Luisa Tetrazzini (Firenze 1871 - Milano 1940)

Luisa Tetrazzini began to study with her sister Eva ...

Luisa Tetrazzini (Firenze 1871 - Milano 1940)

Luisa Tetrazzini began to study with her sister Eva Tetrazzini Campanini, also became famous soprano. She debuted in 1890 in the role of Ines in The African Giacomo Meyerbeer. The story of his first public performance has an aura of legend: it seems that the singer, then nineteen, he was with his family to a de The African representation at the local opera house, when, before the start, the conductor apologized to the audience saying that the work could not be displayed because the singer who was to play the lead role was not presented as sick. Luisa then got up from his seat and, proposing to replace the absent singer, she said it was not necessary to cancel the play because she knew the part. The audience and the director she was excited, so much so that the singer was chosen for the representation of the day. The Tetrazzini with Cleofonte Campanini teacher in Manhattan in 1908 La Gazzetta Musicale di Milano writes about his performance: "sincere praise to the young lady Tetrazzini-Scalaberni (Ines), that from these first steps in the art easily portends the beautiful journey that will to go, rich as it is voice handsome, good method and understanding. "[1] From this singular event took away a brilliant career and international that branched off in the early days, mainly at the Italian provincial theaters, but also in Russia, Spain and South America, with a repertoire mainly of light soprano (or coloratura) based especially on the parts of Violetta (La Traviata, Giuseppe Verdi), Philine (Mignon, Ambroise Thomas), Oscar (Un Ballo in Maschera, Verdi), Gilda (Rigoletto, Verdi) and Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor, Gaetano Donizetti). In 1905 he made his American debut in San Francisco; but in 1907 he was the final consecration, when on the advice of Enrico Caruso agreed to interpret Violetta at Covent Garden in London. This allowed her, in 1908, landing in New York, not to the Metropolitan Opera, but Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera Company, back in the role of Violetta and again with great success. Adelina Patti, among the most acclaimed sopranos of the nineteenth century coloratura, not known for his generosity towards other singers, showed much appreciate the song of Tetrazzini. Despite the international success the Tetrazzini never sang at La Scala, probably at the behest of Arturo Toscanini. Between the two never ran bad blood. Even when the singer performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York obtained that Toscanini was replaced with a director to his liking. His harsh nature brought Tetrazzini to be severely criticized by self-righteous, because of her daring even love life: married three times in a few years. This pushed her away from the stage, especially Italian. After the third marriage, unhappy as the first two, returned to singing, he had abandoned, especially as a performer. However, the voice betrayed his years. The physical decline was inevitable, but more difficult had to be facing financial difficulties in which he found himself, having dispelled quickly the immense fortune he had accumulated. Targa-mail in 2020, 80 years after his death, the burial of Luisa Tetrazzini in the Civic Mausoleum Palanti the Monumental Cemetery in Milan In 1931 he founded in Rome a school of singing, from which came the good singers like Lina Pagliughi, among his pupils also the niece, the actress and showgirl Marisa Vernati. He devoted himself to teaching until his death (in Milan in 1940); and to those who still did compliments seems often answered: "I'm old, I'm fat, but I'm always Tetrazzini." Luisa Tetrazzini made a conspicuous, for those times, recording career. Etched ninety facades seventy eight rounds from 1904 to 1922. The technique is obviously rudimentary and may not return all the beauty of her voice. Despite this his records remain attractive in the history of sound reproduction. From Milan cemetery registers is to be buried in the Municipal Mausoleum Palanti, the Allotment V of the Monumental Cemetery in Milan, even if on site, his presence was not reported until 2020, when the direction of the cemetery has accepted the request of some admirers and placed a name tag of the soprano on the mausoleum stele photo card, with signature, the celebrated soprano dated 1918.Excellent condition