Rosina Storchio - soprano

Star prospered despite Butterfly debut flop

Rosina Storchio was hailed for her
voice and her acting skills

The soprano Rosina Storchio, a major star of the opera world in the early 20th century, was born on this day in 1872 in Venice.

A favourite of the celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini, with whom she had an affair that scandalised Milan, she sang opposite Enrico Caruso and other male stars of her era, including Giuseppe Anselmi, Titta Ruffo and the Russian, Fyodor Chaliapin.

She sang in five notable premieres.  Ruggero Leoncavallo cast her as the first Mimì in his version of La bohème (1897) and also as Zazà in the opera of the same name (1900), Umberto Giordano created the role of Stephana for her in Siberia (1903), while she was Pietro Mascagni’s first Lodoletta (1917).

The first night for which she was often remembered, however, was the one that turned into a personal catastrophe for Giacomo Puccini, when Madama Butterfly was unveiled at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1904 only to be roundly booed by the audience, forcing the opera to be pulled from La Scala’s spring programme after one night.

Critics argued that the second act was too long and that despite a star-studded cast, including the celebrated Storchio in the role of Cio-Cio San, the story’s tragic heroine, the performance suffered from being under-rehearsed owing to Puccini having completed the score less than two months before the premiere.

Storchio in the role of Cio-Cio
San in Madama Butterfly

Puccini relaunched his opera, which remained his favourite work in spite of its disastrous debut, three months later in Brescia, this time to great acclaim, but Storchio was singing in South America at the time and refused to reprise the role in Italy until 1920, towards the end of her career.

Storchio had attended the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan as a young girl. For undocumented reasons, the conservatory expelled her, but she continued to receive private tuition and made her operatic debut as Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen at Milan's Teatro Dal Verme in 1892, at the age of 20.

Over the next three years, she sang at La Scala, making her first appearance there as Sophie in Jules Massenet's Werther and at the Teatro Lirico as Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, becoming a firm favourite with Milan audiences.

In 1897 she was cast in two world premieres, including Mimì in Leoncavallo’s La bohème at Teatro La Fenice in her native Venice, and opposite Caruso as Cristina in Giordano’s Il voto at the Teatro Lirico. 

By then, she had already been Mimì in Puccini's earlier version of La bohème in Florence and Como. Soon she was in demand all over Italy and beyond, making appearances in Germany, Austria and Monte Carlo and touring Russia. A lyric coloratura soprano, she was adored by some critics, who hailed her both for her voice and her acting skills.

Arturo Toscanini, the conductor, with
who Storchio had an affair

After watching her in Verdi’s La traviata, one critic wrote: “There will never be another Violetta to sing with such unutterable perfection, moving, laughing, loving, suffering as the slight and gentle Rosina Storchio [with] her enormous seductive eyes, her delightful coquetry, her gay tenderness, her fresh spontaneity."

Often partnered with the Sicilian tenor, Giuseppe Anselmi - who was also in the cast for Madama Butterfly’s premiere - she became a fixture at La Scala, as well as embarking on tours of Spain and South America, accepting invitations too to perform in New York and Chicago.

Storchio’s affair with Toscanini began after they met at rehearsals for the premiere of Leoncavallo's Zazà in 1900. Toscanini was captivated by her voice and beauty and their relationship caused a scandal because the conductor was married and about to become a father for the third time. Storchio fell pregnant in 1902 and gave birth to their son, Giovanino, the following year. It was an ill-fated liaison, however. Their relationship lasted only a few years before Toscanini embarked on another affair and Giovanino, who suffered brain damage at birth, did not live beyond the age of 16. 

Nonetheless, Storchio’s professional life continued to yield success and it was only when her voice began to falter in her late 40s that her reputation declined.  She gave her final public performance as Cio-Cio San in Puccini's Butterfly in Barcelona in 1923, aged 51.

In retirement, she lived privately and offered teaching to budding sopranos before taking the bold decision to join the Third Order of the Franciscans as a tertiary, while giving away her entire fortune to the Piccola Casa della Divina Provvidenza - the Little House of Divine Providence - a Turin-based religious charity, which cared for the poor and sick and raised orphan children.

She died in Rome in 1945 at the age of 73. Her remains were buried at the Monumental Cemetery in Milan.

The Teatro Dal Verme in Milan, where Rosina
Storchio made her debut in 1892

Travel tip:

Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme, where Storchio made her professional debut, can be found in Via San Giovanni sul Muro in central Milan, a short distance from the Castello Sforzesco. Opened in September 1872 - the year of the soprano's birth - it soon established itself as one of Italy's most important opera houses, staging world premieres for a number of important operas, including Puccini's Le Villi (1884) and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci (1892) and I Medici (1893). Since the 1930s, it has been at different times a cinema and a theatre for musical productions, having needed to be rebuilt after the Second World War, when it suffered bomb damage and had the metal parts of its central cupola stripped out by the occupying Germans. More recently it has been home to the Orchestra i Pomeriggi Musicali. 

