Beniamino Gigli (March 20, 1890 - November 30, 1957) was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism of his interpretations. Nevertheless, such was Gigli's talent, he is considered to be one of the very finest tenors in the recorded history of music.

Biography

Gigli was born in Recanati, in the Marche, the son of a shoe-maker who loved opera. His brother Lorenzo became a famous Italian painter.

In 1914, he won first prize in an international singing competition in Parma. His operatic debut came on October 15, 1914 when he played Enzo in Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda in Rovigo, following which he was in great demand.

Gigli made many important debuts in quick succession, and always in Mefistofele: Teatro Massimo di Palermo (March 31, 1915), Teatro San Carlo di Napoli (December 26, 1915), Teatro Costanzi di Roma (December 26, 1916), La Scala (November 19, 1918), and finally the Metropolitan (November 26, 1920). Two other great Italian tenors present on the roster of Met singers during the 1920s also happened to be Gigli's chief contemporary rivals for tenor supremacy in the Italian repertory—namely, Giovanni Martinelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi.

Some of the roles with which Gigli became particularly associated during this period included Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème and the title role in Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier, both of which he would later record in full.

Gigli rose to true international prominence after the death of the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso in 1921. Such was his popularity with audiences he was often called "Caruso Secondo", though he much preferred to be known as "Gigli Primo." In fact, the comparison was not valid as Caruso had a bigger, darker, more heroic voice than Gigli's honey-toned lyric instrument.

Gigli left the Met in 1932, ostensibly after refusing to take a pay cut. Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Met's then general manager, was furious at his company's most popular male singer; he told the press that Gigli was the only singer not to accept the pay cut. There were in fact several others, Lily Pons and Rosa Ponselle among them; and it is well-documented that Gatti-Casazza gave himself a large pay increase in 1931, so that after the pay cut in 1932 his salary remained the same as it had been originally. Furthermore, Gatti was careful to hide Gigli's counter offer to the press, in which the singer offered to sing five or six concerts gratis, which in dollars saved was worth more than Gatti's imposed pay cut.

After leaving the Met, Gigli returned again to Italy, and sang in houses there, elsewhere in Europe, and in South America. He was criticized for being a favorite singer of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and toward the end of World War II was able to give few performances. However he immediately returned to the stage when the war ended in 1945, and the audience acclaim was greater and more clamorous than ever.

In the last few years of his life, Gigli gave concert performances more often than he appeared on stage. Before his retirement in 1955, Gigli undertook an exhausting world tour of Farewell Concerts. This impaired his health in the two years that remained to him, during which time he helped prepare his Memoirs (based primarily on an earlier Memoir, fleshed out by a series of interviews). Gigli died in Rome in 1957.

Personal life

Like many artists, Gigli was a man of contradictions. On the one hand, he gave more fund raising concerts and raised more money than any other singer in history, with close to one thousand benefit concerts. He was deeply devoted to Padre Pio, his confessor, to whom he donated a large amount of money. Also, Gigli sang an unusual amount of sacred music (especially in the 1950s), atypical of a leading operatic tenor. Additionally, he was throughout his life deeply devoted to the sacred music of Don Lorenzo Perosi.

On the other hand, Gigli's relationships with women were often tainted by scandal. He lied in his memoirs, saying that he was married six months earlier than he really was. This was to conceal that his wife Costanza was pregnant before reaching the altar. Gigli had two children with Costanza: Enzo and Rina. (The latter was a well-known soprano in her own right.) Later, Gigli is well-known to have had a second family with Lucia Vigarani, producing three children. Gigli is rumored to have had at least three other children with as many different women. Gigli's exact number of offspring will probably never be known.

Gigli's musical legacy

Such is Gigli's popularity that most of his recordings including complete operas normally with Toti dal Monte have been converted to CD and are freely available. His disc legacy dates back to recordings in the 1930s which provide a good insight into the beauty of his voice due to EMI's digital enhancement of the recordings quality using the CEDAR process. He was liked by many composers and was the first to sing the title role in Andrea Chenier. Listen to his rendition of the complete opera Cavalleria rusticana and you will hear Pietro Mascagni’s voice welcoming you.

However if you want to hear his recordings from his Italian years in the early thirties until just after the war including his rendition of the "Giovinezza" you will have to go to Italy. His leaving the Met following a pay cut meant he fell into the arms of Mussolini and allegedly became his favorite. This would have been fatal to most singers and for a while after the war he had to sing with his daughter Rina as many sopranos would not sing with him. This ended with a concert in Covent Garden when the world and the critics saw what they had been missing. He described himself as a simple man with a gift from God. He was a generous man and would always end every concert by remaining on stage with the offer he would sing any song the audience wanted for a fee with the money going to charity.

