Giovanni Martinelli was seen as the
successor to Enrico Caruso
One of the most famous tenors of the 20th century, Giovanni Martinelli, was born on this day in 1885 in Montagnana in the province of Padua in the Veneto.
Martinelli began his career playing the clarinet in a military band and then studied as a singer with Giuseppe Mandolini in Milan. He made his professional debut at the Teatro del Verme in Milan in the title role of Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani in 1910.
Martinelli became famous for singing the role of Dick Johnson in Giacomo Puccini's La Fanciulla del West, which he performed in Rome, Brescia, Naples, Genoa, Monte Carlo and also at La Scala in Milan.
He played Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca at the Royal Opera House in London and took on the same role for his first American engagement in 1913. That same year Martinelli portrayed Pantagruel in the world premiere of Jules Massenet’s Panurge in Paris.
He attracted favourable reviews when he played Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He went on to sing 36 different roles for the theatre over 32 seasons.
Martinelli on stage in a production of
Rossini's opera William Tell
In 1937 Martinelli returned to London to sing opposite the English soprano Eva Turner at Covent Garden.
He retired from the stage in 1950, but gave one final performance in 1967 at the age of 82 as Emperor Altoum in Puccini's Turandot in Seattle.
At the peak of his career Martinelli had a strong high C and exceptional breath control. In America he was regarded as Enrico Caruso’s successor, even though their voices were different.
He made a number of recordings for Edison and the Victor Talking Machine.
Martinelli was married to Adele Previtali with whom he had three children. He died in 1969 at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.
Montagnana's walls are some of the best
preserved in the whole of Europe
Travel tip:
Montagnana, where Martinelli was born, is one of the borghi più belli d’talia - an association of the most beautiful small towns in Italy - because it has some of the best preserved medieval walls in Europe. The cathedral has a fresco that has recently been attributed to the artist Giorgione.
The Teatro del Verme in Milan, where Martinelli
made his operatic debut in 1910
Travel tip:
The Teatro del Verme in Milan, where Martinelli made his operatic debut, is in Via San Giovannni sul Muro and was built on the site of a previous theatre. It was used for plays and operas throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Today the theatre is a venue for concert, plays and dance performances as well as exhibitions and conferences.
Caruso sang his arias on first commercial record in 1902
Alberto Franchetti enjoyed his peak years in terms
of popular success around the turn of the century
The opera composer Alberto Franchetti, some of whose works were performed by the great tenor Enrico Caruso for his first commercial recording, was born on this day in 1860 in Turin.
Caruso had been taken with Franchetti’s opera, Germania, when he sang the male lead role in the opera’s premiere at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in March 1902.
A month later, Caruso famously made his first recording on a phonograph in a Milan hotel room and chose a number of arias from Germania and critics noted that he sang the aria Ah vieni qui… No, non chiuder gli occhi with a particular sweetness of voice.
A friend and rival of Giacomo Puccini,Franchetti had a style said to have been influenced by the German composers Wagner and Meyerbeer. He was sometimes described as the "Meyerbeer of modern Italy."
Despite the exposure the success of Germania and the association with Caruso brought him, Franchetti’s operas slipped quite quickly into obscurity.
Blame for that can be levelled at least in part at the Fascist Racial Laws of 1938, which made life and work very difficult for Italy's Jewish population.
Franchetti (left), pictured with his friends and fellow
composers Pietro Mascagni and Giacomo Puccini
Franchetti's works were banned from performance during Fascist rule. His fellow composer Pietro Mascagnimade a personal plea for tolerance on his behalf directly to Benito Mussolini, but it fell on deaf ears.
Franchetti was the son of Baron Raimondo Franchetti, a Jewish nobleman. He studied in Venice, then at the Munich Conservatory under Josef Rheinberger, and finally in Dresden under Felix Draeseke.
His first major success occurred in 1888 with his opera Asrael, followed in 1892 by Cristoforo Colombo, which many consider to be Franchetti's best work. It did not, however, match the popularity of Germania, the libretto for which was written by Luigi Illica, which went on to be performed worldwide.
Illica is said to have offered his libretto of Tosca to Franchetti. It is not clear why it was taken up instead by Puccini. Some opera historians believe Franchetti was working on the opera but that Puccini asked the publishing house Ricordi to let him have it and that Franchetti was persuaded that the violence in the story made it unsuitable for an opera.