The town of Gazoldo degli Ippoliti, home of 
the Museo Lirico Rosina Storchio

Travel tip:

The singer’s life is commemorated at the Museo Lirico Rosina Storchio in the town of Gazoldo degli Ippoliti in Lombardy, about 20km (12 miles) west of Mantua. The museum is dedicated to the history of opera, in particular the tradition of melodrama, and houses an extensive collection of memorabilia.  As well as Storchio, the museum celebrates the lives of the tenor Mario del Monaco and the baritone Aldo Protti. The Storchio memorabilia, originally housed in a museum established in 2002 in Dallo, a small town to the south of Brescia, were transferred to Gazoldo in 2016.

Also on this day:

1737: The birth of castrato singer Giuseppe Millico

1739: The birth of architect Giuseppe Bonomi

1853: The premiere of Verdi’s opera Il trovatore

1935: The birth of camorrista Assunta Maresca

1940: The birth of anti-Mafia magistrate Paolo Borsellino

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Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco – composer

Versatile musician wrote for stringed instruments and for films

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco began composing music for the
piano when he was a boy, growing up in Siena

One of the most admired composers of the 20th century, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, was born on this day in 1895 in Florence.

He composed more than 100 pieces of music for the guitar, many of them written for the Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia.

Because of anti-semitism in Europe, Mario emigrated to the United States in 1939 where he went to work for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, composing music for about 200 films.

Mario was descended from a family of bankers that had lived in Siena since the Jews were expelled from Spain in the 16th century.

He was introduced to the piano by his mother and was composing music by the time he was nine years old. His mother recognised his musical talent and encouraged him to study the piano and composition under well-regarded musicians.

Mario came to the attention of the composer and pianist Alfredo Casella, who included some of his work in his repertoire and promoted him throughout Europe as an up-and-coming young composer.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco recognised the potential
of the guitar after meeting Segovia in 1932

In 1926, Mario’s first opera, La mandragola, was premiered. Based on a play by Niccolò Machiavelli, it was the first of his many works inspired by great literature.

Another source of inspiration for his music was his Jewish heritage. His violin concerto No 2, written in 1931 at the request of violinist Jascha Heifetz, showed his pride in his origins in the face of increasing anti-semitism in Europe.

Mario first met Segovia at the 1932 festival of the International Society of Contemporary Music in Venice, which prompted him to start writing for the guitar.

He went on to write about 100 compositions for the guitar, some dedicated to Segovia. He also composed concertos specifically for the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.

By the 1930s, Mario was not only one of Italy’s leading contemporary composers, but also a sought-after pianist and an insightful critic.

But even before the Italian Racial Laws were introduced in 1938, Mario was banned from the radio and had performances of his works cancelled.

Listen to Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Opus 129 for guitar, played by the Tuscan guitarist Martina Barlotta

Conductor Arturo Toscanini and Heifetz both supported him in his bid to emigrate to the US and Mario left Italy with his wife and two sons on a ship from Trieste in July 1939 before the Second World War started.

Arturo Toscanini, who supported Castelnuovo-
Tedesco in his bid to reach the United States

He made his American debut performing his second piano concerto with the New York Philharmonic.

Mario went to Los Angeles to work as a composer of film music for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He was also asked by Rita Hayworth to write the music for her 1948 film The Loves of Carmen released by Columbia pictures.

He taught many other film composers, including John Williams, Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith, Nelson Riddle and Andre Previn.

Mario became a US citizen in 1946 but frequently visited Italy after the war.

In 1958 he won the Concorso Campari with his opera The Merchant of Venice, which was first performed in 1961 at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under the baton of Gianandrea Gavazzeni.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco died in 1968 at the age of 72 in Beverly Hills. He is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery.

A collection of his manuscripts was donated to the Library of Congress in Washington by his family in 2000. The Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Collection is now accessible online.

A tree-lined avenue within Florence's Parco delle Cascine.
which was once a hunting estate owned by the Medici

Travel tip:

Florence, where Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was born, has named a road after the composer. Fittingly it joins up with Via Arturo Toscanini, who was one of his close friends. The road is near Parco delle Cascine, a park on the north bank of the River Arno.  The origins of the park can be traced to 1563, when it was developed as a farming and hunting estate for the Medici family. It became a public park in the early 19th century.

The Piazza Unità d'Italia in the centre of Trieste, which was
Castlenuovo-Tedesco's starting point on his voyage to America

Travel tip:

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco left Italy in 1939 on board the SS Saturnia, which set sail from Trieste, a seaport that is the capital city of the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region. Trieste lies in the northernmost part of the high Adriatic near the border with Slovenia and 30 kilometres north of Croatia. Over the centuries it has been ruled by the Romans, Venetians, French, Austrians, Germans and Yugoslavians. It officially became part of the Italian republic in 1954. Today, Trieste is a lively and cosmopolitan city and a major centre for trade and ship building. In 2012, Lonely Planet called Trieste ‘the world’s most underrated travel destination’. It is a fascinating place to visit because of the Venetian, Slovenian, Austrian and Hungarian influences in the architecture, culture and cuisine.

