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His partnership with poet Karl Flaster was a fruitful one. In addition to his work on The Scarlet Letter, Flaster was the librettist for several of Giannini's operas, including Lucedia and The Harvest. Also, Flaster collaborated with Giannini on many of his most successful art songs, including "Tell Me, Oh Blue Blue Sky"; many of these songs are now staples of vocal recitalists' repertoire.
Though it was his vocal and operatic writing which earned him greatest renown, Giannini also composed several symphonies, concerti, works for the wind band (for which his Symphony no. 3 was written), and wrote several solo piano and chamber works. Despite this wide range of output, most of his work is seldom performed, and little of it has been recorded.
Giannini's works, particularly the later vocal works, are regarded as prime examples of the American neoromantic style; others of the American neoromantic school include Samuel Barber and Howard Hanson.
Category:1903 births Giannini, Vittorio Category:20th-century classical composers Category:American composers Category:Manhattan School of Music faculty Category:Neoromantic composers Category:Opera composers Category:People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:Milan Conservatory alumni
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After appearing at the Hollywood Bowl in 1947, Lanza signed a seven-year contract with MGM's head, Louis B. Mayer, who saw his performance and was impressed by his singing. Prior to this, Lanza had made only two appearances on an operatic stage, when in 1948 he sang the role of Pinkerton in Puccini's Madama Butterfly in New Orleans.
His movie debut was in That Midnight Kiss, which produced an unlikely hit song in the form of Giuseppe Verdi's operatic aria "Celeste Aida." The following year, in The Toast of New Orleans, his featured popular song "Be My Love" became his first million-selling hit. In 1951, he starred in the role of his tenor idol, Enrico Caruso (1873–1921), in the biopic, The Great Caruso, which produced another million-seller with "The Loveliest Night of the Year." It was the top-grossing film that year. The title song of his next film, Because You're Mine, featured his final million-selling hit song. The song went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. After recording the soundtrack for his next film, The Student Prince he walked out on the project after an argument with producer Dore Schary over his behavior on the set.
Lanza was known to be "rebellious, tough, and ambitious", He made three more films before dying of a heart attack at the age of 38. At the time of his death in 1959 he was still "the most famous tenor in the world".
The Lanza "myth" was created by familiar Hollywood marketing formulae, which took his social class and Italian-American identity and combined them with his good looks and exceptional talent as a singer to create the "poor boy makes good", who is "transformed into a star". Nonetheless, his groundbreaking films, especially The Great Caruso, influenced numerous future opera stars, including José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti. Hedda Hopper concludes that "there had never been anyone like Mario, and I doubt whether we shall ever see his like again."
, the only full professional opera Lanza ever appeared in]] Lanza's widow, Betty, moved back to Hollywood with their four children, but died five months later at the age of 37. Biographer Armando Cesari writes that the apparent cause of death, according to the coroner, was "asphyxiation resulting from a respiratory ailment for which she had been receiving medication". In 1991, Marc, the younger of their two sons, died of a heart attack at the age of 37; six years later, Colleen, their elder daughter, was killed at the age of 48 when she was struck by two passing vehicles on a highway. Damon Lanza, the couple's eldest son, died in August 2008 of a heart attack at the age of 55.
In 1994, tenor José Carreras paid tribute to Lanza in a worldwide concert tour, saying of him, "If I'm an opera singer, it's thanks to Mario Lanza." Carreras' colleague Plácido Domingo echoed these comments in a 2009 CBS interview when he stated, "Lanza's passion and the way his voice sounds are what made me sing opera. I actually owe my love for opera thanks to a kid from Philadelphia."
Miljenko Jergovic mentions Lanza in his Dvori od oraha (The Mansion in Walnut) novel of 2003 as a part of story about Luka Sikiric.
Mario Lanza Boulevard is a roadway in the Eastwick section of Lanza's native Philadelphia, close to Philadelphia International Airport and ending on the grounds of the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge.
Category:1921 births Category:1959 deaths Category:American male singers Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:American opera singers Category:American people of Sicilian descent Category:Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Deaths from pulmonary embolism Category:Musicians from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:Opera crossover singers Category:People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:RCA Victor artists Category:Traditional pop music singers Category:United States Army Air Forces soldiers
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Returning to America, Warren made his concert debut at the Metropolitan Opera in excerpts from La traviata and Pagliacci during a concert in New York in November 1938. His formal operatic debut took place there in January 1939, when he sang Paolo in Simon Boccanegra. A recording contract with RCA Victor soon followed.
Warren later sang in San Francisco, Chicago, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires, he appeared at La Scala in Milan in 1953, and in 1958, he made a highly successful tour of the Soviet Union, but for most of his career he remained in New York and sang at the Met. Sometime during that period, he converted to Roman Catholicism, the faith of his wife Agatha, and became extremely devout.
Although he sang Tonio in Pagliacci, Escamillo in Carmen, and Scarpia in Tosca, he was particularly acclaimed as one of the finest interpreters of the great Verdi baritone roles, above all the title role of Rigoletto, which was captured in 1950 in an RCA recording with soprano Erna Berger and tenor Jan Peerce, conducted by Renato Cellini. This was the first complete operatic recording to be released by RCA Victor on LP records. He also sang the role in a Madison Square Garden Red Cross benefit concert in 1944, in which only the final act of the opera was featured. Jan Peerce again sang the Duke, but this time Zinka Milanov was Gilda, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Arturo Toscanini. This Rigoletto excerpt was later released on records and CD by RCA Victor, and the entire concert was released years later on an unofficial CD 2-disc album. His other published complete opera recordings included La traviata with Rosanna Carteri, Cesare Valletti, and conductor Pierre Monteux, Pagliacci with Victoria de los Ángeles, Jussi Björling and Robert Merrill; Tosca, Aida, and Il trovatore, each with Zinka Milanov and Jussi Björling; a second recording of Il trovatore with his friend and final tenor co-star, Richard Tucker, featuring a young Leontyne Price in her Met debut role of Leonora; and Verdi's Macbeth, with Leonie Rysanek and Carlo Bergonzi. Private recordings exist of his Simon Boccanegra and Iago in Otello. He also was the Renato in an album of highlights from Un ballo in maschera made with Marian Anderson as Ulrica on the occasion of her Met debut.
Warren took part in an historic television milestone in 1948, when he sang in the first-ever live telecast from the Metropolitan Opera. Giuseppe Verdi's Otello was broadcast complete by ABC-TV on November 29, 1948, the opening night of the season. Ramon Vinay was Otello, Licia Albanese was Desdemona, and Warren sang the role of Iago.
In his book The American Opera Singer (1997, ISBN 0-385-42174-5), Peter G. Davis wrote of Warren:
:The rich, rounded, mellow quality of [Warren's] voice, fairly bursting with resonant overtones, may not have been to every taste, particularly those preferring a narrower baritonal focus that "speaks" more quickly on the note. But by any standards it was a deluxe, quintessentially "Metropolitan Opera sound", one that seemed to take on a special glow and lustrousness as it opened up and spread itself generously around the big auditorium. And of course the easy top was its special glory -- when relaxing with friends Warren would often tear into tenor arias like "Di quella pira" and toss off the high Cs that many tenors lacked. He could have, but never did, overindulge that applause-getting facility.
Category:1911 births Category:1960 deaths Category:American male singers Category:American opera singers Category:Operatic baritones Category:Musicians who died on stage Category:Jewish classical musicians Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism
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