• Amilcare Ponchielli
• Andrea Chénier
• Beniamino Gigli
• Benito Mussolini
• Cavalleria Rusticana
• Chopin
• Covent Garden
• Donizetti
• English language
• Enrico Caruso
• Falsetto
• Georges Bizet
• Giacomo Lauri-Volpi
• Giacomo Puccini
• Giovanni Martinelli
• Giulio Gatti-Casazza
• Giuseppe De Luca
• Juan Diego Flórez
• Jussi Björling
• Käthe von Nagy
• La Bohème
• La Gioconda (opera)
• La Scala
• Licia Albanese
• Lily Pons
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• Lucia di Lammermoor
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• Mefistofele
• Metropolitan Opera
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• 
  

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  La Scala
  La Scala (Italian: Teatro alla 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 (Italian: Nuovo Regio Ducale Teatro alla Scala). The premiere performance was Antonio Salieri's Europa riconosciuta.
  Most of Italy's greatest operatic artists, and many of the finest singers from around the world, have appeared at La Scala during the past 200 years. Today, the theatre is still recognised as one of the leading opera and ballet theatres in the world and is home to the La Scala Theatre Chorus, La Scala Theatre Ballet and La Scala Theatre Orchestra. The theatre also has an associate school, known as the La Scala Theatre Academy (Italian: Accademia Teatro alla Scala), which offers professional training in music, dance, stage craft and stage management.
  La Scala's season traditionally opens on 7 December, Saint Ambrose's Day, the feast day of Milan's patron saint. All performances must end before midnight, and long operas start earlier in the evening when necessary.
  
  wn.com/La_Scala
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  Milan
  Milan (Italian: Milano [miˈlaːno] ( listen); Lombard: [miˈlan]; Latin: Mediolanum) is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital of Lombardy as well as of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area is the 5th largest in EU and the largest in Italy with an estimated population of approximately 5 million. The growth of many suburbs and satellite settlements around the city proper, following the Italian economic miracle of 1950s–60s and massive commuting flows, suggest that socioeconomic linkages have expanded well beyond the boundaries of its administrative limits and its agglomeration, creating a region of approximately 9,3 million people. It has been suggested that the Milan metropolitan area is part of the so-called Blue Banana, the area of Europe with the highest population and industrial density. Its health care and education system is considered one of the best of Europe.
  
  wn.com/Milan
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  Naples
  Coordinates: 40°50′42″N 14°15′30″E / 40.845°N 14.25833°E / 40.845; 14.25833
  Naples (Italian: Napoli [ˈnaːpoli] ( listen), Neapolitan: Napule; Latin: Neapolis; Ancient Greek: Νεάπολις, meaning "new city") is the capital of Campania and the third-largest city in Italy, after Rome and Milan. As of 2012^[update], around 960,000 people live within the city's administrative limits. The wider Naples urban area, covering 777 km² (300 sq mi), has a population of over 3 million, and is the 10th-most populous urban area in the European Union. Between 4.1 and 4.4 million people live in the overall Naples metropolitan area, one of the largest European cities on the Mediterranean Sea.
  Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Greek settlements were established on the island of Megaride in the Gulf of Naples as early as the 9th century BC. A larger mainland colony – initially known as Parthenope (Παρθενόπη) – developed around the 7th century BC, and was refounded as Neápolis (Νεάπολις) in the 5th century BC. Naples became a lynchpin of Magna Graecia and played a key role in the merging of Greek culture into Roman society, eventually becoming a cultural centre of the Roman Republic. Naples remained influential after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, serving as the capital city of the Kingdom of Naples between 1282 and 1816. Thereafter, in union with Sicily, it became the capital of the Two Sicilies until the unification of Italy in 1861. During the Neapolitan War of 1815, Naples strongly promoted Italian unification.
  
  wn.com/Naples
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  Opera
  Opera (English plural: operas; Italian plural: opere) is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (called a libretto) 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. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.
  Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. It started in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri's lost Dafne, produced in Florence around 1597) and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Schütz in Germany, Lully in France, and Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century. In the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, except France, attracting foreign composers such as Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. Today the most renowned figure of late 18th century opera is Mozart, who began with opera seria but is most famous for his Italian comic operas, especially The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte, as well as The Magic Flute, a landmark in the German tradition.
  
  wn.com/Opera
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  Palermo
  Palermo (Italian: [paˈlɛrmo] ( listen), Sicilian: Palermu, Latin: Panormus, from Greek: Πάνορμος, Panormos, Arabic: بَلَرْم‎, Balarm; Phoenician: זִיז, Ziz) 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. Palermo is located in the northwest of the island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
  The city was founded by the Phoenicians, but named by the Ancient Greeks as Panormus meaning 'always fit for landing in.' Palermo became part of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and eventually part of the Byzantine Empire, for over a thousand years. From 827 to 1071 it was under Arab rule during the Emirate of Sicily when it first became a capital. Following the Norman reconquest, Palermo became capital of a new kingdom (from 1130 to 1816), the Kingdom of Sicily. Eventually it would be united with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Two Sicilies until the Italian unification of 1860.
  