Gigli was the principal tenor of Metropolitan Opera for good reason and his version of Nessun Dorma will amaze many by its similarity to that made famous by Pavarotti many years later. He has what all great singers have, which is a voice easily recognisable and the ability to put a stamp on a song and make it his own. Like Bjorling he sings in an apparently effortless way, examples exist on u-tube which clearly shows how easy and marvellous his voice production was.

In addition to his opera skills he is considered by many to be the greatest exponent of Neapolitan singing, he has a sound which is so definitively Italian and he sings convincingly in all Italian dialects. The double CD from EMI called Ole Sole Mio ranks as one of the best collections of this style of music, his version of Mamma still stands the test of time and no one sings Santa Lucia like he does with all the power of a true opera tenor coupled to a rapier like sweet falsetto. Unlike many opera stars today who sing can belto not bel canto Gigli had the power of a truly great tenor coupled to a melting falsetto and tingling pianissimo. His emotional renditions complete with sobs which caused the critics so much concern were loved by the masses. Like Domingo, Alagna and Florez do now he could sell a song and he knew the way an audience liked it.

Described as foxy by his accompanist his recordings reflect this in some of the unusual songs in his repertoire. He also was prone to including unusual twists and endings to the standards. For example he sings Chopin and English songs and his version of In the depths of the temple from the Pearl Fishers by Bizet sung with Giuseppe de Luca contains such a unique ending. At the end of his career his voice may have lost its power but it retained its beauty till the end; listen to the Dream from Manon in the live recording of a concert he gave in Rio just prior to his death.

Biographies

References

External links

International Jose Guillermo Carrillo Foundation

Discography (Capon's Lists of Opera Recordings)

History of the Tenor - Sound Clips and Narration

Category:1890 births Category:1957 deaths Category:People from the Province of Macerata Category:Italian opera singers Category:Italian tenors Category:Operatic tenors

Name	Luciano Pavarotti
Caption	Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in Strelna, 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg.
Birth date	October 12, 1935
Birth place	Modena, Italy
Death date	September 06, 2007
Death place	Modena, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Occupation	Opera singer (tenor)
Years active	1961–2006
Signature	Luciano Pavarotti Signature.svg
Website	www.lucianopavarotti.com

Luciano Pavarotti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (12 October 19356 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor, who also crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time. He made numerous recordings of complete operas and individual arias, and established himself as one of the finest tenors of the 20th century. Seen by many as bitter and sensationalistic, it is critical of the singer's acting (in opera), his inability to read music well and learn parts, and of his personal conduct, although acknowledging their mutual success. In an interview in 2005 with Jeremy Paxman on the BBC, Pavarotti rejected the allegation that he could not read music, although he acknowledged he did not read orchestral scores.

He received an enormous number of awards and honours, including Kennedy Center Honors in 2001. He also holds two Guinness World Records: one for receiving the most curtain calls (165) and another for the best-selling classical album (In Concert by The Three Tenors). (The latter record is thus shared by fellow tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras.)

In late 2003, he released his final compilation - and his first and only "crossover" album, Ti Adoro. Most of the 13 songs were written and produced by the Michele Centonze who had already helped produce the "Pavarotti and Friends" concerts between 1998 and 2000. The tenor described the album as a wedding gift to Nicoletta Mantovani.

Pavarotti began his farewell tour in 2004, at the age of 69, performing one last time in old and new locations, after more than four decades on the stage. Pavarotti gave his last performance in an opera at the New York Metropolitan Opera on 13 March 2004, for which he received a long standing ovation for his role as the painter Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. On 1 December 2004, he announced a 40-city farewell tour. Pavarotti and his manager, Terri Robson, commissioned impresario Harvey Goldsmith to produce the Worldwide Farewell Tour. His last full-scale performance was at the end of a two-month Australasian tour in Taiwan, in December 2005.

In March 2005, Pavarotti underwent neck surgery to repair two vertebrae. In early 2006, he underwent further back surgery and contracted an infection while in the hospital in New York, forcing cancellation of concerts in the U.S., Canada and the UK.

On 10 February 2006, Pavarotti sang "Nessun Dorma" at the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin, Italy at his final performance. In the last act of the opening ceremony, his performance received the longest and loudest ovation of the night from the international crowd. Leone Magiera, who directed the performance, revealed in his 2008 memoirs, Pavarotti Visto da Vicino, that the performance was prerecorded weeks earlier. "The orchestra pretended to play for the audience, I pretended to conduct and Luciano pretended to sing. The effect was wonderful," he wrote. Pavarotti's manager, Terri Robson, said that the tenor had turned the Winter Olympic Committee's invitation down several times because it would have been impossible to sing late at night in the sub-zero conditions of Turin in February. The committee eventually persuaded him to take part by pre-recording the song.

