Arturo Toscanini - conductor

Cellist who became orchestra leader by chance

Arturo Toscanini is remembered as one of the 
most influential figures in 20th century music

The brilliant conductor Arturo Toscanini was born on this day in 1867 in Oltretorrente, a working-class neighbourhood of Parma, now part of Emilia-Romagna.

Toscanini came to be recognised as one of the most influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century. An intense individual who was a perfectionist in everything he did, as well as having a brilliant ear for detail in orchestral performances, he also had the gift of being able to remember complete musical scores after only one reading. 

At various times, he was the music director at Teatro alla Scala in Milan and at the New York Philharmonic. He became particularly well known in the United States after he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. 

Toscanini had the privilege of conducting the world premieres of many of the greatest operas of his lifetime, including Pagliacci, La bohème, La fanciulla del West and Turandot, as well as Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, Salome, Pelléas et Mélisande and Euryanthe. 

The son of a tailor, Toscanini developed an interest in music at an early age and won a scholarship to Parma Conservatory, where he studied the cello. 

Toscanini (right) and the composer Giacomo Puccini
enjoyed a close professional relationship

He joined the orchestra of an opera company, with whom he toured Brazil. It was there, in Rio de Janeiro, that the young Arturo picked up the conductor’s baton for the first time, although entirely through circumstance.

Prior to a presentation of Verdi’s Aida, the singers refused to work with the locally hired conductor, Leopoldo Miguez, who abruptly resigned. His replacement was subjected to booing from the audience, who were unhappy with his performance, and also resigned, leaving the orchestra without a conductor and the next performance only hours away.

Aware of his ability to remember whole scores, a member of the orchestra suggested giving the baton to Toscanini. Only 19 years old and with no conducting experience, Toscanini was reluctant at first but was eventually persuaded to accept the invitation, aware that the whole tour was at risk of being cancelled if he did not.

In the event, he led the two-and-a-half hour performance flawlessly, and entirely from memory. He found he had a natural talent for the job. The audience warmed to his charisma and intensity and applauded his musicianship. He kept the baton for another 18 operas as the tour unfolded with great success.

Toscanini became one of the
most sought-after conductors

Word spread of his ability and he soon found himself in demand. He continued to play the cello, but his talent as a conductor brought so much work that opportunities to take his seat in the orchestra became fewer and fewer.

He made his conducting debut in Italy at the Teatro Carignano in Turin in November, 1886, leading the premiere of a revised version of Alfredo Catalani’s Edmea. He soon broadened his repertoire to symphonic concerts, his reputation growing so fast that in 1898 he was named principal conductor at La Scala, at the age of just 31.

He remained at the Milan theatre, Italy’s principal opera house, for 10 years before he was lured away to America for the first time by Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the former general manager at La Scala, who had taken the same role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and persuaded Toscanini to join him there. 

Toscanini spent seven seasons at the Met, returning to Europe in 1915. He was due to leave New York on the British liner RMS Lusitania on May 7 but decided at the last moment to depart a week earlier on the Italian liner Duca degli Abruzzi. It proved a mightily fortuitous decision: the Lusitania never made it to its intended destination, sinking off the coast of Ireland after being torpedoed by a German u-boat. A total of 1,197 passengers and crew perished.

He maintained his transatlantic lifestyle, conducting around Europe and in the United States, leading the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra between 1928 and 1936. He ceased working in his native Italy, however, after falling foul of the Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini.

Mussolini was keen to attach himself to Toscanini, whom he described as ‘the greatest conductor in the world’ and wished to promote as a symbol of Italian excellence. But Toscanini had little truck with Fascism, defying Mussolini by refusing to conduct the party’s official hymn, Giovinezza.

Toscanini's tomb at the Cimitero Monumentale
in Milan, where he was buried after his death at 89

Eventually, though, his defiance rebounded on him when he refused to lead a rendition of Giovinezza at a concert in Bologna in 1931, in spite of the presence in the audience of a leading Fascist official. Afterwards, Toscanini was set upon by Blackshirts and badly beaten. His passport was confiscated and he was put under surveillance. The passport was eventually returned following a public outcry and as Italy entered World War Two he left the country.