Also on this day:

1639: The birth of composer Alessandro Stradella

1881: The birth of politician Alcide De Gasperi

1899: The birth of supercentenarian Maria Redaelli

(Picture credits: Parco delle Cascine by Sailko; Piazza Unità by Diego Delso)


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Nabucco premieres in Milan

Verdi opera that became a symbol of the Risorgimento

The bill advertising the first staging
of Nabucco at La Scala in Milan

The opera Nabucco, with music by Giuseppe Verdi and a libretto by Temistocle Solera, was first performed on this day in 1842 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

The opera contains the famous chorus Va, pensiero, a lament for a lost homeland that many Italians now regard as their unofficial national anthem.

The opera and Verdi himself have become synonymous with the Risorgimento, the period in the 19th century when people worked to free the Italian states of foreign domination and unite them under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel, the King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy.

It is said that during the last years of the Austrian occupation of Lombardia and the Veneto, for example, that Italian patriots adopted Viva Verdi as a slogan and rallying call, using the composer’s name as an acronym for 'Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia' - 'Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy'.

On the day of the composer’s funeral in Milan in 1901, a crowd of 300,000 people filled the streets and sang Va, pensiero, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, a moving event that showed how Verdi’s music had helped unite the Italian nation.

But Verdi nearly didn’t take up the offer to compose the music for Nabucco.

Verdi took up the offer to write the
music for Nabucco with reluctance

After a terrible two-year period, during which his young wife and two children had all died as a result of illnesses, Verdi had vowed never to compose music again.

During a chance meeting with Bartolomeo Merelli, La Scala’s impresario, Verdi was given a copy of Solera’s libretto, which had been rejected by another composer.

Verdi later recalled in his memoirs how he took the libretto home, threw it on the table with a violent gesture and it opened up in front of him. Verdi’‘s eye fell on the phrase, ‘Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate’  - 'Fly, thought, on golden wings'.

He tried to ignore the libretto but eventually found himself sitting at the piano and setting the words to music.

It is claimed he was still reluctant about working on the score and tried to take the manuscript back to Merelli, but the impresario stuffed the libretto back in Verdi’s pocket, threw him out of his office and locked the door.

Verdi went home and continued to work on the music and by the autumn of 1841 the opera was complete.

The opening performance at La Scala on 9 March 1842 was an immediate success, establishing Verdi as a major composer. The opera is still regularly performed all over the world today.

Verdi's future wife, Giuseppina Strepponi,
was a member of the original cast

The original cast included the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, who would later become Verdi's second wife.

Nabucco is named after King Nebuchadnezzar, who featured in the books of Jeremiah and Daniel in the Bible, and the opera follows the plight of the Jews he conquered and exiled. The chorus Va, pensiero - also known as the 'Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves' - captured the feeling of national pride among Italians at the time who were still living under Austrian domination.

In 1981 a journalist proposed replacing Italy’s official national anthem with Va, persiero. This never happened, but the political party Lega Nord - now La Lega - adopted it as its official hymn and the chorus is now sung at all party meetings.

In 2011, after conducting Va, pensiero at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, the conductor Riccardo Muti made a speech protesting about cuts in Italy’s arts budget and then invited the audience to sing along in support of culture and patriotism.

Milan's Teatro alla Scala, one of the world's most prestigious
opera houses, is right in the centre of the city

Travel tip:

Teatro alla Scala is in Piazza della Scala in the centre of Milan across the road from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, an elegant arcade lined with cafes, shops and restaurants which was built to link Piazza della Scala with Piazza del Duomo, Milan’s cathedral square. La Scala has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of opera. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli. It is open every day except the Italian Bank Holidays and a few days when it is closed in December. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30 pm.

Rome's Teatro dell'Opera, rebuilt in the 1920s by the
architect Marcello Piacentini, seats 1600 spectators

Travel tip:

The Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, where conductor Riccardo Muti invited the audience to join in the chorus Va, pensiero in 2011, is a 1600-seat opera house in Piazza Beniamino Gigli. It was originally opened in 1880 as the Costanzi Theatre and has undergone several changes of name and many improvements over the years.

Rome hotels by Booking.com

Also on this day:

1454: The birth of explorer Amerigo Vespucci

1809: The birth of statesman and winemaker Bettino Ricasoli

1908: The founding of the Milan football club Internazionale

1948: The birth of politician Emma Bonino


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Carlo Maria Giulini - conductor

Boy violinist who became a maestro of the baton

Giulini conducted some of the world's
great orchestras in a long career

Carlo Maria Giulini, who conducted many of the world’s great orchestras in a career spanning 54 years, was born on this day in 1914 in Barletta, a town on the Adriatic coast 66km (41 miles) north of the port city of Bari.

Appointed musical director of Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1953, he went on to become one of the most celebrated conductors of orchestral performances, developing long associations with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia of London in particular, as well as the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

He became renowned for projecting serene authority from the podium, as well as his selfless devotion to the score. A handsome man who was always impeccably tailored, he had a magisterial presence. Initially most recognised for the breadth and detail he brought to the operas of Verdi and Mozart, he eventually became as well known for his orchestral repertoire.