  wn.com/Palermo
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  Parma
  Parma  listen (help·info) (Emilian: Pärma) is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its prosciutto, cheese, architecture and surrounding countryside. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world. Parma is divided into two parts by the little stream with the same name. Parma's Etruscan name was adapted by Romans to describe the round shield called Parma.
  The Italian poet Attilio Bertolucci (born in a hamlet in the countryside) wrote: "As a capital city it had to have a river. As a little capital it received a stream, which is often dry". The district on the far side of the river is Oltretorrente.
  Parma was already a built-up area in the Bronze Age. It has been verified by now that in the current position of the city rose a terramare. The "terramare" (marl earth) were ancient villages in structural wood on pile-dwelling built according to a defined scheme and squared form, built on the dry land, generally in proximity of the rivers. During this age (among the 1500 BC and the 800 BC) the first necropolises (placed where stand the present-day Piazza Duomo and Millstone Square) rose also.
  
  wn.com/Parma
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  Rio de Janeiro
  Rio de Janeiro ( /ˈriːoʊ deɪ ʒəˈnɛəroʊ/ or /ˈriːoʊ deɪ dʒəˈnɛəroʊ/; Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈʁi.u dʒi ʒaˈnejɾu],River of January), commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th largest in the Americas, and 26th in the world.
  The city was the capital of Brazil for nearly two centuries, from 1763 to 1815 during the Portuguese colonial era, 1815 to 1821 as the capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarves, and 1822 to 1960 as an independent nation. Rio is nicknamed the Cidade Maravilhosa or "Marvelous City."
  Rio de Janeiro represents the second largest GDP in the country (and 30th largest in the world in 2008), estimated at about R$ 343 billion (IBGE/2008) (nearly US$ 201 billion), and is the headquarters of two major Brazilian companies – Petrobras and Vale, and major oil companies and telephony in Brazil, besides the largest conglomerate of media and communications companies in Latin America, the Globo Organizations. The home of many universities and institutes, it is the second largest center of research and development in Brazil, accounting for 17% of national scientific production – according to 2005 data.
  
  wn.com/Rio_de_Janeiro
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  Rovigo
  Rovigo  listen (help·info) is a town and comune in the Veneto region of North-Eastern Italy, the capital of the eponymous province. (It should not be confused with the town of Bougara in Algeria which previously, under French rule, was called Rovigo.)
  Rovigo stands on the low ground known as Polesine, 80 km by rail SW of Venice and 40 km SSW of Padua, and on the Adigetto Canal. The comune of Rovigo extends between the rivers Adige and Canal Bianco, 40 km W of the Adriatic Sea, except the frazione of Fenil del Turco that extends south of the Canal Bianco.
  Polesine is the name of the low ground between the lower courses of the rivers Adige and Po and the sea; the derivation of the name is much discussed, generally applied only to the province of Rovigo, but is sometimes extended to the neighborhood of Adria and Ferrara.
  Rovigo (both Rodigium and Rhodigium in Latin script) appears to be first mentioned in a document from Ravenna dating April 24, 838; the origin of the name is uncertain. In 920 it was selected as his temporary residence by the bishop of Adria, Paolo Cattaneo, on the destruction of his city by the Hungarian ravagers; the fortifications started by him were already finished in 945. The viscounts of Rovigo built a line of brick walls in the 1130s in the name of the House of Este. The current Torre Donà is a remnant of the castle built some time in between; it is 66 m high and it may have been the highest brick tower at that time if the date of construction is correct.
  
  wn.com/Rovigo
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  Teatro di San Carlo
  The Real Teatro di San Carlo (English: Royal Theatre of Saint Charles) 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 (Carlo VII in Italian) of the Spanish branch of the dynasty, the theatre was inaugurated on 4 November 1737 — the king's name day — with a performance of Domenico Sarro's Achille in Sciro, an opera based on the play by the famous poet and dramatist who went by the name of Metastasio. Sarro also conducted the orchestra in two ballets as intermezzi, created by Grossatesta. At the time, it was the largest opera house in the world, seating 3,300.
  The theatre was designed by the architects Giovanni Antonio Medrano and Angelo Carasale for the monarch since Charles wanted to endow Naples with a new and larger theatre to replace the old and dilapidated Teatro San Bartolomeo of 1621.
  The new theatre was much admired for its architecture, its gold decorations, and the sumptuous blue upholstery (blue and gold being the official colours of the Bourbons).
  