Another version - thought to have the Franchetti family’s seal of authenticity - is that Franchetti waived his rights to the opera because he felt that Puccini would make a better job of it.
Franchetti’s family home in Florence was the substantial Villa Franchetti, in Via Dante Da Castiglione, a short distance from the Giardino di Boboli (Boboli Gardens), where he would host lavish banquets for his friends from the artistic world. Puccini, Mascagni and the actress Eleonora Duse were regular guests.
During his life, substantial changes were made to the property, with the addition of an annex that served as a concert and dance hall, as well as stables in the grounds. He decorated and furnished the house with the advice of his brother, Giorgio, a wealthy art collector who at the time owned the Ca d’Oro, the sumptuous palace on the Grand Canal in Venice.
Franchetti, who was director of the Florence College of Music from 1926 to 1928, died in Viareggio in 1942 at the age of 81. His music has been revived recently with new recordings of Cristoforo Colombo and Germania by the Berlin Opera.
He was married twice and had five children, one of whom, his son Arnold Franchetti, was a member of the Italian Resistance in the Second World War before emigrating to the United States and becoming a composer as well as a professor at the University of Hartford, Connecticut.
The Villa Franchetti-Nardi as it looks today
Travel tip:
After Franchetti’s death, the Villa Franchetti had a chequered history. It was seized by the Germans, who established it as a command post, during the Second World War, by which time the family’s financial fortunes had suffered badly. After the war it was rented for a few years before being largely abandoned in 1960 and falling into a state of disrepair. The villa, which has had the status of "Historical Residence of Italy" since 1991, was rescued from its near-dereliction by its current owner Gustavo Nardi. Now known as the Villa Franchetti-Nardi, it opened its doors as a hotel in 2009.
The beautiful facade of the Ca d'Oro on Venice's Grand Canal
Travel tip:
The Palazzo Santa Sofia, one of the older palace on the Grand Canal in Venice, is known as Ca' d'Oro - golden house - due to the gilt and polychrome external decorations which once adorned its walls. Built between 1428 and 1430 for the Contarini family, since 1927 it has been used as a museum, the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti, named after Alberto’s brother, who acquired the palace in 1894 and personally oversaw its extensive restoration, including the reconstruction of the Gothic stairway in the inner courtyard that had been controversially removed by a previous owner. In 1916, Franchetti bequeathed the Ca' d'Oro to the Italian State.
Tenor's voice still regarded as greatest of all time
Enrico Caruso sang in a choir while working
as an apprentice to a mechanical engineer
Operatic tenor Enrico Caruso was born on this day in 1873 in Naples. Believed by many opera experts to be the greatest tenor of all time, Caruso had a brilliant 25-year singing career, appearing at many of the major opera houses in Europe and America. He made more than 200 recordings of his beautiful voice, some made as early as 1902. Caruso was born in Via San Giovanello agli Ottocalli in Naples and baptised the next day in the nearby church of San Giovanni e Paolo. At the age of 11 he was apprenticed to a mechanical engineer and also worked alongside his father in a factory. At the same time he was singing in his church choir and was told his voice showed enough promise for him to consider becoming a professional singer. Until she died in 1888, he was encouraged by his mother. To earn money, he started to work as a street singer in Naples, progressing to singing Neapolitan songs as entertainment in cafes. Having decided to become an opera singer, Caruso took singing lessons, keeping up with them even during his compulsory military service. He made his stage debut in 1895 at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples in Domenico Morelli’sL’amico Francesco, having been recommended by a musician who had heard him sing.
Listen to Enrico Caruso singing La Donne e Mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto
Caruso went on to perform at other theatres throughout Italy and was given a contract to sing at the prestigious Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1900. On his debut on December 26 of that year, he sang Rodolfo from Puccini’s La Bohème, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The following year he appeared in Monte Carlo, Warsaw, Buenos Aires and before the Tsar of Russia in St Petersburg. Caruso took part in a grand concert at La Scala organised by Toscanini in 1901 to mark the death of Giuseppe Verdi.