Carlo Maria Giulini was born to a Neapolitan mother and a father from Lombardy. Although born in the south of Italy, he was raised in Bolzano, which was part of Austria until 1915. For Christmas in 1919, when he was five, Giulini was given a violin and he progressed rapidly thanks to local instructors, notably a pharmacist who was also a violinist, whom he nicknamed Brahms.

Giulini with his wife Marcella de Girolami, to whom
he was married for more than half a century

When the distinguished Italian violinist and composer Remy Principe gave a recital in Bolzano in 1928, he invited Giulini to study with him at Italy's foremost conservatory, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He soon won a place in the academy’s prestigious orchestra.

He played under such giants of conducting as Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, and Otto Klemperer. Giulini’s first public performance was the Brahms Symphony No. 1 under Walter.

In 1940, Giulini won a competition with the prize of a chance to conduct the St. Cecilia orchestra. However, before the concert took place at which he was due to conduct, he was drafted into the Italian army and sent to the front in Croatia, in spite of being unequivocally opposed to Benito Mussolini and a committed pacifist. He refused to fire his gun at human targets.

In 1942, on a 30-day break in Rome, he married Marcella de Girolami, his girlfriend since 1938. They would remain together until her death 53 years later.

Giulini began his career mainly conducting
opera, first for the Rai radio orchestra 

In September 1943, the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces was signed, but the occupying Nazis refused to abandon Rome. When Giulini's Italian commander ordered his troops to fight on, Giulini went into hiding, living for nine months in a tunnel underneath a home owned by his wife's uncle, along with two friends and a Jewish family. There were posters around Rome showing his face with instructions that he be shot on sight.

After the Allies liberated Rome in June 1944, Giulini - one of the few conductors not tainted by associations with Fascism - was chosen to lead the Accademia's first post-Fascist concert, held in July 1944. On the programme was the Brahms Symphony No. 4, which would become almost his signature work, one that he conducted 180 times over the course of his career.

In 1948, Giulini conducted his first opera, a production of Verdi’s La Traviata for Italian radio, before conducting his first theatre production of the same opera in Bergamo in 1950.

After hearing Giulini’s radio broadcast of Debussy's La mer, the great conductor Arturo Toscanini asked to meet Giulini and recommended him to be musical director at La Scala. He took up the post in 1953, although in the event he resigned after members of the audience jeered Maria Callas during a run of operas in 1956.

In 1958, Giulini conducted a highly acclaimed production of Verdi's Don Carlos at the Royal Opera House in London - directed by Luchino Visconti - and although he returned to Covent Garden several more times, and to other venues in Europe, he became so disillusioned with some of the modern visual interpretations of classic works that he effectively quit opera in 1965 to concentrate on orchestral works. Even the Metropolitan Opera in New York could not persuade him to change his mind.

Giulini, who worked into his 80s, had a long association
with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

In 1955 he made his American debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, leading to a 23-year association with the orchestra, of which he was principal guest conductor from 1969 to 1972 and continued to appear with them regularly until 1978. In 1956, he began his association with the Philharmonia of London.

In addition to his role in Chicago, he was music director of the Vienna Symphony from 1973 to 1976. From 1978 to 1984, he served as principal conductor and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, launching his tenure there with performances of Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

In addition to being in great demand as a guest conductor of major orchestras around the world, Giulini made numerous recordings with the Philharmonia in London.

Two Mozart recordings, Don Giovanni and Le Nozze Di Figaro, brilliantly produced by Walter Legge, were recalled as exceptional. The recordings that followed during the early 1960s reflected a London concert repertory that included music by Schubert, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Ravel, as well as brilliant Rossini overtures and memorable performances of the Verdi Requiem.

Giulini often said that he found the public role of being a conductor uncomfortable and that ideally he would prefer to do no publicity at all. Yet he had an eccentric side that appeared to enjoy fame, to the extent that during his time in Los Angeles he would sometimes be spotted driving around in an open-top Mercedes, wearing sunglasses, a flowing scarf and a large hat that could scarcely fail to get him noticed.

His later years in America were marred somewhat by the ill health and eventual death of his wife in 1995, not long after which, in 1998, he announced his retirement, returning to Italy and living in the area around Brescia in Lombardy, where he died in 2005 at the age of 91.

The city of Bolzano is set against a backdrop of
 stunning Alpine views

Travel tip:

Bolzano, where Giulini grew up, is a city in the South Tyrol province of northern Italy, also known as Alto Adige. It is in a valley amid hilly vineyards. A gateway to the Dolomites mountain range in the Italian Alps, it has a medieval city centre, where can be found wooden market stalls are laid out with Alpine cheese, ham and dark, seeded loaves. Bolzano us the home of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, which features a Neolithic mummy called Ötzi the Iceman. Nearby is the imposing 13th-century Mareccio Castle, and the Duomo di Bolzano with its Romanesque and Gothic architecture.