  wn.com/Teatro_di_San_Carlo

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  Alida Valli
  Alida Valli (31 May 1921 – 22 April 2006), sometimes simply credited as Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films, including Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico, Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case, Carol Reed's The Third Man, Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido, Luchino Visconti's Senso, Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 and Dario Argento's Suspiria.
  Valli was born in Pola, Istria, Italy (today Pula, Croatia). Her paternal grandfather was the Baron Luigi Altenburger (also: Altempurger), an Austrian-Italian from Trento, a descendant of the Counts d'Arco; her paternal grandmother was Elisa Tomasi from Trento, a cousin of the Roman senator Ettore Tolomei. Valli's mother, Silvia Oberecker della Martina, born in Pola, was the daughter of Felix Oberecker (also: Obrekar) from Laibach, Austria (now Ljubljana, Slovenia), her mother was Virginia della Martina from Pola, Istria (then part of Austria). Valli's maternal granduncle, Rodolfo, was a close friend of Gabriele d'Annunzio. Valli was christened Baroness Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. She also gained the titles Dr.h.c. of the III. University of Rome, Chevalier of Arts of France and Cavaliere of the Italian Republic.
  
  wn.com/Alida_Valli
• Amilcare Ponchielli
  Amilcare Ponchielli (Italian pronunciation: [aˈmilkare ponˈkjɛlli], August 31, 1834 – January 16, 1886) was an Italian composer, mainly of operas.
  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 after leaving the conservatory he wrote his first opera -- it was based on Alessandro Manzoni's great novel The Betrothed (I promessi sposi) -- and it was as an opera composer that he eventually found fame.
  His early career was disappointing. Maneuvered out of a professorship is very good at the Milan Conservatory that he had won in a competition, he took small-time jobs in small cities, and composed several operas, none successful at first. In spite of his disappointment, he gained much experience as the bandmaster (capobanda) in Piacenza and Cremona, arranging and composing over 200 works for wind band. Notable among his "original" compositions for band are the first-ever concerto for euphonium (Concerto per Flicornobasso, 1872), fifteen variations on the Neapolitan song "Carnevale di Venezia", and a series of festive and funeral marches that resound with the pride of the newly unified Italy and the private grief of his fellow Cremonese. The turning point was the big success of the revised version of I promessi sposi in 1872, which brought him a contract with the music publisher G. Ricordi & Co. and the musical establishment at the Conservatory and at La Scala. The ballet Le due gemelle (1873) confirmed his success.
  
  wn.com/Amilcare_Ponchielli
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  Beniamino Gigli
  Beniamino Gigli (pronounced: [benjaˈmiːno ˈdʒiʎʎi]) (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.
  Gigli was born in Recanati, in the Marche, the son of a shoemaker 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 in Palermo (March 31, 1915), Teatro di San Carlo in Naples (December 26, 1915), Teatro Costanzi di Roma (December 26, 1916), La Scala, Milan (November 19, 1918), and finally the Metropolitan Opera, New York (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.
  
  wn.com/Beniamino_Gigli
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  Benito Mussolini
  Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (Italian pronunciation: [beˈniːto musːoˈliːni]; 29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party, ruling the country from 1922 to his ousting in 1943, and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of fascism.
  Originally a member of the Italian Socialist Party and editor of the Avanti! from 1912 to 1914, Mussolini fought in World War I as an ardent nationalist and created the Fasci di Combattimento in 1919, catalyzing his nationalist and socialist beliefs in the Fascist Manifesto, published in 1921. Following the March on Rome in October 1922 he became the 27th Prime Minister of Italy and began using the title Il Duce by 1925, about which time he had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means, aspiring to create a totalitarian state. After 1936, his official title was Sua Eccellenza Benito Mussolini, Capo del Governo, Duce del Fascismo e Fondatore dell'Impero ("His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire") Mussolini also created and held the supreme military rank of First Marshal of the Empire along with King Victor Emmanuel III, which gave him and the King joint supreme control over the military of Italy. Mussolini remained in power until he was replaced in 1943; for a short period after this until his death, he was the leader of the Italian Social Republic.
  
  wn.com/Benito_Mussolini
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  Donizetti
  Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (Italian pronunciation: [doˈmeːniko ɡaeˈtaːno maˈɾia doniˈdzetti]; 29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore (1832), Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), and Don Pasquale (1843), all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment (both from 1840). Along with Vincenzo Bellini and Gioachino Rossini, he was a leading composer of bel canto opera.
  The youngest of three sons, Donizetti was born in 1797 in Bergamo's Borgo Canale quarter located just outside the city walls. His family was very poor with no tradition of music, his father being the caretaker of the town pawnshop. Nevertheless, Donizetti received some musical instruction from Simon Mayr, a German composer of internationally successful operas who had become maestro di cappella at Bergamo's principal church in 1802.
  
  wn.com/Donizetti
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  Enrico Caruso
  Enrico Caruso (Italian pronunciation: [enˈriːko kaˈruːzo]) (February 25, 1873 – August 2, 1921) was an Italian tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and North and South America, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. Caruso also made approximately 290 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920. All of these recordings, which span most of his stage career, are available today on CDs and as digital downloads.
  Caruso's 1904 recording of "Vesti la giubba" from Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci was the first sound recording to sell a million copies.
  Caruso's 25-year career, stretching from 1895 to 1920, included 863 appearances at the New York Metropolitan Opera before he died from an infection at the age of 48. His fame has lasted to the present day despite the limited marketing and promotional vehicles available during Caruso's era. (He was, nonetheless, a client of Edward Bernays, during the latter's tenure as a press agent in the United States.) Publicity in Caruso's time relied on newspapers, particularly wire services, along with magazines, photography and relatively instantaneous communication via the telephone and the telegraph, to spread a message and raise a performer's profile.
  