Prior to that, he had considered retirement. Instead, he embarked on a new chapter of his career, leading the newly-formed NBC Symphony Orchestra. When Toscanini did finally retire, in 1954, he was 87 years old.

Although he reportedly had numerous affairs, notably with the American soprano, Geraldine Farrar, Toscanini was married only once, to Carla De Martini, who was a teenager when they met. They remained together from their wedding in 1897 to her death in 1951. They had three children, a son, Walter, and daughters Wally and Wanda.

Toscanini died on January 16, 1957, having suffered a stroke on New Year's Day at his home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx in New York City. He was 89. His body was returned to Italy and buried at the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan. His tomb carries an epitaph based on a remark he is said to have made at the end of the 1926 premiere of Puccini's unfinished Turandot.

"Qui finisce l'opera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto - Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died".

The house where Toscanini was
born is now a museum of his life

Travel tip:

The house in Borgo Rodolfo Tanzi, in the Oltretorrente district of Parma, where Arturo Toscanini was born, is now a museum of his life, open to the public between 10am and 6pm from Wednesday to Sunday, closing on Monday and Tuesday. A 15-minute walk from the city centre and close to the sprawling green space of the Parco Ducale, the house was one shared by the Toscaninis and three other families. His father, a tailor who fought in Garibaldi’s army in the campaign to unite Italy, used the downstairs room as a workshop. Among the exhibits on display are photographs, theatre programmes and posters, letters to and from composers with whom he worked, such as Giacomo Puccini and Richard Strauss, and some of the clothes he wore to conduct. There is a letter from Albert Einstein, the German physicist and noted campaigner against racism, praising Toscanini for standing up to the Fascists.

Parma's 12th century baptistery
is among the city's main sights

Travel tip:

Parma is an historic city, famous for its Prosciutto di Parma ham and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, the true ‘parmesan’. In 1545 the city was given as a duchy to the illegitimate son of Pope Paul III, Alessandro Farnese, whose descendants ruled Parma till 1731. As well as Toscanini, the city’s musical heritage includes the composer, Giuseppe Verdi, who was born near Parma at Bussetto. The city has a prestigious opera house, the Teatro Regio, and a Conservatory named in honour of Arrigo Boito, who wrote the libretti for many of Verdi’s operas.  An elegant city with an air of prosperity common to much of Emilia-Romagna, Parma’s outstanding architecture includes an 11th century Romanesque cathedral and the octagonal 12th century baptistery that adjoins it, the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, which has a beautiful late Mannerist facade and bell tower, and the Palazzo della Pilotta, which houses the Academy of Fine Arts, the Palatine Library, the National Gallery and an archaeological museum.

Also on this day:

1347: The birth of Saint Catherine of Siena

1541: The birth of Francesco I, Grand Duke of Tuscany

1546: The birth of poet and courtesan Veronica Franco

1625: The death of poet Giambattista Marino

1927: The birth of politician Tina Anselmi

1940: The birth of record-breaking pop star Mina 

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Sylvano Bussotti - composer, writer and painter

The productive life of a Renaissance man with many strings to his bow

Sylvano Bussotti was described as a
modern Renaissance man

The multi-talented Sylvano Bussotti, a leading composer who was part of Italy’s avant-garde movement, was born on this day in 1931 in Florence.

Bussotti was also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and writer. His operas and ballets were performed at the most prestigious theatres in Italy and abroad and he served as artistic director of Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Puccini festival in Tuscany and the music section of the Venice Biennale.

Before he was five years old, Bussotti was learning to play the violin and he soon became a prodigy. He was also introduced to painting early in his life by his older brother and uncle.

At the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence, he studied harmony and counterpoint and learnt the piano, but he was unable to complete his studies and receive any official qualifications because of the start of World War II.

However, Bussotti continued to study composition on his own and, from 1958, he took private composition lessons with Max Deutsch in Paris.