The beautiful 14th century Basilica di Santa
Maria Maggiore in Barletta

Travel tip:

Giulini’s home town of Barletta is a working port with modern suburbs and an attractive historic centre, where one of the most famous sights is an ancient bronze 'Colossus', thought to be the oldest surviving bronze Roman statue. The identity of the figure the statue represents is not clear but one theory is that it is the Byzantine Emperor Marcian and that the statue’s original home was in Constantinople.  Barletta has a beautiful 12th century cathedral, renovated in the 14th century, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

More reading:

How a chance opportunity changed conductor Arturo Toscanini's life

The life of the passionate maestro Riccardo Muti

Why Luchino Visconti was known as the aristocrat of Italian cinema

Also on this day:

1740: The birth of composer Giovanni Paisello

1946: Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III abdicates

2013: The death of fashion designer Ottavio Missoni


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Giulio Gatti-Casazza - impresario

Manager who transformed the New York Met

Gatti-Casazza was manager at La Scala in
Milan before working in New York

Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the impresario who as general manager transformed the Metropolitan Opera in New York into one of the world’s great houses, was born on this day in 1869 in Udine in northeast Italy.

The former general manager at La Scala in Milan, Gatti-Casazza was in charge of the Met for 27 years, from 1908 to 1935.

In that time, having brought with him from Milan the brilliant conductor and musical director Arturo Toscanini, he not only attracted almost all of the great opera singers of his era but set the highest standards for the company, which have been maintained to the present day.

Gatti-Casazza also pulled off the not inconsiderable feat of rescuing the Met from the brink of bankruptcy after the stock market crash of 1929.

The young Gatti-Casazza had studied engineering after leaving school, graduating from the Genoa Naval School of Engineering, yet the love of opera was in the family. His father was manager of the Teatro Comunale, the municipal theatre in Ferrara, where they had moved when Giulio was young, and he succeeded his father in that role in 1893.

He proved very effective, combining his knowledge of opera with a natural gift for management. His success attracted attention and in 1898, at the age of just 29, he was recommended by the composer Arrigo Boito as a suitable candidate to be general manager at Teatro alla Scala - universally known as La Scala - in Milan.

A photograph taken at a dinner held in honour of Gatti-
Casazza and Toscanini at the Hotel St Regis in New York

Gatti-Casazza was appointed at the same time as Toscanini, also 29, was hired as principal conductor, having made his mark already in Buenos Aires and Turin.

At La Scala, he undertook a complete administrative overhaul and redefined the house’s purpose, turning it from a commercial theatre to a centre of excellence, dedicated to the advancement of the musical arts. It soon came to be seen as a temple of opera in Europe comparable with the opera houses of Paris and Vienna.

Again, his achievements were soon noted further afield, and in 1908 came an offer from Otto Kahn, chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Opera, to go to New York. 

Toscanini was persuaded to go with him, while another bonus was the opportunity to work again with Enrico Caruso, the brilliant Neapolitan tenor who had been given his debut at La Scala by Gatti-Casazza in 1900. Caruso had been at the Met since 1903, hired by the Austrian impresario Heinrich Conried, Gatti-Casazza's predecessor as general manager.

Gatti-Casazza with his first wife, the
soprano Frances Alda, in 1921

Early in their tenure, Gatti-Casazza and Toscanini arranged for the great composer Giacomo Puccini, whose fame had been established by the success of La Bohème and Tosca, to oversee a production of Madama Butterfly as well as commissioning him to write La Fanciulla del West for Caruso and their Czech soprano Emmy Destinn. The opera had its world premiere at the Met in 1910.

Under Gatti-Casazza's leadership, the Met’s reputation grew exponentially and most of the world’s celebrated singers in the early 20th century were only too eager to appear there, including Frances Alda, Amelita Galli-Curci, Lily Pons, Giovanni Martinelli, Beniamino Gigli, Titta Ruffo and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi.

Gatti-Casazza became the toast of the New York cultural scene, twice featuring on the cover of Time Magazine as one of the first Italians to be afforded that honour.

Although he suffered a blow in 1915 when Toscanini decided to return to Italy, by far the biggest crisis to face Gatti-Casazza in New York was the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which prevented a planned move of the company to a new home at the Rockefeller Centre and revealed large holes in the Met’s finances.

Along with other staff, Gatti-Casazza took a cut in salary in a bid to keep the business going. But it was mainly his willingness to embrace new opportunities that enabled him to ride out the storm.

One of the first to see records as a way to build a Metropolitan Opera brand, he had responded to the travel restrictions of the First World War by encouraging and promoting American singers and when Paul Cravath, who had succeeded Khan as chairman of the board, signed a contract with the National Broadcasting Company to deliver weekly radio broadcasts of concerts - beginning with Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel on Christmas Eve, 1931 - Gatti-Casazza took on the challenge with typical entrepreneurial enthusiasm.

Twice married - first to the New Zealand-born soprano Frances Alda and later to the Italian ballerina Rosina Galli, he retired from his position at the Met in 1935 and returned to Italy, working again in Ferrara until his death in 1940.

