scoring an immediate success, owing to the splendid quality of his singing and a dashing stage presence, he did not choose to stay long at the Paris Opéra
. In 1839 he joined the Théâtre Italien, where such illustrious singers as Maria Malibran
, Henriette Sontag
, Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani
, Giulia Grisi
, Giovanni Battista Rubini
, Antonio Tamburini
, and Luigi Lablache
regularly performed. His first appearance there was as Nemorino in Donizetti
's L'elisir d'amore
. In the same year he was first heard in London, achieving instant success.
The acclaim that Mario received in Italian opera
surpassed even that which he had won in French opera, and he soon acquired a Europe-wide reputation for the beauty of his singing and the elegance of his bearing. He possessed a handsome face and a lithe figure (he liked to show off his legs in tights), and his lyrical voice, though less dazzling than that of the older, virtuoso tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini
nor so powerful as that of his younger rival Enrico Tamberlik
, was described as having a gracefulness and a beguiling, velvety softness that made it unique. The music critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw
, who was born in 1856 and therefore could not have heard Mario in his prime, said his singing featured a marked vibrato
.
Mario created few operatic parts, the most notable being that of Ernesto in Donizetti's Don Pasquale
(1843). He sang, however, in the première of Rossini's "Stabat Mater" and Verdi wrote for him a new cabaletta for the main tenor aria in I due Foscari for a production in Paris. In established roles, Mario's very greatest performances were as Otello
in Rossini
's opera of the same name, Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia
, Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia
, Fernando in La favorite
, the Duke in Rigoletto
, and Manrico in Il trovatore
. The Royal Opera House
, Covent Garden
in London and the Théâtre Italien in Paris were the scenes of most of his stage triumphs. He sang in London from 1847 until 1867 and again during 1871.
Mario also made occasional appearances elsewhere in England in oratorio
, for example at the Birmingham
Festival of 1849 and at the Hereford
Festival of 1855. He undertook, too, a string of concert tours around the United Kingdom. In about 1849 he acquired the "Villa Salviati" in Florence
and made Italy his home base once again. At his salon there he received many distinguished cultural figures and members of the European nobility.
In 1854 he toured America with the eminent Italian soprano Giulia Grisi
, earning much money and much adulation during their trans-Atlantic jaunt. Since several years he and Grisi were lovers, and it's difficult they were afterwards married in London, if she obtained a divorce from her previous husband. She had even a soon witch father was Lord Castlereagh junior. Mario and Grisi had six daughters. One of his daughters was the writer Cecilia Maria de Candia
, who married an Englishman, Godfrey Pearce, and left an account of her parents' careers.
Mario bade farewell to the London stage in 1871. His decision to retire followed the loss of his wife, the great Grisi, who had died in Berlin a few years earlier while returning from engagements in Russia. Mario brought his singing career to a close at the Imperial Theatre in St Petersburg. During this time, his daughters were put under the care of tutors assigned by their godmother, the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg and president of the Imperial Academy of Arts
in St. Petersburg.
Mario eventually returned to Italy from Russia and spent his last years ensconced in Rome, composing music and writing: but he never fully recovered from the death of his wife, or from the financial difficulties which now beset him owing to his habitual extravagance. It is said that he used to smoke cigars continually, even when taking a bath.
A benefit concert was mounted for Mario in London in 1880. He then withdrew to Italy to see out his days and died in Rome three years later in near-poverty.
Cagliari
Cagliari is the capital of the island of Sardinia, a region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name Casteddu literally means castle. It has about 156,000 inhabitants, or about 480,000 including the outlying townships : Elmas, Assemini, Capoterra, Selargius, Sestu, Monserrato, Quartucciu, Quartu...
, Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
– December 11, 1883, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
) was an Italian 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...
singer. The most celebrated 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...
of his era, he was lionized by audiences in Paris and London.
Early life
Mario's real name was Giovanni Matteo De Candia, and his hereditary title was Cavaliere ("knight") - Don ("Sir") in the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Kingdoms of Italy.Sir Giovanni Matteo De Candia was born in Cagliari
Cagliari
Cagliari is the capital of the island of Sardinia, a region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name Casteddu literally means castle. It has about 156,000 inhabitants, or about 480,000 including the outlying townships : Elmas, Assemini, Capoterra, Selargius, Sestu, Monserrato, Quartucciu, Quartu...
on October 17th, 1810. He came from an aristocratic family that belonged to Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
's social elite, part of the Kingdom of Savoy
Savoy
Savoy is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Monaco and the Mediterranean coast in the south....