Bussotti embarked on what has been described as an important editorial relationship with music publishers Casa Ricordi in 1956. His first composition to be performed in public, entitled Breve, was heard at a gallery in Dusseldorf in 1958.

The American mezzo-soprano Cathy  Berberian
with Bussotti at a performance in 1960

His compositions employed the use of graphic notation, which represented music through the realm of visual symbols instead of traditional music notation.

The composer received many awards and prizes for his music, both in Italy and abroad. In the 1960s he was invited to the United States to visit Buffalo and New York, by the Rockefeller Foundation.

His first opera, La passion selon Sade, was premiered in Palermo in 1965. Along with other composers of the time, Bussotti experimented with the interaction between sound, sign, and vision.

Bussotti also acted and sang himself and he directed films. He was a painter and graphic artist and his art works have been exhibited in many different countries. He wrote novels and poems and he was able to write most of the librettos for his own operas.

Later in life, Bussotti taught composition, analysis, and the history of musical theatre at academies in L’Aquila, Fiesole, and Stuttgart.

He served as the artistic director of La Fenice in Venice, directed the Puccini festival in Torre del Lago in Tuscany, and became director of opera at La Scala in Milan. He was head of the music section of the Venice Biennale from 1987 to 1991.

Bussotti was openly gay and his partner, the ballet dancer and choreographer Rocco Quaglia, collaborated with him on many of his projects.

The composer died at a nursing home in Milan after a long illness just before his 90th birthday. A five-day cultural event in Florence, which had been planned to celebrate Bussotti’s birthday, still went ahead in the city to celebrate his artistic achievements instead.

Bussotti has been sometimes described as a Renaissance man because of his many talents, which enabled him to combine different art forms creatively.

The Luigi Cherubini Conservatory is one
of the most important in Italy

Travel tip:

Sylvano Bussotti received his early musical education at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Piazza delle Belle Arti in Florence, one of the most important music conservatories in Italy. The conservatory, which is not far from La Galleria dell’Accademia, is named after the 18th century composer, Luigi Cherubini, who was born in the city. The conservatory occupies part of a former nunnery, which was closed in the 18th century by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Leopold II, who would go on to become Holy Roman Emperor.

Teatro La Fenice has risen from the 
ashes more than once in its history

Travel tip:

Teatro La Fenice in Venice, where Bussotti served as artistic director, has had a fascinating history. The theatre, in Campo San Fantin, which is not far from Piazza San Marco, was named La Fenice, the Phoenix, when it was originally built in the 1790s, to reflect the fact it was helping an opera company rise from the ashes after its previous theatre had burnt down. But in 1836, La Fenice itself was destroyed by fire, although it was quickly rebuilt. Then in 1996, when the theatre burnt down again, arson was suspected, leading to a long criminal investigation. La Fenice had to be rebuilt once more at a cost of more than 90 million euros and was not able to reopen for performances until 2003.

Also on this day:

1450: The death of Leonello d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara

1910: The birth of cycling champion Attilio Pavesi

1961: The birth of football coach Walter Mazzarri

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Ennio Porrino - composer

Premature death robbed Italian music of great talent

Ennio Porrino is seen by some as
one of the greats of Italian opera

The composer Ennio Porrino, best known for his symphonic poem, Sardegna, and his opera, I Shardana, was born on this day in 1910 in Cagliari.

Porrino was critically acclaimed, his operas earning comparisons with the great Giacomo Puccini, although to some his reputation has been tarnished by his association with Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime. He was only 49 when he died in Rome.

His 1941 opera, Gli Orazi, has been interpreted as a ‘hymn to fascism’ by some critics, while his piece, The March of the Volunteer, was used by Mussolini’s short-lived Italian Social Republic as its anthem.

Little is known of Porrino’s early years. It is thought that his family moved to Rome when he was a small child and most accounts of his life begin with his studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, which he attended from the age of 17 and where he graduated in 1932.

He also studied with the composer Ottorino Respighi, who was keen to see his potential realised.  Respighi would be a significant influence on Porrino’s own work.