The Piazza della Libertà is the architectural showpiece
of the northeastern city of Udine

Travel tip:

Udine is an attractive and wealthy provincial city and the gastronomic capital of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Udine's most attractive area lies within the medieval centre, which has Venetian, Greek and Roman influences. The main square, Piazza della Libertà, features the town hall, the Loggia del Lionello, built in 1448–1457 in the Venetian-Gothic style, and a clock tower, the Torre dell’Orologio, which is similar to the clock tower in Piazza San Marco - St Mark's Square - in Venice.  The city was part of the Austrian Empire between 1797 and 1866 and retains elements of a café society as legacy from that era, particularly around Piazza Matteotti, known locally as il salotto di Udine - Udine's drawing room.

Find hotels in Udine with TripAdvisor

The Castello Estense, built in the later years of the 14th
century, dominates the centre of Ferrara

Travel tip:

The Este family ruled the city of Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna between 1240 and 1598, the character of the urban landscape established in that time still visible in the narrow, medieval streets to the west and south of the city centre, between the main thoroughfares of Via Ripa Grande and Via Garibaldi. The centre is dominated by the magnificent, moated Este Castle (Castello Estense), on which work began in 1385 and which was added to and improved by successive rulers of Ferrara until the end of the Este line. The castle was purchased for 70,000 lire by the province of Ferrara in 1874 to be used as the headquarters of the local prefecture.


More reading:

The chance career-change that turned Arturo Toscanini from cellist to world famous conductor

Arrigo Boito, the composer and patriot who fought with Garibaldi

Enrico Caruso, the tenor some call the greatest of all time

Also on this day:

1702: The birth of Sicilian architect Giovanni Basttista Vaccarini

1757: The birth of eye surgeon Giuseppe Forlenza

1857: The birth of sculptor Giuseppe Moretti

(Picture credit: Castello Estense by Massimo Baraldi)

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Francesco Tamagno - operatic tenor

19th century star was first to sing Verdi’s Otello

Francesco Tamagno was a world-renowned
star of 19th century opera

The operatic tenor Francesco Tamagno, most famous for singing the title role at the premiere of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1887, was born on this day in 1850 in Turin.

Tamagno, whose powerful voice and range put him a category of singers known as heroic tenors by being naturally suited to heroic roles, developed a reputation that enabled him to command high fees around the world and amass a considerable fortune.

During a career that spanned 32 years from his debut in 1873 to his premature death at the age of 54, Tamagno sang in some 55 operas and sacred works in 26 countries.

In addition to his association with Otello, he also was the first Gabriele Adorno in Verdi's 1881 revision of Simon Boccanegra, and appeared in the premiere of Verdi's Italian-language version of Don Carlos when it was staged at La Scala in 1884.

Five other operas in which Tamagno is acknowledged as the creator of leading roles include Carlos Gomes' Maria Tudor, Amilcare Ponchielli's Il figliol prodigo and Marion Delorme, Ruggero Leoncavallo's I Medici and Isidore de Lara's Messaline.

From a large family in the Borgo Dora area of Turin, Tamagno was the son of a wine seller who also kept a small trattoria.  He took music lessons at the city’s Liceo Musicale from the conductor and composer Carlo Pedrotti, who was able to arrange for him to sing some small parts at Turin's Teatro Regio, of which he was the director.

Tamagno as Otello in the 1887
premiere of Verdi's opera

One of Tamagno's earliest opportunities to perform in a major role came in January 1874 at the Teatro Bellini in Palermo, where he attracted considerable attention for an outstanding performance as Riccardo in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.

Quickly given more engagements, he made his debut at La Scala in 1877, as Vasco de Gama in Giacomo Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine.

Over his career, Tamagno was lauded for his interpretations of many established parts, such as Manrico in Il trovatore (Verdi), Don Alvaro in La forza del destino (Verdi), the titles role in Ernani (Verdi) and Poliuto (Gaetano Donizetti), Arnold in Guillaume Tell (Gioachino Rossini), John of Leyden in Le prophète (Meyerbeer), Raoul in Les Huguenots (Meyerbeer), Vasco in L'Africaine, Robert in Robert le diable (Meyerbeer) and Eleazar in La Juive (Fromental Halévy).

Conductors of the standing of Franco Faccio, Luigi Mancinelli and Arturo Toscanini toured with Tamagno, who appeared opposite some of the most illustrious sopranos, baritones and basses in operatic history.

He witnessed the rise to fame of Enrico Caruso, predicting that the young Neapolitan would go on to become the leading Italian tenor of the 20th century. Tamagno and Caruso actually appeared on the same stage in February 1901, during a concert at La Scala organised by Toscanini as a tribute to Verdi, who had died the previous month.

Tamagno recognised the talent of Enrico
Caruso, with whom he once shared a stage

A big man with a physique to match his powerful voice, Tamagno developed chronic heart problems that caused his health to deteriorate in his late 40s, forcing him to quit the operatic stage. He would appear in concerts but had to give his last in 1904, in Ostend, Belgium.  Some recordings were preserved from the last two years of his professional life.

He retired to the villa in Varese, Lombardy, that he had owned since 1885, but his health did not improve and died in August 1905, from a heart attack. His body was buried in an elaborate mausoleum at Turin's General Cemetery.

