Roberto Stagno was a prominent 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...

 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 became an important interpreter of verismo

Verismo

Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....

 music when it burst on to the operatic scene during the 1890s; but he also possessed an agile bel canto

Bel canto

Bel canto , along with a number of similar constructions , is an Italian opera term...

 technique which he employed in operas dating from earlier periods. In 1890, he created the pivotal verismo role of Turiddu.

Career

Stagno (real name Vincenzo Andrioli) was born in Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

, Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, into a family with connections to the minor nobility.

He studied in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 in Northern Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and made his operatic debut in Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

, Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, in 1862. His career breakthrough came three years later, however, when he substituted successfully for Italy's most celebrated dramatic tenor, 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...

, in a Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 performance of Robert le diable

Robert le diable

Robert le diable may refer to:* Robert le diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer* Robert the Devil, a medieval legend...

.

During the next three decades, Stagno performed in a variety of operas at major opera houses in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, building and then consolidating his reputation as one of Europe's leading tenors.

Stagno was popular, too, in Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, where he appeared initially in 1879, and he also performed for one entire season (1883-84) in the United States, at the New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 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...

. He was literally the first soloist to sing at the Met because he undertook the part of Faust—whose voice is the first to be heard in Gounod's opera—at the theatre's opening production on October 22, 1883. Unfortunately for Stagno, his time in New York was to prove shorter than he would have liked: American audiences expressed reservations about his singing because of its pronounced and persistent 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...

 and he was not re-engaged by the Met's management.

He resumed his career in Italy and South America where his vocal method was more appreciated. Then, in 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...

, on 17 May 1890, he made operatic history when he created the role of Turiddu at the first performance of Mascagni's

Pietro Mascagni

Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...

 enduringly popular and highly influential one-act verismo

Verismo

Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....

 work, Cavalleria rusticana

Cavalleria rusticana

Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...

. His common-law wife, the soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 Gemma Bellincioni

Gemma Bellincioni

Gemma Bellincioni was an Italian soprano and one of the best-known opera singers of the late 19th century. She had a particular affinity with the verismo repertoire and was renowned more for her charismatic acting than for the quality of her voice.-Her career:Matilda Cesira was Bellincioni's real...

, sang opposite him in the role of Santuzza. (They had met at sea while travelling to Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

 in 1886 with a troupe of singers.) Their daughter, Bianca Stagno-Bellincioni (1888-1980), was a singer and actress. In 1945, she published a book about her parents.

Stagno was only 57 when he died in Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

 of combined renal and cardiac ailments. No recordings survive of his voice, which was lyric-dramatic in size and said to have had a warm, vibrant if tremulous timbre. Of those early tenors who did record, Fernando De Lucia

Fernando De Lucia

Fernando De Lucia was an Italian opera tenor and singing teacher who enjoyed an international career....

 (1860-1925) was perhaps the most similar to Stagno in sound and style. De Lucia, although trained in the "old school", as was Stagno, likewise became renowned in the 1890s as an interpreter of verismo roles. (See Michael Scott,The Record of Singing

The Record of Singing

The Record of Singing is a compilation of classical-music singing from the first half of the 20th century, the era of the 78-rpm record.It was issued on LP by EMI, successor to the British company His Master's Voice — perhaps the leading organization in the early history of audio recording.The...

, Volume 1, Duckworth, London, 1977.)

Sources

• Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5