Porrino was not slow to make an impact in Roman musical circles. In 1931 he won an opera competition organised by the Giornale d'Italia newspaper. Two years later, his overture for orchestra, Tartarin de Tarascon, won the Accademia di Santa Cecilia’s own competition for the 25th anniversary concerts at the Teatro Augusteo, where it premiered under the baton of Bernardino Molinari. 

Porrino studied under the violinist and
composer Ottorino Respighi (above)

Molinari was the conductor in January of the following year when Porrino’s  symphonic poem Sardegna was performed for the first time. A tribute to a homeland Porrino was yet to understand and appreciate, Sardegna was based largely on the nostalgic tales passed to him by his Sardinian mother. The piece was widely appreciated and performed numerous times in Italy and abroad, as well as being included in the Italian music section of the 1935 Hamburg International Festival. 

Like Respighi, who died in 1936, Porrino championed an Italian national music movement faithful to its classical roots. He openly opposed modernist composers such as Alfredo Casella.

However, some academics argue that there was a dark side to Porrino’s enthusiasm for traditional Italian music, citing an article he wrote for an antisemitic journal, La difesa della razza - The Defence of Race - in 1938.

Under the title, La musica nella tradizione della nostra razza - Music in the tradition of our race - Porrino argued that Italian music was a fundamental component of Italian culture and national pride, but that it had been corrupted by internationalism, which was generally recognised as code for Judaism. 

His opposition to Casella, it has been suggested, might have had as much to do with the latter’s opposition to Mussolini’s despised race laws as his music. Casella also happened to be married to a French woman from a Jewish family.

Porrino was also excited by Mussolini’s dream of restoring Rome to its former grandeur as the heart of his Fascist empire and his promotion of what he saw as the masculine, dynamic values of so-called romanità (Roman-ness).

Gli Orazi told the story of the feud between the
Orazi and Curiazi families in 7th century Rome

In was in this context, perhaps, that Porrino wrote Gli Orazi, which is the story of a conflict between the Roman family of Horatius (Orazio) and that of Curiatius (Curiazio), from Alba Longa, just to the south of Rome, when the two cities are at war during the seventh century.

The one-act opera concludes with a victory for the Orazi in this feud and a celebration of Rome’s defeat of Alba in the war.  Porrino collaborated with the librettist Claudio Guastalla on Gli Orazi, as he had in completing Respighi’s unfinished opera, Lucrezia, after Respighi’s death. Guastalla, though he regarded himself unequivocally as Italian, was the son of Jewish parents and his name ultimately disappeared from the credits.

Nonetheless, Gli Orazi was staged with great success at La Scala in Milan in February 1941.  

After the fall of Mussolini and the defeat of the Fascists, the immediate post-war years saw Porrino devote more time to academic work than to composing. He was appointed professor of composition at the Rome Conservatory, and became a full member of both the Accademia di Santa Cecilia and the Luigi Cherubini Academy in Florence.

In 1946 he was appointed substitute librarian in the Library of the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella in Naples, where he also taught composition.  Later, he became director of the Pierluigi da Palestrina Conservatory of Cagliari, and conducted orchestral and choral performances in Naples and Venice.

Sardinia is dotted with the remains of nuraghe,
conical stone towers as old as the Shardana

He returned to opera composition triumphantly with I Shardana, a 1959 work set among the warrior race that spent much of its time defending Sardinia from foreign invaders during the Bronze Age.

Inspired by what Porrino had learned about his homeland after returning as an adult, the opera is regarded as one of the most important in Italy post 1945 and confirmed Porrino’s reputation, according to some critics, as the greatest Italian musician since Puccini.

It came as a profound shock, then, just a few months after I Shardana’s premiere at Teatro San Carlo in Naples, when it was reported in September 1959 that Porrino had died, following a sudden illness. He had been in Venice only a few days earlier, when his work La bambola malata, described as a pantomime, had been performed at the Venice International Festival of Contemporary Music.  

He left a widow, Malgari, a painter and theatrical designer, and a daughter, Stefania, born in 1957, who became a playwright and stage director in adulthood.