Although Tamagno sang in the great opera houses of Barcelona, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, New York, London, San Petersburg and Lisbon, he never deserted his roots and would periodically return to his neighbourhood around the Porta Palazzo in Turin, where he would meet up with old friends and give free performances to support local charities.

He had a daughter, Margherita, who had been born out of wedlock, but he took a close interest in her upbringing, writing letters to her from around the world as well as willingly giving her financial support. It was she who inherited his estate.

The charming, cobbled Via Borgo Dora winds through
the area where Francesco Tamagno grew up

Travel tip:

Borgo Dora is a small historic district of Turin, just north of Corso Regina Margherita around the Porta Palazzo, bordered to the north by the river Dora Riparia, only a few metres from Piazza Castello at the heart of the city. It is an area with a strong historical identity, the only survivor of the four villages that developed around the old gates of the city.  The Via Borgo Dora, which loops around the area in a southeast direction from the Turin Eye, the tethered hot air balloon situated by the river, is a charming cobbled street with many restaurants and antiques shops. The area is also famed for its markets. The Piazza della Repubblica hosts a massive open air market every Saturday, with between 700 and 1,000 stalls, while the area around the Cortile del Maglio is the home to an enormous flea market every second Sunday in the month.

The picturesque Lake Varese is just outside the city of
Varese in Lombardy, south of the main Italian lakes

Travel tip:

Varese, where Tamagno retired to a grand villa, is a city in Lombardy, 55km (34 miles) north of Milan and not far from Lake Maggiore. It is rich in castles, villas and gardens, many connected with the Borromeo family, who were from the area. The small Lake Varese is 8.5km (5 miles) long, set in low rolling hills just below Varese. Many visitors to the city are drawn to the Sacro Monte di Varese (the Sacred Hill of Varese), which features a picturesque walk passing 14 monuments and chapels, eventually reaching the monastery of Santa Maria del Monte.


More reading:

Mario del Monaco, the 20th century tenor famous for Otello

Franco Corelli: the 'prince of tenors'

Why tenor Tito Schipa divided opinions

Also on this day:

1503: The death of Florentine ruler Piero the Unfortunate

1908: Italy's worst earthquake

1947: The death of exiled King Victor Emmanuel III



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Guido Crepax - cartoonist

Erotic character Valentina captured spirit of 1960s Italy

Erotic imagery was central to the success of Crepax's
most famous character, Valentina

The cartoonist Guido Crepax, whose character Valentina became a heroine of the 1960s generation in Italy and beyond, was born on this day in 1933 in Milan.

Valentina first appeared in May 1965 as a secondary character in another cartoon, the photographer girlfriend of an art critic and amateur sleuth.

But the sinuous, sensual female depicted by Crepax, her hair cut in a glossy bob, soon acquired fans both male and female.

In an era when Italian society was beginning to experience a sense of sexual liberation for the first time, Valentina’s eroticism naturally attracted a legion of male fans. But her assertive individuality struck a chord with many modern Italian women, too, even if her readiness to shed her clothes caused outrage among others.

Soon, Valentina left behind her fictional boyfriend and starred in a series of her own adventures, which Crepax continued to produce for three decades. She was outspoken in her left-wing political views, while her uninhibited fantasies increasingly reflected the world of dreams and psychoanalysis that fascinated her creator.  Her style even influenced the Milan fashion world.

Guido Crepax created his most
famous character in 1965

Crepax was born Guido Crepas, the son of Gilberto Crepas, a musician from Venice who had moved to Milan to play at Teatro alla Scala, where he eventually became first cellist under the direction of Arturo Toscanini. 

The family home in Milan was virtually destroyed during a bombing raid in the Second World War but Guido survived to study architecture at Milan University. He graduated in 1958, by which time he had already begun  working as a graphic artist with some success.

His design work included advertising posters, record sleeves - among them Domenico Modugno's hit Nel blu, dipinto di blu (aka Volare) - and magazine and book covers.

His publicity campaign for Shell Oil won him the Palme d'Or for advertising in 1957. The following year he began a long-running collaboration with Tempo Medico, the first Italian medical journal, for which he designed every cover for 22 years.

Then came his first experience of drawing cartoons, with which he had been involved only two years when Valentina appeared for the first time in Linus magazine, in a series in which the main character was her boyfriend Philip Rembrandt, an art critic in his day job who led a double life as the crime fighter Neutron, helped by having the power to freeze people with a penetrating gaze.

Crepax created a back story for Valentina that in many ways reflected his own.

Guido Crepax designed the sleeve for Domenico
 Modugno's hit, Nel blu, dipinto di blu

He named her Valentina Rosselli after the resistance heroes Nello and Carlo Rosselli, whose courage he admired. He gave her an address in Milan's Via De Amicis, where he lived, and filled her apartment with the books that he and his intellectual circle were inspired and informed by.

She was modelled, in part, on the silent movie actress Louise Brooks, who favoured the archetypal ‘flapper’ look with the short bob, and on Crepax's own wife, Luisa.

Valentina was far from Crepax’s only character. He created several other female heroines, such as Belinda, Bianca and Anita, for whom the inspiration was Anita Ekberg, the star of Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita.