-Sardinia. His relatives were members of the Royal Court of Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
, while his father held the rank of general and was aide-de-camp
Aide-de-camp
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...
to King Charles Felix of Sardinia
Charles Felix of Sardinia
Charles Felix was the Duke of Savoy, Piedmont, Aosta and King of Sardinia from 1821 to 1831.-Early life:...
Savoy.
In order to free himself from the burdensome ancestral traditions which he had inherited, and mitigate his father's opposition to a member of the high-born De Candia family pursuing a 'lowly' musical career, the budding singer adopted the one-word stage name of "Mario" when he made his debut on November 30th 1838. (Sometimes, however, he is referred to in print by the fuller appellation of "Giovanni Mario" and in many portraits in the Bibliothéque Nationale de Paris he is also called "Mario De Candia".)
Mario's decision to become a professional singer arose from accidental circumstances. He was 12 years old when he moved from Cagliari to Turin, where he studied at the Northern Italian city's military academy. Among his fellow students at the academy was the future Prime Minister of Italy, Camillo Cavour. While serving as a second-lieutenant in the King of Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
's Guards in Turin, he expressed liberal political ideas. He was required to leave Piedmont because of this, and travelled to Paris. The fugitive nobleman was made to feel welcome in Parisian salons and in the city's radical milieu. For a time he earned his living by giving fencing and riding lessons.
Operatic career, marriage & death
Because he possessed an exceptionally fine natural voice, Mario was encouraged by the composer Giacomo MeyerbeerGiacomo 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...
to become a singer. He took singing lessons from two teachers, a Frenchman named Ponchard and the former Italian tenor Marco Bordogni
Marco Bordogni
Giulio Marco Bordogni , usually called Marco Bordogni, was an Italian operatic tenor and singing teacher of great popularity and success, whose mature career was based in Paris.-Biography:...
, and proved so gifted that he was swiftly offered an engagement with the Opéra
Académie Royale de Musique
The Salle Le Peletier was the home of the Paris Opera from 1821 until the building was destroyed by fire in 1873. The theatre was designed and constructed by the architect François Debret on the site of the former Hôtel de Choiseul...
. The young tenor made his debut there in 1838 as the hero of 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 Robert le Diable
Robert le diable
Robert le diable may refer to:* Robert le diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer* Robert the Devil, a medieval legend...
.
Despite scoring an immediate success, owing to the splendid quality of his singing and a dashing stage presence, he did not choose to stay long at the Paris Opéra
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
. In 1839 he joined the Théâtre Italien, where such illustrious singers as Maria Malibran
Maria Malibran
The mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran , was one of the most famous opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death at age 28...
, Henriette Sontag
Henriette Sontag
Henriette Sontag was a German operatic soprano of great international renown. She possessed a sweet-toned, lyrical voice and was a brilliant exponent of florid singing.-Life:...
, Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani
Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani
Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani was an Italian soprano particularly associated with bel canto composers, such as Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and early Verdi...
, Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi, also known as Madame De Candia was an Italian opera singer...
, Giovanni Battista Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini was an Italian tenor, as famous in his time as Enrico Caruso in a later day. His ringing and expressive coloratura dexterity in the highest register of his voice, the tenorino, inspired the writing of operatic roles which today are almost impossible to cast...
, Antonio Tamburini
Antonio Tamburini
Antonio Tamburini was an Italian operatic baritone.Born in Faenza, then part of the Papal States, Tamburini studied the orchestral horn with his father and voice with Aldobrando Rossi, before making his debut as a singer, aged 18, in La contessa di colle erbose . He went on to become one of the...
, and Luigi Lablache
Luigi Lablache
Luigi Lablache was an Italian opera singer of French and Irish heritage. He was most noted for his comic performances, possessing a powerful and agile bass voice, a wide range, and adroit acting skills: Leporello in Don Giovanni was one of his signature roles.-Biography:Luigi Lablache was born in...
regularly performed. His first appearance there was as Nemorino 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 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...
. In the same year he was first heard in London, achieving instant success.
The acclaim that Mario received in Italian opera
Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous operas in Italian were written by foreign composers,...
surpassed even that which he had won in French opera, and he soon acquired a Europe-wide reputation for the beauty of his singing and the elegance of his bearing. He possessed a handsome face and a lithe figure (he liked to show off his legs in tights), and his lyrical voice, though less dazzling than that of the older, virtuoso tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini was an Italian tenor, as famous in his time as Enrico Caruso in a later day. His ringing and expressive coloratura dexterity in the highest register of his voice, the tenorino, inspired the writing of operatic roles which today are almost impossible to cast...
nor so powerful as that of his younger rival Enrico Tamberlik
Enrico Tamberlik
Enrico Tamberlik was an Italian tenor who sang to great acclaim at Europe and America's leading opera venues. He excelled in the heroic roles of the Italian and French repertories and was renowned for his powerful declamation and clarion high notes.-Career:Born in Rome, some sources claim that...