An orchestral performance inside the modern
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome

Travel tip:

The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, was established in 1565. It was founded in Rome by Pope Sixtus V at the Church of Santa Maria ad Martires, better known as the Pantheon. Over the centuries, many famous composers and musicians have been members, among them opera singers Beniamino Gigli and Cecilia Bartoli. Since 2005 the Academy’s headquarters have been at the Parco della Musica in Rome, which was designed by the architect Renzo Piano, in Viale Pietro de Coubertin in the Flaminio district, close to the location of the 1960 Summer Olympic Games.

A view from the sea similar to that which the
writer D H Lawrence might have experienced

Travel tip:

Cagliari, where Porrino was born, is Sardinia's capital, an industrial centre and one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean. Yet it is also a city of considerable beauty and history, most poetically described by the novelist DH Lawrence when he visited in the 1920s. As he approached from the sea, Lawrence set his eyes on the confusion of domes, palaces and ornamental facades which, he noted, seemed to be piled on top of one another. He compared it to Jerusalem, describing it as 'strange and rather wonderful, not a bit like Italy.’  What he saw was Cagliari’s charming historic centre, known as Castello, inside which the city’s university, cathedral and several museums and palaces - plus many bars and restaurants - are squeezed into a network of narrow alleys.

Also on this day:

1526: The birth of mathematician Rafael Bombelli

1920: The birth of film director Federico Fellini

1950: The birth of magazine editor Franca Sozzani

1987: The birth of motorcycle racer Marco Simoncelli

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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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Gaspare Campari - drinks maker

Bar owner who created classic red aperitif

Gaspare Campari created his eponymous
liqueur while running a bar in Novara

Gaspare Campari, whose desire to mix distinctive and unique drinks for the customers of his bar resulted in the creation of the iconic Campari aperitif, was born on this day in 1828 in Cassolnovo, a small town approximately 30km (19 miles) southwest of Milan.

He founded the company, subsequently developed by his sons, Davide and Guido, that would grow to such an extent that, as Gruppo Campari, it is now the sixth largest producer of wines, spirits and soft drinks in the world with a turnover of more than €1.8 billion.

Gaspare was the 10th child born into a farming family in the province of Pavia, where Cassolnovo is found, but he had no ambition to work on the land.  After working in a local bar, at the age of 14 he went to Turin, then the prosperous capital of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia.

He obtained an apprenticeship to Giacomo Bass, the Swiss proprietor of a pastry and liqueur shop on Piazza Castello.  He is also said to have worked at the historic Ristorante Del Cambio, on Piazza Carignano, as a waiter and dishwasher.

In 1850, by then in his early 20s and armed with the knowledge he had acquired in about eight years in Turin, he moved to Novara, some 100km (62 miles) northeast of Turin and about 50km (31 miles) west of Milan.

The Caffè Campari inside Milan's historic Galleria
Vittorio Emanuele II remains a popular bar today

There he rented the Caffè dell’Amicizia, in a prime spot at the junction of Corso Italia and Corso Cavour.  He built up a large clientele and began to experiment by making innovative new alcoholic concoctions for his customers.  Among them was a bitter aperitif he made by blending herbs and fruits, including the cascarilla plant and the chinotto orange.

Its distinctive red colour was created in the original version by the addition of carmine dye, derived from crushed cochineal beetles, although that ingredient is not used today.  Gaspare called it Bitter all’uso D’Hollanda, after a drink he had tasted on a visit to the Netherlands, but it was not long before patrons of the bar began to refer to it as Bitter del Signor Campari, and eventually simply Campari.  He began to bottle it in a workshop at the back of his premises, launching the Campari brand in 1860.

Married while in Novara, eventually becoming father to five children, he decided in 1862 to relocate to Milan, where he acquired a bar opposite the city's magnificent Gothic cathedral.  Five years later, as part of a plan to create a vast Piazza del Duomo, the building containing Campari’s car was earmarked for demolition.  Thankfully, Gaspare was handsomely compensated and moved into prestigious premises inside the new Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the glass-vaulted shopping arcade that links Piazza del Duomo with Piazza della Scala.