Other work

Film and television

Pavarotti's one venture into film, a romantic comedy called Yes, Giorgio (1982), was roundly panned by the critics. He can be seen to better advantage in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's adaptation of Rigoletto for television, released that same year, or in his more than 20 live opera performances taped for television between 1978 and 1994, most of them with the Metropolitan Opera, and most available on DVD.

Humanitarianism

Pavarotti annually hosted the "Pavarotti and Friends" charity concerts in his home town of Modena in Italy, joining with singers from all parts of the music industry, including Bryan Adams, Bono, Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton, Sheryl Crow, Céline Dion, Elton John, Deep Purple, Queen, Sting, the Spice Girls, and Jon Bon Jovi, to raise money for several UN causes. Concerts were held for War Child, and victims of war and civil unrest in Bosnia, Guatemala, Kosovo and Iraq. After the war in Bosnia, he financed and established the Pavarotti Music Centre in the southern city of Mostar to offer Bosnia's artists the opportunity to develop their skills. For these contributions, the city of Sarajevo named him an honorary citizen in 2006.

He performed at benefit concerts to raise money for victims of tragedies such as the Spitak earthquake that killed 25,000 people in northern Armenia in December 1988, and sang Gounod's Ave Maria with legendary French pop music star and ethnic Armenian Charles Aznavour.

He was a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales. They raised money for the elimination of land mines worldwide. He was invited to sing at her funeral service, but declined to sing, as he felt he could not sing well "with his grief in his throat". Nonetheless, he attended the service.

In 1998, he was appointed the United Nations Messenger of Peace, using his fame to raise awareness of UN issues, including the Millennium Development Goals, HIV/AIDS, child rights, urban slums and poverty.

In 1999, Pavarotti performed a charity benefit concert in Beirut, to mark Lebanon's reemergence on the world stage after a brutal 15 year civil war. The largest concert held in Beirut since the end of the war, it was attended by 20,000 people who travelled from countries as distant as Saudi Arabia and Bulgaria.

In 2001, Pavarotti received the Nansen Medal from the UN High Commission for Refugees for his efforts raising money on behalf of refugees worldwide. Through benefit concerts and volunteer work, he has raised more than any other individual.

Other honours he received include the "Freedom of London Award" and The Red Cross "Award for Services to Humanity", for his work in raising money for that organization, and the 1998 "MusiCares Person of the Year", given to humanitarian heroes by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.

Death

While undertaking an international "farewell tour", Pavarotti was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in July 2006. The tenor fought back against the implications of this diagnosis, undergoing major abdominal surgery and making plans for the resumption and conclusion of his singing commitments. On Thursday 6 September 2007, he died at home in Modena, aged 71. Within hours of his death his manager, Terri Robson, noted in an e-mail statement, "The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterized his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness".

According to several reports, just before he died, the singer had received both the sacraments of Penance and Anointing of the Sick from the Roman Catholic Church.

Pavarotti's funeral was held in Modena Cathedral. Romano Prodi and Kofi Annan attended. The Frecce Tricolori, the aerobatic demonstration team of the Italian Air Force, flew overhead, leaving green-white-red smoke trails. After a funeral procession through the centre of Modena, Pavarotti's coffin was taken the final ten kilometres to Montale Rangone, a village part of Castelnuovo Rangone, and interred in his parents' grave. The funeral, in its entirety, was also telecast live on CNN. The Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival Hall flew black flags in mourning. Tributes were published by many opera houses, such as London's Royal Opera House. The Italian football giant Juventus F.C., of which Pavarotti was a lifelong fan, was represented at the funeral and posted a farewell message on its website which said: "Ciao Luciano, black-and-white heart" referring to the team's famous stripes when they play on their home ground.

Tributes

On 12 October 2007, on what would have been Pavarotti's 72nd birthday, Google exhibited a logo using a cartoon of Pavarotti as the letter "L" in its name.

A tribute concert featuring many performers trained by Pavarotti himself was held on February 14, 2008 at New York City's Avery Fisher Hall.

Personal life

On 13 December 2003 he married his former personal assistant, Nicoletta Mantovani, with whom he already had a daughter, Alice. A second child, Riccardo, did not survive, because of complications at the time of birth in January 2003. Pavarotti is also survived by three other daughters by his first wife Adua, to whom he was married for 34 years: Lorenza, Cristina and Giuliana. At the time of his death, he had one granddaughter.