, was described as having a gracefulness and a beguiling, velvety softness that made it unique. The music critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, who was born in 1856 and therefore could not have heard Mario in his prime, said his singing featured a marked vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
.
Mario created few operatic parts, the most notable being that of Ernesto in Donizetti'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 ....
(1843). He sang, however, in the première of Rossini's "Stabat Mater" and Verdi wrote for him a new cabaletta for the main tenor aria in I due Foscari for a production in Paris. In established roles, Mario's very greatest performances were as 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....
in Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
's opera of the same name, Gennaro in 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...
, Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia
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...
, Fernando in La favorite
La favorite
La favorite is an opera in four acts by Gaetano Donizetti to a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, based on the play Le comte de Comminges by Baculard d'Arnaud...
, the Duke 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...
, and Manrico 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...
. The Royal Opera House
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...
, Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
in London and the Théâtre Italien in Paris were the scenes of most of his stage triumphs. He sang in London from 1847 until 1867 and again during 1871.
Mario also made occasional appearances elsewhere in England in oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
, for example at the Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
Festival of 1849 and at the Hereford
Hereford
Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...
Festival of 1855. He undertook, too, a string of concert tours around the United Kingdom. In about 1849 he acquired the "Villa Salviati" in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
and made Italy his home base once again. At his salon there he received many distinguished cultural figures and members of the European nobility.
In 1854 he toured America with the eminent Italian soprano Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi, also known as Madame De Candia was an Italian opera singer...
, earning much money and much adulation during their trans-Atlantic jaunt. Since several years he and Grisi were lovers, and it's difficult they were afterwards married in London, if she obtained a divorce from her previous husband. She had even a soon witch father was Lord Castlereagh junior. Mario and Grisi had six daughters. One of his daughters was the writer Cecilia Maria de Candia
Cecilia Maria de Candia
Cecilia Maria de Candia , later Mrs Godfrey Pearse, was a British-Italian writer, amateur singer and society hostess. She was the daughter of two famous opera singers, Giulia Grisi and Giovanni Matteo de Candia—a marquise who sang under the popular name of Mario the tenor.In her childhood, she...
, who married an Englishman, Godfrey Pearce, and left an account of her parents' careers.
Mario bade farewell to the London stage in 1871. His decision to retire followed the loss of his wife, the great Grisi, who had died in Berlin a few years earlier while returning from engagements in Russia. Mario brought his singing career to a close at the Imperial Theatre in St Petersburg. During this time, his daughters were put under the care of tutors assigned by their godmother, the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg and president of the Imperial Academy of Arts
Imperial Academy of Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, was founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, completed 25 years later in 1789...
in St. Petersburg.
Mario eventually returned to Italy from Russia and spent his last years ensconced in Rome, composing music and writing: but he never fully recovered from the death of his wife, or from the financial difficulties which now beset him owing to his habitual extravagance. It is said that he used to smoke cigars continually, even when taking a bath.
A benefit concert was mounted for Mario in London in 1880. He then withdrew to Italy to see out his days and died in Rome three years later in near-poverty.
A note on the De Candia's ancestral seat
The De Candia Palace in Sardinia, where Mario's Family (his mother and his brother Carlo) is situated at the bottom of Via dei Genovesi, in Cagliari's old town (Castello), where until the 16th century stood the Pisan town-walls between the Elephant and the Lion Towers. The façade was possibly designed in neoclassical style by the architect Gaetano Cima. On the first floor there are wide halls with some frescoes and a large terrace with scenic views of the gulf of Cagliari.. In 1847 Mario bought for his mother an other house in the vicinity, via Canelles (see the Land Register in the Archivio di Stato, Cagliari), that is now a part of a nuns' convent .Links
- The romance of a great singer; a memoir of Mario by Cecilia Maria de Candia Pearse and Frank Hird (1910) from the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- De Candia family tree (in Italian)
- House of CandiaHouse of CandiaThe House of Candia is a European dynastic house, created by a junior branch of the House of Anjou originally from "Castrum Candiaco" in the Dauphiné of the nobility of Savoy and Piemont...