Fortunato Depero's classic Camparisoda bottle
was designed in 1932 and is still in use today

It is said that the bar, situated on the left-hand side at the Piazza del Duomo entrance to the Galleria and named Caffè Campari, became a meeting place for musicians and composers, with Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, Arrigo Boito and the music publisher Giulio Ricordi among those supposed to have visited.

When Gaspare died in 1882, aged just 54, his widow, Letizia, is said to have taken control of the company until his son, Davide, who had been born in the same year that his father had moved into the Galleria. Guido took over the running of the bar.

In 1904, production of Campari moved to a factory at Sesto San Giovanni, a growing industrial town to the north of Milan, which would remain in operation until 2005, when a new production site was opened in Novi Ligure, in the province of Alessandria in Piedmont.

Fiercely marketed by Davide, the famous drink became known across Italy and beyond, especially after the launch in 1932 of Camparisoda, the mix of Campari liqueur and soda water still sold in its trademark conical bottle, designed by the Futurist artist Fortunato Depero.

Nowadays, the Campari Group is a massive drinks conglomerate, with a portfolio of brands that includes Aperol and Grand Marnier liqueurs, SKYY Vodka, Wild Turkey bourbon, Glen Grant Scotch whisky, Bisquit Cognac and Cinzano vermouth.

The multi-tiered 121-metre high cupola of Novara's
Basilica of San Gaudenzio

Travel tip:

Novara, where Gaspare first created his famous drink, is in the Piedmont region. It is the second biggest city in the region after Turin. Founded by the Romans, it was later ruled by the Visconti and Sforza families. In the 18th century it was ruled by the House of Savoy. In the 1849 Battle of Novara, the Sardinian army was defeated by the Austrian army, who occupied the city. This led to the abdication of Charles Albert of Sardinia and is seen as the beginning of the Italian unification movement.  The most imposing building in Novara is the Basilica of San Gaudenzio, which has a 121-metre high cupola.

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The Piazza Delle Piane is an elegant square in the centre
of Novi Ligure, flanked by the Palazzo Delle Piane.

Travel Tip:

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the town of Novi Ligure, where Campari switched production in 2005, was once a renowned inland resort for rich Genoese families, whose numerous noble palaces adorn the historical centre. These include Palazzo Negroni, Palazzo Durazzo and Palazzo Delle Piane, situated in Piazza Delle Piane.  Novi has retained part of its walls, erected in 1447 and partly demolished in the 19th century, together with the tower of the Castle.  There is a museum, the Museo dei Campionissimi, devoted to Fausto Coppi and another famous cyclist, Costante Girardengo, who were both born there.  The town is now a centre for the production of chocolate, notably the Novi brand.

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Also on this day:

1501: The birth of botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli

1863: The birth of writer and patriot Gabriele D’Annunzio

1921: The birth of business giant Gianni Agnelli


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Salvatore Di Vittorio – composer and conductor

Musician has promoted his native Palermo throughout the world

Salvatore Di Vittorio is the musical director and
 conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of New York

Salvatore Di Vittorio, founding music director and conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of New York, was born on this day in 1967 in Palermo in Sicily.

Also a composer, Di Vittorio has written music in the style of the early 20th century Italian composer, Ottorino Respighi, who, in turn, based his compositions on the music he admired from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Di Vittorio has been recognised by music critics as respectful of the ancient Italian musical tradition and also as an emerging, leading interpreter of the music of Ottorino Respighi.

He began studying music when he was a child with his father, Giuseppe, who introduced him to the operas of Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini. He went on to study composition at the Manhattan School of Music and Philosophy at Columbia University.

He has since worked with orchestras all over the world and composed music for them to perform and has also taught music in New York.

In 2007, Di Vittorio was invited by Elsa and Gloria Pizzoli, Respighi’s great nieces, to edit and complete several of the composer’s early works, including his first Violin Concerto, composed in 1903.

Di Vittorio has been honoured by his
home city of Palermo

Di Vittorio premiered and then recorded his completed versions of Respighi’s music, along with his own Overtura Respighiana. The recordings were released in 2011.