Settlement of estate

His first will was opened the day after his death and a second will, within the same month of September. He left an estate outside his native Modena, a villa in Pesaro, a flat in Monte Carlo and three flats in New York City.

Pavarotti's widow's lawyers Giorgio Bernini, Anna Maria Bernini and manager Terri Robson announced on 30 June 2008 that his family amicably settled his estate – 300 million euros ($ 474.2 million, including $15 million in U.S. assets). Pavarotti drafted two wills before his death: one divided his assets by Italian law, giving half to his second wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, and half to his four daughters; the second gave his U.S. holdings to Mantovani. The judge confirmed the compromise by the end of July 2008. However, a Pesaro public prosecutor, Massimo di Patria, investigated allegations that Pavarotti was not of sound mind when he signed the will. Pavarotti's estate has been settled "fairly", a lawyer for Pavarotti's widow, Nicoletta Mantovani, said in statements after reports of a dispute between Ms. Mantovani and his three daughters from his first marriage.

Quote

Pavarotti himself summarised his life as follows:

"Penso che una vita per la musica sia una vita spesa bene ed è a questo che mi sono dedicato."

English translation: "I think a life for music is a well-spent one, and that's what I have dedicated mine to."

See also

Best selling music artists

Notes and references

External links

Official website

Discography at Discogs.com

Discography (Capon's Lists of Opera Recordings)

The Times obituary

Review of The King and I at theage.com.au

Luciano Pavarotti, Opera Tenor Site

Luciano Pavarotti- Obituary and Public Tribute

The Pavarotti Story

Pavarotti Video Biography by National Italian American Foundation NIAF

One of the absolutely last recordings of Luciano Pavarotti

Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games Finale

History of the Tenor - Sound Clips and Narration

Category:1935 births Category:2007 deaths Category:Cancer deaths in Italy Category:Deaths from pancreatic cancer Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Italian opera singers Category:Italian Roman Catholics Category:Italian tenors Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Operatic tenors Category:People from Modena

Sir Paolo Tosti (April 9, 1846December 2, 1916) was an Italian, later British, composer and music teacher.

Life

Francesco Paolo Tosti received most of his music education in his native Ortona, Italy, as well as the conservatory in Naples. Tosti began his music education at the Royal College of San Pietro a Majella at the age of eleven. He studied violin with Pinto and composition with Saverio Mercadante,who became so impressed with Tosti that he appointed him student teacher, which afforded the young man a meagre salary of sixty francs a month. Poor health forced Tosti to leave his studies and return home to Ortona. He was confined to his bed for several months. During this time he composed several songs, two of which he submitted to the Florentine Art Society, and two others he submitted for publication to Ricordi. All four were rejected.

In 1875 Tosti traveled to London, England. He made several powerful friends who introduced him to the highest levels of English society. Tosti was a staple in fashionable drawing rooms and salons, and in 1880, he was made singing master to the Royal Family. His fame as a composer of songs grew rapidly while he was in England. One of his compositions, For Ever and For Ever was introduced by Violet Cameron at the Globe Theatre. This song became a favorite overnight, and there was an enormous demand for his compositions. By 1885 he was the most popular composer of songs in England. His publishers paid him a staggering retaining fee for twelve songs a year.

In 1894 Tosti joined the Royal Academy of Music as a professor. In 1906, he became a British citizen and was knighted two years later by his friend, King Edward VII. In 1913 he returned to Italy to spend his last years there. He died in Rome on December 2, 1916.

His style became very popular during the Belle Époque and is often known as salon music. His most famous works are Serenata (lyrics: Cesareo), Goodbye (lyrics: George J. Whyte Mellville) which is sometimes performed in Italian as Addio (lyrics: Rizzelli), and the popular Neapolitan song, Marechiare, the lyrics of which are by the prominent Neapolitan dialect poet, Salvatore Di Giacomo.

As a composer, Tosti is exceptional. Since the beginning of the recording era, numerous recording artists specializing in classical Italian repertoire have recorded Tosti songs, yet Tosti never composed opera. Notable examples on recording include Alessandro Moreschi (the only castrato who ever recorded) singing "Ideale", Nellie Melba singing "Mattinata" and Jussi Björling singing "L'alba separa dalla luce l'ombra".

References

External links

Category:1846 births Category:1916 deaths Category:Italian composers Category:British composers Category:Romantic composers Category:Italian songwriters Category:British songwriters Category:Knights Bachelor Category:English people of Italian descent