  wn.com/Enrico_Caruso
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  Georges Bizet
  Georges Bizet (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ bizɛ]) formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, (25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875) was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.
  During a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes, including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1857. He was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were likewise largely ignored; as a result, his career stalled, and he earned his living mainly by arranging and transcribing the music of others. Restless for success, he began many theatrical projects during the 1860s, most of which were abandoned. Neither of the two operas that reached the stage—Les pêcheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth—was immediately successful.
  
  wn.com/Georges_Bizet
• Giacomo Lauri-Volpi
  Giacomo Lauri-Volpi (December 11, 1892–March 17, 1979) was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years.
  Born in Lanuvio, Italy, he was orphaned at the age of 11. After completing his secondary education at the seminary at Albano and graduating from the University of Rome La Sapienza, he began vocal studies under the great 19th-century baritone Antonio Cotogni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
  His nascent singing career was put on hold, however, by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, during which he served with the Italian armed forces. The war over, he made a successful operatic debut as Arturo in Bellini’s I Puritani in Viterbo, Italy, on September 2, 1919—performing under the name Giacomo Rubini, after Bellini’s favorite tenor, Giovanni Battista Rubini. Four months later, on January 3, 1920, he scored another success, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, this time performing under his own name opposite Rosina Storchio and Ezio Pinza in Massenet's Manon.
  
  wn.com/Giacomo_Lauri-Volpi
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  Giacomo Puccini
  Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒaːkomo putˈtʃiːni]; 22 December 1858 – 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire. Some of his arias, such as "O mio babbino caro" from Gianni Schicchi, "Che gelida manina" from La bohème, and "Nessun dorma" from Turandot, have become part of popular culture.
  Described by Encyclopædia Britannica Online as "one of the greatest exponents of operatic realism", he is regarded as one of the last major Italian opera composers. His repertoire is essentially rooted in verismo, or a post-Romantic operatic tradition and literary style. Whilst his work is essentially based on traditional late-19th century Italian opera, his music shows some influences from then-contemporary composers and movements such as Igor Stravinsky and Impressionism. Common themes within his operas include the important role, yet usually tragic end, of his heroines, as well as love; furthermore, there is a strong presence of exoticism in his operas, with several being set in faraway locations.
  
  wn.com/Giacomo_Puccini
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  Giovanni Martinelli
  Giovanni Martinelli (22 October 1885 – 2 February 1969) was a celebrated Italian operatic tenor. He was particularly associated with the Italian lyric-dramatic repertory, although he performed French operatic roles to great acclaim as well. Martinelli was one of the most famous tenors of the 20th century, enjoying a long career at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and appearing at other major international theatres.
  Martinelli was born in Montagnana, Veneto.
  After service as a clarinetist in a military band, he studied with Giuseppe Mandolini in Milan, and made his professional debut at the Teatro Dal Verme, as Ernani in 1910. The role of Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West became his passport role, he sang it for his debut in Rome (under Toscanini), Brescia, Naples, Genoa, all in 1911, as well as in Monte Carlo and La Scala, in 1912. Cavaradossi in Tosca, was his debut role at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London, and for his first American engagement in Philadelphia, in 1913. On 25 April 1913 he portrayed Pantagruel in the world premiere of Jules Massenet's Panurge at the Théâtre de la Gaîté in Paris.
  
  wn.com/Giovanni_Martinelli
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  Giuseppe De Luca
  Giuseppe De Luca (December 25, 1876 – August 26, 1950), was a famous Italian baritone who achieved his greatest triumphs at the New York Metropolitan Opera. He notably created roles in the world premieres of two operas by Giacomo Puccini: Sharpless in Madama Butterfly (at La Scala, Milan, 1904) and the title role in Gianni Schicchi (Metropolitan Opera, 1918).
  De Luca was born in Rome, the son of a blacksmith, and sang in church choirs as a boy. After his voice broke, a wealthy patron paid for him to have singing lessons at the Rome Conservatory, where he studied with two top-class pedagogues, Venceslao Persichini (who also taught De Luca's fellow baritone stars Mattia Battistini and Titta Ruffo) and Antonio Cotogni. He made his operatic debut at Piacenza in 1897, singing Valentin in Gounod's Faust. His debut proved a success and he was invited to sing at a string of more important venues.
  He appeared at Italy's foremost opera house, La Scala, Milan, from 1902 to 1910, and made his London debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1907.
  