Caruso in his role as the Duke in Rigoletto, in which
he made his debut at the Met in New York in 1903
A month later he was engaged to make his first group of recordings for a gramophone company using a hotel room in Milan. The recordings quickly became bestsellers and Caruso’s fame spread. He travelled to New York in 1903 to take up a contract with the Metroplitan Opera, making his debut in Verdi's Rigoletto in November. A few months later Caruso began his association with the Victor Talking Machine Company. His 1904 recording of Vesti la giubba, the moving aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci was the first recording ever to sell a million copies. He made 863 appearances at the Met, attracting a substantial following from among New York’s Italian immigrants. He continued to release recordings until close to his death in 1921. Caruso’s voice extended up to high D-flat in its prime and grew in power and weight as he became older. His singing can still be enjoyed by people today as his original recordings have been remastered and issued as CDs and digital downloads. The singer’s health began to deteriorate in 1920 and he returned to Naples to recuperate. He was planning to go to a clinic in Rome in August 1921, and was staying overnight at the Albergo Vesuvio in Naples on the way, when his condition worsened and he died, aged 48. The King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, opened the Royal Basilica of San Francesco di Paola, for his funeral, which was attended by thousands of people.
The distinctive Basilica of San Francesco di Paolo, overlooks
Piazza del Plebiscito in the centre of Naples
Travel tip:
The Basilica of San Francesco di Paola is on the west side of Piazza del Plebiscito, the main square in Naples . Originally the building had been planned as a tribute to Napoleon but after the Bourbons were restored to the throne of Naples, Ferdinand I made it into a church and dedicated it to San Francesco di Paola. It is similar in design to the Pantheon in Rome with a portico resting on columns and a high dome in the middle. Caruso’s body was taken through the streets of Naples in a horse-drawn hearse and he lay in state before his funeral so that people could pay their respects. Find a hotel in Naples with Tripadvisor
Caruso on the balcony of the Grand Hotel
Excelsior Vittoria in Sorrento
Giacomo Puccini, one of the greatest composers of Italian
opera, was born on this day in 1858 in Lucca in Tuscany.
Giacomo Puccini, pictured in
New York in 1908
He had his first success with his opera, Manon Lescaut, just
after the premiere of Verdi’s last opera, Falstaff. Manon Lescaut was a triumph
with both the public and the critics, and he was hailed as a worthy successor
to Verdi.
.
Puccini was born into a musical family who encouraged him to
study music as a child while he was growing up in Lucca.
He moved to Milan to continue his studies at the Milan
Conservatory, where he was able to study under the guidance of the composer,
Amilcare Ponchielli.
He wrote an orchestral piece that impressed Ponchielli and
his other teachers when it was first performed at a student concert. Ponchielli
then suggested that Puccini’s next work might be an opera.
Watch Andrea Bocelli sing Puccini's Nessun Dorma in London in 2012
Puccini’s first attempt at opera was successful enough for
it to be purchased by a firm of music publishers and after some revisions it
was performed at La Scala in Milan.
But when his next opera, Edgar, was first performed at La
Scala it was not so well received.
After some revisions it was performed again in Lucca where it
was more popular.
But his next opera, Manon Lescaut, was a triumph when it was
first performed in Turin in 1893.
His next three operas, La Boheme, Tosca and Madam Butterfly,
were also big successes and are still regularly performed today.
His final opera, Turandot, was still not completed when he
died, but Puccini was able to leave the world with the amazing aria, Nessun
Dorma.
Puccini died in Brussels in 1924 after unsuccessful
treatment for throat cancer. When news of his death reached Rome during a performance of
La Boheme, the opera was immediately stopped and the orchestra played Chopin’s
Funeral March to the saddened audience.
Puccini’s body was buried inside a mausoleum built after his
death in his villa at Torre del Lago in Tuscany.
You can still visit Puccini’s birthplace in Corte San
Lorenzo in Lucca . The house is now a museum containing many of the composer’s
furniture, personal items and letters. For more information visit
www.fondazionegiacomopuccini.it
The statue of Giacomo Puccini at Torre del Lago,
where he made his home
Photo: Sailko (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Travel tip:
Puccini restored a house at Torre del Lago to live in after
he became successful. He is buried along with members of his family in a
mausoleum built at the house. For more information visit www.giacomopuccini.it