He has also edited Respighi’s 1908 orchestration of Claudio Monteverdi’s Lamento di Arianna, from the 1608 opera, Arianna.

In November 2012, the critics acclaimed his neo-classical compositions after the world premiere of Di Vittorio’s Sinfoni No 3 Templi di Siciliana with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana at the Teatro Politeama Garibaldi in Palermo.

He completed Respighi’s orchestration of the 1913 Tre Linche - Three Art Songs - in time for the 100th anniversary of the compositions in 2013.

In 2019, Di Vittorio completed the first printed edition of Respighi’s second violin concerto, ‘all’Antica.

Di Vittorio has been awarded the Medal of Palermo from Mayor Leoluca Orlando, in recognition of his contribution to promoting the city of Palermo around the world.

Ottorino Respighi was the inspiration
for Di Vittorio's music

In 2016, Di Vittorio became the first Italian-born composer to be invited to donate an autograph manuscript of his work to the Morgan Library and Museum’s world-renowned music archive. He composed La Villa d’Este a Tivoli in 2015 for the Morgan on the occasion of its exhibition, City of the Soul: Rome and the Romantics.

In June 2019, Di Vittorio recorded a second album of his music, which included several world premiere recordings and his new, fourth symphony.

He has said he is fascinated by storytelling in music and is known for his lyrical, symphonic poems, which are often inspired by classical antiquity and show connections to the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Di Vittorio lives with his family in both Palermo and New York.

Mount Etna, still an active volcano, is a dominant
presence in the east of the island of Sicily

Travel tip:

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, just off the toe of Italy’s boot. The ancient ruins, diverse architecture and wonderful cuisine enjoyed by visitors are all testament to the island’s colourful history. Watching over the island is Mount Etna, a volcano that is still active. The capital city, Palermo, where Salvatore di Vittorio was born, has a wealth of beautiful architecture, plenty of shops and markets and is home to the largest opera house in Italy, the Teatro Massimo.

The Teatro Politeama Garibaldi in Palermo staged the world
premiere of Di Vittorio's Sinfoni No 3 Templi di Siciliana

Travel Tip:

The Teatro Politeama Garibaldi, where Salvatore Di Vittorio conducted the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana playing his Sinfoni No 3 Templi di Siciliana on the occasion of its world premiere, is in Piazza Ruggero Settimo in the historic centre of Palermo. It is the second most important theatre in the city, after the Teatro Massimo. The theatre was inaugurated as the Teatro Municipale Politeama in 1874, but after the death of Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1882, it was decided to name the theatre after him. The theatre was finally completed in 1891 and opened by King Umberto I and Queen Margherita, who were treated to a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello, featuring the tenor Francesco Tamagno., who had sung Otello in the first performance of the opera in 1887.

Also on this day:

1885: The birth of tenor Giovanni Martinelli

1965: The birth of actress Valeria Golino

1968: Soave is awarded DOC status


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Carlo Bergonzi – operatic tenor

Singer whose style was called the epitome of Italian vocal art

Carlo Bergonzi made his professional opera debut in
the role of Figaro in Rossini's The Barber of Seville

Carlo Bergonzi, one of the great Italian opera singers of the 20th century, died on this day in 2014 in Milan.

He specialised in singing roles from the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, helping to revive some of the composer’s lesser-known works.

Between the 1950s and 1980s he sang more than 300 times with the Metropolitan Opera of New York and the New York Times, in its obituary, described his voice as ‘an instrument of velvety beauty and nearly unrivalled subtlety’.

Bergonzi was born in Polesine Parmense near Parma in Emilia-Romagna in 1924. He claimed to have seen his first opera, Verdi’s Il Trovatore, at the age of six.

He sang in his local church and soon began to appear in children’s roles in operas in Busseto, a town near where he lived.

Bergonzi spent two years in a prisoner
of war camp during World War II 

He left school at the age of 11 and started to work in the same cheese factory as his father in Parma.  At the age of 16 he began vocal studies as a baritone at the Arrigo Boito Conservatory in Parma.

