26 June

Claudio Abbado – conductor

The distinguished career of a multi award-winning musician

The internationally acclaimed orchestra conductor Claudio Abbado was born on June 26, 1933 in Milan.  Abbado was musical director at La Scala opera house from 1972 to 1980 and remained affiliated to the theatre until 1986. He was the principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra and was appointed director of the Vienna State Opera and the Berlin Philharmonic.  Born into a musical family, Abbado studied the piano with his father, Michelangelo, from being eight years old. His father was a professional violinist and a professor at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory. His mother, Maria Carmela Savagnone, was a pianist and his brother, Marcello, became a concert pianist, composer, and teacher.  After the Nazis jailed his mother for harbouring a Jewish child, Abbado grew up anti-fascist. Read more… 

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San Marino is bombed by British

Allies believed the Germans were using rail facilities

The British Royal Air Force bombed the tiny Republic of San Marino on June 26, 1944 as a result of receiving incorrect information.  It was recorded at the time that 63 people were killed as a result of the bombing, which was aimed at rail facilities. The British mistakenly believed that the Germans were using the San Marino rail network to transport weapons.  San Marino had been ruled by Fascists since the 1920s but had managed to remain neutral during the war.  After the bombing, San Marino’s government declared that no military installations or equipment were located on its territory and no belligerent forces had been allowed to enter.  However, by September of the same year San Marino was briefly occupied by German forces, but they were defeated by the Allied forces in the Battle of San Marino.  Read more…

Alberto Rabagliati - singer and actor

Performer found fame through radio

The jazz singer and movie actor Alberto Rabagliati, who became a star of Italian radio in the 1930s and 40s, was born on June 26, 1906 in Milan.  His movie career reached a peak in the post-War years, when he had roles in the Humphrey Bogart-Ava Gardner hit Barefoot Contessa and in The Monte Carlo Story, starring Marlene Dietrich.  The son of parents who had moved to Milan from a village in Piedmont, Rabagliati’s career began when he won a competition in 1927 to find a Rudolph Valentino lookalike.  The prize was to be taken to Hollywood to audition, so his life changed overnight.  Later he recalled: "For someone like me, who had never been beyond Lake Como or Monza Cathedral, finding myself on board a luxury steamer with three cases full of clothes, a few rolls of dollars, grand-duchesses and countesses flirting with me was something extraordinary".  Read more…

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Paolo Maldini - football great

Milan defender's record-breaking career spanned 25 years

Paolo Maldini, the AC Milan defender who won the European Cup and Champions League more times than any other player in the modern era, was born on June 26, 1968 in Milan.  A Milan player for the whole of his 25-year professional career - plus six years as a youth player before that - Maldini won Europe's biggest club prize five times. Only Francisco Gento, a member of the all-conquering Real Madrid side of the 1950s and 60s, has more winner's medals.  Maldini also won seven Serie A championships plus one Coppa Italia and five Supercoppa Italiana titles in domestic competition, as well as five European Super Cups, two Intercontinental Cups and a World Club Cup.  Only in international football did trophies elude him, although he played in the finals of both the World Cup, in 1994, and the European Championships, in 2000. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: A Tale of Four Houses: Opera at Covent Garden, La Scala, Vienna and the Met since 1945, by Susie Gilbert and Jay Shir

A wonderful and hugely entertaining history of the four big opera houses – Milan, Vienna, the New York Met and Covent Garden – A Take of Four Houses illuminates major developments in opera both musically and in terms of stage interpretation. From the post-war reconstruction of opera houses to the influence of colourful personalities such as Karajan and Visconti, Callas and Solti, Domingo, Pavarotti, Price and Sutherland, and finally the wide accessibility and popularity of opera today and the increasing financial pressures it faces.  Along with being a valuable study of opera that is essential reading for all opera enthusiasts, Gilbert introduces enthralling personalities, and through them the scandals, the money, the media skirmishes and the drama that provide fascinating insights into the world of opera behind the scenes. 

Susie Gilbert has worked for many years as an archival researcher and editor on numerous books of 20th century history, including the official biography of Winston Churchill. Jay Shir is a musician, writer and educator. 

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