He also drew cartoons based on works of literature, such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the scandalous novels of the Marquis de Sade, the Gothic novels of Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka’s The Trial.

None, however, brought him the acclaim of Valentina, who was published in France, Brazil, Spain, Germany, Japan, the United States, Finland and Greece as well as Italy.

Valentina was twice adapted for the screen: in the 1973 Franco-Italian production Baba Yaga, and as a television series, starring the American actor Demetra Hampton. Both were a disappointment for her author.

A long-time sufferer from multiple sclerosis, Crepax died in Milan in 2003, at the age of 69.

Via Edmondo de Amicis, where Guido Crepax lived

Travel tip:

The Via Edmondo de Amicis, where Crepax lived and where he placed the fictional apartment of his comic book heroine Valentina, is in central Milan, between the Carrobbio and San Vittore neighbourhoods to the southwest of the city centre. A pleasant urban boulevard, it is a short distance from the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio, one of the most ancient churches in the city, the original structure of which was built in the 4th century. The Baroque church that stands there today was completed in the 11th century.

The Teatro alla Scala, where Crepax's father was a musician,
has become of the world's premier opera houses

Travel tip:

The Teatro alla Scala - usually referred to by its abbreviated name La Scala - was built in the late 18th century as a replacement for the Teatro Regio Ducale, which was destroyed in a fire in 1776.  The project was financed by some 90 wealthy Milanese and built on the site of the church of Santa Maria alla Scala, from which it takes its name. The theatre has come to be regarded as the premier opera venue in Italy and one of the most important venues for opera and ballet in the world, with ambitious young singers and dancers from every corner of the globe clamouring for places at La Scala Theatre Academy.

More reading:

Hugo Pratt - the Rimini-born artist behind the adventurer Corto Maltese

How Franco Bonvicini's characters mocked the Nazis

The cinematic legacy of Fellini

Also on this day:

1823: Ancient Roman basilica badly damaged by fire

1850: The birth of Frances Xavier Cabrini - America's first saint


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Gianandrea Noseda - conductor

Milanese musician has achieved worldwide acclaim

Gianandrea Noseda is one of the most
able conductors of his generation

Gianandrea Noseda, who is recognised as one of the leading orchestra conductors of his generation, was born on this day in 1964 in Milan.

He holds the title of Cavaliere Ufficiale al Merito della Repubblica Italiana for his contribution to the artistic life of Italy.

Noseda studied piano and composition in Milan and began studying conducting at the age of 27.

He made his debut as a conductor in 1994 with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. He won the Cadaques International Conducting Competition for young conductors in Spain the same year.

In 1997 he became principal guest conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and during his time there became fluent in Russian.

In 2002 he became principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic and in this role led live performances in Manchester of Beethoven’s nine symphonies. In 2006 his title was changed to chief conductor.

Noseda has been music director at the
Teatro Regio in Turin since 2007

The London Symphony Orchestra announced the appointment of Noseda as its new principal guest conductor in 2016.

Noseda has been Music Director of the Teatro Regio Torino since 2007, taking their orchestra to the Edinburgh Festival in 2017. He has also conducted the orchestra of the Teatro Regio Torino for the recording of a number of opera albums, featuring celebrated singers such as Rolando Villazon.

The conductor celebrates his 54th birthday today and at the end of May he will lead the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall for the first time. He will conduct the orchestra in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 5 and Mahler’s Symphony No 5.

He met his Sicilian-born wife, Lucia, at the Milan Conservatory when they were both students. They have a home on the western shore of Lake Maggiore.

The Naviglio Grande is a colourful and lively stretch of
Milan's canal system

Travel tip:

The Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, where Noseda made his debut as a conductor, was founded in 1993 and is now based at the Auditorium di Milano Fondazione Cariplo in Largo Gustav Mahler close to the city’s Navigli district.  The auditorium was inaugurated in 1999 and quickly became one of the most important cultural venues in the city.  Navigli is the name of the triangle bounded by the Naviglio Grande and the Naviglio Pavese canals in the southwestern quadrant of the city, an area that is popular with young Milanese and boasts many attractive bars and restaurants.

The modern auditorium at the Teatro Regio of today

Travel tip:

The Teatro Regio Torino, where Noseda has been musical director, is in Piazza Castello close to the Palazzo Reale in the centre of Turin. The Teatro Regio has had something of a chequered history. Inaugurated in 1740, it was closed by royal decree in 1792 then reopened with the French occupation of Turin during the early 19th century, first as the Teatro Nazionale and then the Teatro Imperiale before its original name was reinstated with the fall of Napoleon in 1814. It endured several financial crises in the late 1800s but limped into the 20th century only to be burnt down in a catastrophic fire in 1936. It remained dark for 37 years until reopening in 1973.

More reading:

How American TV made Arturo Toscanini a star

Riccardo Muti still going strong at almost 77

The conductor who helped make Maria Callas a star

Also on this day:

1857: The birth of opera composer Ruggero Leoncavallo

1939: The birth of Mafia boss Stefano Bontade


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