  wn.com/Giuseppe_De_Luca
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  Juan Diego Flórez
  Juan Diego Flórez Salom (born January 13, 1973 in Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian operatic tenor, particularly known for his roles in bel canto operas. On June 4, 2007, he received his country's highest decoration, the Gran Cruz de la Orden del Sol del Perú.
  Juan Diego Flórez was born in Lima, Peru, on January 13, 1973 where his father, Rubén Flórez, was a noted guitarist and singer of Peruvian popular and criolla music. In an interview in the Peruvian newspaper Ojo, Flórez recounted his early days when his mother managed a pub with live music and he worked as a replacement singer whenever the main attraction called in sick. "It was a tremendous experience for me, since most of those who were regulars at the pub were of a certain age, so I had to be ready to sing anything from huayños to Elvis Presley music and, in my mind, that served me a great deal because, in the final analysis, any music that is well structured—whether it is jazz, opera, or pop—is good music".
  Initially intending to pursue a career in popular music, he entered the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Lima at the age of 17. His classical voice emerged in the course of his studies there under Maestro Andrés Santa María. During this time, he became a member of the Coro Nacional of Peru and sang as a soloist in Mozart's Coronation Mass and Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle.
  
  wn.com/Juan_Diego_Flórez
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  Jussi Björling
  
  
  Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling (5 February 1911 – 9 September 1960) was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th century, Björling appeared for many years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and less frequently at the major European opera houses, including the Royal Opera House in London and La Scala in Milan.
  Björling (surname also spelled as "Bjoerling" and "Bjorling" in English-language sources) was born in Borlänge, Dalarna, Sweden, in February 1911. The midwife's register shows he was born on 5 February; however, the church baptism records erroneously show 2 February, and this was the day on which he celebrated his birthday throughout his life. He was initially taught to sing by his father, David, an accomplished vocalist, and made his debut public appearance at the age of four with the Björling Male Quartet. The group performed in concerts throughout Sweden and the United States for eleven and a half years. He later studied opera with John Forsell.
  Björling made his professional operatic debut as the Lamplighter in Manon Lescaut at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm in 1930. This was soon followed by Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Arnold in Rossini's William Tell and Almaviva in Rossini's The Barber of Seville. This in turn led to engagements in Europe and the United States. Björling made his American concert debut in Carnegie Hall in 1937; the following year, he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Rodolfo in La bohème.
  
  wn.com/Jussi_Björling
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  Käthe von Nagy
  Käthe von Nagy (born 4 April 1904 in Szabadka, Austria-Hungary, today Subotica/Serbia), as Ekaterina Nagy von Cziser; † 20 December 1973 in Los Angeles, California, USA) was an Hungarian actress.
  Käthe Von Nagy, daughter of a bank manager, has short time at a monastery school. She wanted to get married at the age of 16, but her parents put her in the Santa Chrisitana Convent, near Vienna. This was followed by high school in Vienna and then boarding school. She wanted to become an authoress, unusual at that time for a young woman, and went to Budapest, where she had some short articles published by a magazine, and visited the acting school of Béla Gáal. There she studied acting, dancing and singing, but her parents were not very happy.
  She went back and worked with her father in one of its offices. Finally she was able to further her career aspirations and went to Berlin, where she was a correspondent for the Hungarian newspaper Pesti Hírlap. After numerous futile applications she got a role as an actress in the 1927 film opposite Constantin J. David in a comedy Männer von der Ehe.
  
  wn.com/Käthe_von_Nagy
• Licia Albanese
  Licia Albanese (born July 22, 1913) is an Italian-born American operatic soprano. Noted especially for her portrayals of the lyric heroines of Verdi and Puccini, Albanese was a leading artist with the Metropolitan Opera of New York from 1940 to 1966. She also made many recordings and is chairman of The Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation which is dedicated to assisting young artists and singers.
  Born in Bari, Italy, Albanese made her unofficial singing debut in Milan in 1934, when she replaced an absent performer in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, the opera with which she would forever be connected. Over 40 years, she sang more than 300 performances of Cio-Cio San. Although she has been praised for many of her roles, including Mimì, Violetta, Liù and Manon Lescaut, it is her portrayal of the doomed geisha which has remained her best loved. Her connection with that work began early with her teacher, Giuseppina Baldassare-Tedeschi, a contemporary of the composer and an important exponent of the title role in the previous generation.
  
  wn.com/Licia_Albanese
• 
  Lily Pons
  Lily Pons (April 12, 1898 – February 13, 1976) was a French-American operatic soprano and actress who had an active career from the late 1920s through the early 1970s. As an opera singer she specialized in the coloratura soprano repertoire and was particularly associated with the title roles in Lakmé and Lucia di Lammermoor. In addition to appearing as a guest artist with many opera houses internationally, Pons enjoyed a long association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City where she performed nearly 300 times between 1931 and 1960.
  She also had a successful and lucrative career as a concert singer which continued until her retirement from performance in 1973. From 1935-37 she made three musical films for RKO Pictures. She also made numerous appearances on radio and on television, performing on variety programs like The Ed Sullivan Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour, and The Dave Garroway Show among others. She made dozens of records; recording both classical and popular music. She was awarded the Croix de Lorraine and the Légion d'honneur by the Government of France.
  