During World War II, Bergonzi became involved in anti-Fascist activities and was sent to a German prisoner of war camp. After two years he was freed by the Russians and walked 106km (66 miles) to reach an American camp.

On the way he drank unboiled water and contracted typhoid fever. He later recovered, but when he returned to the Arrigo Boito Conservatory after the war he weighed just over 36kg (80lb).

Bergonzi made his professional debut as a baritone in 1948 singing the role of Figaro in Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Other baritone parts followed but Bergonzi soon realised the tenor repertoire was more suited to his voice. After retraining he made his debut as a tenor in the title role of Andrea Chenier at the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari in 1951.

The same year he sang at the Coliseum in Rome in a 50th anniversary concert commemorating Verdi’s death. The Italian radio network RAI engaged Bergonzi for a series of broadcasts of the lesser-known Verdi operas.

Carlo Bergonzi and Maria Callas (left) performed
together at the Metropolitan Opera

These included I due Foscari, Giovanna d’Arco and Simon Boccanegra.

He made his La Scala debut in 1953 creating the title role in Jacopo Napoli’s opera Mas’Aniello. His London debut came in 1953 and his American debut followed in 1955 in Chicago.

After he appeared at the Metropolitan Opera for the first time the following year he received a glowing review from the New York Times.

He continued to sing at the Met for the next 30 years, appearing opposite such famous sopranos as Maria Callas, Victoria de los Angeles and Leontyne Price. He sang in a performance of Verdi’s Requiem at the Met in 1964 in memory of President John F. Kennedy, under the baton of Georg Solti. His last role at the Met was Rodolofo in Verdi’s Luisa Miller in 1988.

Bergonzi’s chief Italian tenor rivals during his career were Franco Corelli and Mario Del Monaco but he outlasted them both, continuing to sing in concerts into the 1990s.

Franco Corelli's was one of Bergonzi's
rivals among Italian operatic tenors

In May 2000 it was announced he was to sing the title role in Verdi’s Otello in a concert in New York. It attracted a great deal of interest and Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti were all in the audience.

Sadly, Bergonzi was unable to finish the performance because his voice had been affected by the air conditioning in his dressing room and a substitute tenor had to sing in his place.

After retiring, Bergonzi mentored many famous tenors and the soprano, Frances Ginsberg, was also one of his pupils.

Bergonzi died 12 days after his 90th birthday in Milan, leaving a widow and two sons. He was laid to rest in the Vidalenzo Cemetery, not far from Polisene Parmense.

He left a legacy of beautiful recordings of individual arias and complete operas, including works by Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni and Ruggero Leoncavallo.

The church of the Beata Vergine di Loreto

Travel tip:

The village of Polisene Parmense, where Bergonzi was born, is about 40km (25 miles) northwest of Parma and around 20km (12 miles) south of Cremona. In January 2016 it merged with Zibello to form the new municipality of Polesine Zibello.  The village contains two buildings of interest - the church of the Beata Vergine di Loreto, also known as Madonnina del Po, which was built between 1846 and 1920 to preserve an effigy fresco of Our Lady of Loreto that had been discovered in an ancient shrine, and the nearby Antica Corte Pallavicina, a fortress that dates back to the 13th century.

The entrance to Bergonzi's restaurant in Busseto, I due Foscari

Travel tip:

Busseto, where Bergonzi sang as a child, is a town in the province of Parma, about 40km (25 miles) from the city of Parma. Verdi was born in the nearby village of Le Roncole but moved to Busseto in 1824. Bergonzi owned a house there and after his retirement also opened a restaurant and hotel there, I due Foscari, named after the Verdi opera about court intrigue in Venice. At the time of his death, I due Foscari was still being run by his son, Marco.

More reading:

How Italy mourned the loss of Giuseppe Verdi

Why Franco Corelli was called 'the prince of tenors'

Pietro Mascagni - a reputation built on one brilliant opera

Also on this day:

1467: The Battle of Molinella sees artillery used for the first time in warfare

1654: The birth of baroque musician Agostino Steffani

1883: The birth of Alfredo Casella, the musician who revived interest in Vivaldi

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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.

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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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