  wn.com/Lily_Pons
• 
  Lorenzo Perosi
  Monsignor Lorenzo Perosi (21 December 1872 – 12 October 1956) was an Italian composer of sacred music and the only member of the Giovane Scuola who did not write opera. In the late 1890s, while he was still only in his 20s, Perosi was an internationally celebrated composer of sacred music, especially large-scale oratorios. Nobel Prize winner Romain Rolland wrote: "It's not easy to give you an exact idea of how popular Lorenzo Perosi is in his native country." Perosi's fame was not restricted to Europe. A 19 March 1899 New York Times article entitled "The Genius of Don Perosi" began: "The great and ever-increasing success which has greeted the four new oratorios of Don Lorenzo Perosi has placed this young priest-composer on a pedestal of fame which can only be compared with that which has been accorded of late years to the idolized Pietro Mascagni by his fellow-countrymen." Gianandrea Gavazzeni made the same comparison: "The sudden clamors of applause, at the end of the [19th] century, were just like those a decade earlier for Mascagni." Perosi worked for five Popes, including Pope St. Pius X who greatly fostered his rise.
  
  wn.com/Lorenzo_Perosi
• 
  Luciano Pavarotti
  Luciano Pavarotti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (12 October 1935 – 6 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. He was one of The Three Tenors and became well known for his televised concerts and media appearances. Pavarotti was also noted for his charity work on behalf of refugees and the Red Cross, amongst others.
  Pavarotti began his professional career as a tenor in 1961 in Italy. That same year, he made his first international appearance in La traviata in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. He sang in opera houses in addition to Italy, in the Netherlands, Vienna, London, Ankara, Budapest and Barcelona. The young tenor earned valuable experience and recognition while touring Australia at the invitation of soprano Joan Sutherland in 1965. He made his United States debut in Miami soon afterwards, also on Sutherland's recommendation. His position as a leading lyric tenor was consolidated in the years between 1966 and 1972, during which time he first appeared at Milan's La Scala and other major European houses. In 1968, he debuted at New York City's Metropolitan Opera as Rodolfo in Puccini's La bohème. At the Met in 1972, in the role of Tonio in Donizetti's La fille du régiment he earned the title "King of the high Cs" when he sang the aria "Ah mes amis ... pour mon âme". He gained worldwide fame for the brilliance and beauty of his tone, especially into the upper register. He was at his best in bel canto operas, pre-Aida Verdi roles and Puccini works such as La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. The late 1970s and 1980s saw Pavarotti continue to make significant appearances in the world's foremost opera houses.
  
  wn.com/Luciano_Pavarotti
• Maria Caniglia
  Maria Caniglia (May 5, 1905 – April 16, 1979) was one of the leading Italian dramatic sopranos of the 1930s and 1940s.
  Caniglia was born in Naples and studied at the Music Conservatories of Naples with Agostino Roche. She made her professional debut in Turin as Chrysothemis in Elektra in 1930. The same year she sang Magda in Ottorino Respighi's La campana sommersa in Genoa and Elsa in Lohengrin in Rome and made her debut at La Scala in Milan as Maria in Ildebrando Pizzetti's Lo straniero. She sang regularly at La Scala until 1951 in the leading dramatic soprano roles in opera, such as Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino, Aida, Andrea Chénier, Tosca, Adriana Lecouvreur etc. She was particularly successful in roles from the latter Verismo school.
  On the international scene, Caniglia appeared in venues such as the Paris Opéra, Covent Garden, and the Teatro Colón. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera of New York on November 21, 1938, as Desdemona in Otello.
  Caniglia participated in the exhumation of a few long forgotten operas such as Donizetti's Poliuto and Verdi's Oberto. She also participated in the creation of many contemporary works: Manuela in Italo Montemezzi's La notte di Zoraima, Milan, 1931, Rosanna in Franco Alfano's Cyrano di Bergerac, Rome, 1936, and the title role of Respighi's Lucrezia, Rome, 1937.
  
  wn.com/Maria_Caniglia
• 
  Padre Pio
  Saint Pio (Pius) of Pietrelcina, O.F.M. Cap., (25 May 1887 – 23 September 1968) was a Capuchin Catholic priest from Italy who is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church. He was born Francesco Forgione, and given the name Pius (Italian: Pio) when he joined the Capuchins, thus he was popularly known as Padre Pio. He became famous for his bearing the stigmata. On 16 June 2002, he was canonized by Pope John Paul II.
  Francesco Forgione was born to Grazio Mario Forgione (1860–1946) and Maria Giuseppa de Nunzio Forgione (1859–1929) on 25 May 1887, in Pietrelcina, a farming town in the southern Italian region of Campania. His parents made a living as peasant farmers. He was baptized in the nearby Santa Anna Chapel, which stands upon the walls of a castle. He later served as an altar boy in this same chapel. Restoration work on this chapel was later undertaken by the Padre Pio Foundation of America based in Cromwell, Connecticut. His siblings were an older brother, Michele, and three younger sisters, Felicita, Pellegrina, and Grazia (who was later to become a Bridgettine nun). His parents had two other children who died in infancy. When he was baptized, he was given the name Francesco, which was the name of one of these two. He stated that by the time he was five years old he had already taken the decision to dedicate his entire life to God. He is also said to have begun inflicting penances on himself and to have been chided on one occasion by his mother for using a stone as a pillow and sleeping on the stone floor. He worked on the land up to the age of 10, looking after the small flock of sheep the family owned. This delayed his education to some extent.
  
  wn.com/Padre_Pio
• 
  Pietro Mascagni
  Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpjɛːtro anˈtɔːnjo ˈsteːfano masˈkaɲɲi]; December 7, 1863 – August 2, 1945) 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. Though it has been stated that Mascagni, like Leoncavallo, was a "one-opera man" who could never repeat his first success, this is inaccurate. L'amico Fritz and Iris have been popular in Europe since their respective premieres. In fact, Mascagni himself claimed that at one point Iris was performed in Italy more often than Cavalleria (cf. Stivender).
  Mascagni wrote fifteen operas, an operetta, several orchestral and vocal works, as well as songs and piano music. He enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, both as a composer and conductor of his own and other people's music. If he never repeated the international success of Cavalleria, it was probably because Mascagni refused to copy himself. The variety of styles in his operas — the Sicilian passion and warmth of Cavalleria, the exotic flavor of Iris, the idyllic breeze that ventilates the charming L'amico Fritz and Lodoletta, the Gallic chiaroscuro of Isabeau, the steely, Veristic power of Il piccolo Marat, the overripe postromanticism of the lush Parisina — demonstrate a versatility that surpasses even that of Puccini.
  
  wn.com/Pietro_Mascagni
• 
  Plácido Domingo
  Plácido Domingo (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈplaθiðo ðoˈmiŋɡo]; born 21 January 1941), born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range. In March 2008, he debuted in his 128th opera role, and as of July 2011, his 136 roles give Domingo more roles than any other tenor.
  One of The Three Tenors, he has also taken on conducting opera and concert performances, and he is the General Director of the Los Angeles Opera in California.
  Plácido Domingo was born on January 21, 1941, in the distrito de Retiro section of Madrid, Spain, and in 1949 moved to Mexico with his family, who ran a zarzuela company. He studied piano at first privately and later at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City.
  In 1957, Domingo made his first professional appearance, performing with his mother in a concert at Mérida, Yucatán. He made his opera debut performing in Manuel Fernández Caballero's zarzuela, Gigantes y cabezudos, singing a baritone role. At that time, he was working with his parents' zarzuela company, taking baritone roles and as an accompanist for other singers. Among his first performances was a minor role in the first Mexican production of My Fair Lady where he was also the assistant conductor and assistant coach. The company gave 185 performances, which included a production of Lehár's The Merry Widow in which he performed alternately as either Camille or Danilo.
  
  wn.com/Plácido_Domingo
• 
  Roberto Alagna
  Roberto Alagna (born 7 June 1963) is a French-Italian tenor. He was born in Clichy-sous-Bois, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.
  Alagna was born outside of the city of Paris in 1963 to a family of Sicilian (Italian) immigrants . As a teenager, the young Alagna began busking and singing pop in Parisian cabarets, mostly for tips. Influenced primarily by the films of Mario Lanza, but also from recordings of many historic tenors, he then switched to opera, but remained largely self-taught.
  After winning the Luciano Pavarotti Voice Competition, Alagna made his professional debut in 1988 as Alfredo Germont in La Traviata with the Glyndebourne touring company. This led to many engagements throughout the smaller cities in France and Italy, mainly again as Alfredo, a role he would eventually sing over 150 times. His reputation grew and he was soon invited to sing at major theaters such as La Scala in 1990, Covent Garden in 1992 and the Metropolitan Opera as Rodolfo in 1996. His performances of Roméo in Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod at Covent Garden in 1994 (opposite Leontina Vaduva) catapulted him to international stardom.
  
  wn.com/Roberto_Alagna
• 
  Rosa Ponselle
  
  
  Rosa Ponselle (January 22, 1897 – May 25, 1981), was an American operatic soprano with a large, opulent voice. She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered by music critics to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the past 100 years.
  She was born Rosa Ponzillo on January 22, 1897, in Meriden, Connecticut, the youngest of three children. The family lived on the city's west side in a neighborhood chiefly populated by immigrants from the south of Italy, first at the corner of Lewis Avenue and Bartlett Street, then on Foster Street, where Ponselle was born, moving when she was three to Springdale Avenue. Her parents were Italian Neapolitan immigrants. Rosa had an exceptionally mature voice at an early age and, at least in her early years, sang on natural endowment with little, if any, vocal training. Instead, her early prowess as a piano student (which was cultivated by a local music teacher, Anna Ryan, the organist of a nearby Catholic church), seemed to incline Rosa to instrumental rather than vocal music. But with the influence and example of her older sister, Carmela, who was then pursuing a career as a cabaret singer, Rosa began to augment her engagements as a silent-movie accompanist in and around Meriden by singing popular ballads to her audiences while the projectionist changed film reels. By 1914, her reputation as a singer led to a long-term engagement at the San Carlino theater, one of the largest movie houses in New Haven, near the Yale campus.
  
  wn.com/Rosa_Ponselle
• Toti dal Monte
  Antonietta Meneghel (27 June 1893 – 26 January 1975), better known by her stage name Toti Dal Monte, was a celebrated Italian operatic soprano with a sweet and limpid lyric voice. She was a favourite artist of the celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini. She is perhaps best remembered today for her performance as Cio-cio-san in Puccini's Madama Butterfly because she recorded this role complete in 1939 with the star tenor Beniamino Gigli as Pinkerton. Cio-cio-san is a much heavier part than Dal Monte would have undertaken normally, and her interpretation is notable for its youthful-sounding freshness, which fits with the character's age.
  Born in Mogliano Veneto, in the Province of Treviso, she made her debut at La Scala, Milan at the age of 17 as Biancofiore in Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini. She was an immediate success, and her clear ‘nightingale-like’ voice came to be highly appreciated throughout the world. Her best-known roles included the bel canto parts of Amina (in Bellini's La sonnambula), Lucia (in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor) and Gilda (in Verdi's Rigoletto). In 1922 she performed several parts opposite the tenor Carlo Broccardi at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; including Cio-cio-san, Gilda, and the title heroine in Alfredo Catalani's La Wally.
  
  wn.com/Toti_dal_Monte
• 
  Umberto Giordano
  Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano (28 August 1867 – 12 November 1948) was an Italian composer, mainly of operas.
  He was born in Foggia in Puglia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples. His first opera Marina, was written for the competition staged by the music publishers Casa Sonzogno for the best one-act opera, remembered today because it marked the beginning of Italian verismo; the winner was Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana. Giordano, the youngest candidate, placed sixth among seventy-three with Marina, which generated enough interest for Sonzogno to commission an opera to be staged in the 1891–92 season.
  The result was Mala Vita, a gritty verismo opera concerning a labourer who vows to reform a prostitute if he is cured of his tuberculosis. This caused something of a scandal when performed at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, in February 1892. It played successfully at Vienna, Prague and Berlin, and was re-written as Il Voto a few years later in an attempt to raise interest in the work again.
  
  wn.com/Umberto_Giordano

• La donna è mobile (Rigoletto)
• Una furtiva lagrima (L'Elisir d'Amore)
• Che gelida manina (La Boheme)
• Recondita armonia (Tosca)
• E lucevan le stelle (Tosca)
• Dovunque al mondo (Madama Butterfly)
• Che avvien ? !... Ah ! Non V'avviciniate... No ! Pazzo son ! (Manon Lescaut)
• Recitar !... Vesti la giubba (Pagliacci)
• Intanto amici, qua... Viva il vino spumeggiante (Cavalleria Rusticana)
• Mamma, quel vino è generoso (Cavalleria Rusticana)
• Non colombelle !... Ah ! Tu ch'odi lo mio grido (Isabeau)
• Un di all'azzurro spazio (Andrea Chenier)
• Si, fu soldato (Andrea Chenier)
• Come un bel di di maggio (Andrea Chenier)
• Di' tu se fedele (Un Ballo in Maschera)
• Forse la soglia attinse... Ma se m'e forza perderti (Un Ballo in Maschera)
• Vainement, ma bien aimee (Le Roi d'Ys)
• Io son sol... Ah ! Dispar, vision (Manon)
• Ah, non mi ridestar (Werther)
• Quanto e bella (L'Elisir d'Amore)
• Nessun dorma (Turandot)

• Rondine al nido
• Triste maggio
• 'A canzone 'e Napule
• 'O sole mio
• La canzone dell'amore
• Non ti scordar di me
• Mattinata
• Torna a Surriento
• Notte a Venezia
• Ti voglio tanto bene
• Mattinata veneziana
• La danza (tarantella)
• La Spagnola
• La Paloma
• Maria
• Lolita
• Mamma
• Se vuoi goder la vita
• Santa Lucia luntana
• Voce 'e notte
• Santa Lucia

• Quanto E Bella, Quanto E Cara
• Una Furtiva Lagrima
• Donna non vidi mai
• Solenne in quest'ora
• Fra poco a me ricovero
• De' miei bollenti spiriti
• Ah! Non Credevi Tu!
• Del tempio al limitar
• Mi par d'udir ancora
• Cielo e mar
• O Dolce Incanto
• Che gelida manina
• Salve, Dimora Casta e Pura
• Chanson hindoue
• E lucevan le stelle
• La Donna E Mobile
• O del mio dolce ardor
• E la solita storia
• Amarilli (Caccini)

• La Paloma
• Élégie
• Carrettieri
• Cachés Dans Cet Aisle
• La Spagnola
• Plaisir d'Amour
• Caro Mio Ben
• Ave Maria

Born: 1890-03-20

Died: 1957-11-30

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• timeline:
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