Zucchero Fornaciari – singer

Sweet success for writer and performer

Zucchero is known for the passion and
emotion of his stage performances

The singer/songwriter now known simply as Zucchero was born Adelmo Fornaciari on this day in 1955 in Roncocesi, a small village near Reggio Emilia.

In a career lasting more than 30 years, he has sold more than 50 million records and has become popular all over the world.

He is hailed as ‘the father of the Italian blues’, having introduced blues music to Italy, and he has won many awards for his music. He has also been given the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

As a young boy, Zucchero lived in the Tuscan seaside resort of Forte dei Marmi, where he sang in the choir and learned to play the organ at his local church.

He became fond of soul music and began to write his own songs and play the tenor saxophone. He started playing in bands while studying veterinary medicine but gave up his studies to follow his dream of becoming a singer.

He took the stage name of Zucchero, the Italian word for sugar, which was a nickname one of his teachers had given him.

Zucchero with U2 lead singer Bono at a U2
concert in Turin in 2015

Zucchero took part in the San Remo song contest for the second time in 1985 and although his song ‘Donne’ did not win, it went on to become a hit single.

His 1987 album Blues became the highest selling album in Italian history and made Zucchero a household name. His next album Oro, Incenso e Birra, which included guest spots by Ennio Morricone, Eric Clapton and Rufus Thomas, then outsold it.

Zucchero has sung in duets with Paul Young, Sting, and Luciano Pavarotti and his collaboration on the song Miserere with the young Andrea Bocelli won popularity for the up-and-coming tenor.

He sang regularly in the concerts organised by Pavarotti to raise money for children in war zones and more recently he has sung at the Concert for Emilia, to raise money for earthquake victims, and in the Voices for Refugees concert in Vienna in 2015.

Watch Zucchero on stage at the Arena in Verona

His new single, Streets of Surrender, which is dedicated to the victims of the recent Paris attacks, will be among the songs he will perform in his concerts at the Arena in Verona taking place between now and 28 September.

Travel tip:

Roncocesi, where Zucchero was born, is a hamlet – frazione -- of Reggio Emilia, situated about seven kilometres outside the city. Reggio Emilia is an ancient walled city in Emilia-Romagna that has many beautiful buildings within the hexagonal shape of its historic centre. Roman remains mingle with medieval palaces and Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces.

Stage construction under way at the Arena di Verona 

Travel tip:

The Arena di Verona, where Zucchero is appearing in concert between 16 and 28 September, is a wonderful surviving example of a first-century Roman amphitheatre, which has now become a famous location for large-scale, outdoor productions of opera each summer.

See Zucchero's back catalogue of music at Amazon.com

(Main photo of Zucchero by Danielle dk CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Bono & Zucchero photo by angelo freddo)

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Andrea Bocelli - tenor

Singer has perfect voice for either opera or pop

Andrea Bocelli performing a concert outdoors in the
 United States, where he has a big following

Tenor Andrea Bocelli was born on this day in 1958 in La Sterza, a hamlet or frazione of Lajatico in Tuscany.

Bocelli, who is blind, had poor eyesight from birth and was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma, but he lost his sight completely at the age of 12 after an accident while playing football.

He always loved music and started to learn the piano at the age of six. But after hearing a recording by opera singer Franco Corelli, he set his heart on becoming a tenor.

Bocelli won his first singing competition in Viareggio with ‘O sole mio’ at the age of 14.

He has since sold 150 million records worldwide and performed for four US presidents, three Popes and the British Royal family. His voice has been acclaimed by critics as perfect for either opera or pop.

Bocelli originally studied law and spent one year working as a lawyer, but in 1992 the great Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti heard a recording of his unique voice performing Italian rock and pop artist Zucchero’s song Miserere and helped his career take off.

Andrea Bocelli (right) with the late Luciano Pavarotti and rock
 musician Zucchero at one of Pavarotti's fund-raising events

He sang Miserere with Zucchero during a European tour and performed it at the San Remo song festival, where he won the newcomer’s section with the highest ever number of votes. He later performed it at Pavarotti’s annual charity concert in Modena.

He has sung duets with many top names in the classical and popular music world, made recordings, performed in concerts and operas and appeared on television all over the world. 

Many of his recordings have enjoyed record sales figures. His album Sacred Arias became the all-time biggest-selling classical crossover album by a solo artist when sales reached five million copies and, with more than 20 million copies sold worldwide, his 1997 pop album Romanza became the best-selling album by an Italian artist of any genre in history.

Watch Andrea Bocelli perform his hit single Time to Say Goodbye with British artist Sarah Brightman

Bocelli was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2006 and was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010.

Bocelli's open-air Teatro del Silenzio, which he helped
to create near his home town of Lajatico in Tuscany

Travel tip:

Lajatico in the province of Pisa lies among rolling hills within easy distance of Florence and Pisa. Every summer, Bocelli performs in a concert with guest singers and musicians at the Teatro del Silenzio, an open air amphitheatre he helped establish in his home town. 

Travel tip:

La Sterza, the hamlet where Andrea Bocelli was born, is about two and a half kilometres from Lajatico and is surrounded by gentle sloping countryside dotted with olive trees. It is a prime area for strawberry cultivation and the local people celebrate producing their crops each year with a strawberry festival at the beginning of May.

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Amilcare Ponchielli - opera composer

Success of La Gioconda put musician on map

Amilcare Ponchielli composed 11 operas

The opera composer Amilcare Ponchielli was born on this day in 1834 in Paderno Fasolaro, near Cremona, about 100km south-east of Milan in what is now Lombardia.

Ponchielli's works in general enjoyed only modest success, despite the rich musical invention for which he was later applauded.  One that did win acclaim in his lifetime, however, was La Gioconda, which was first produced in 1876 and underwent several revisions but remained unaltered after 1880.

Well known for the tenor aria, Cielo e Mar, and the ballet piece, Dance of the Hours, La Gioconda is the only opera by Ponchielli still performed today and many recordings have been made, featuring some of the biggest stars of recent times.

Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi and Montserrat Caballe are among those to have played the role of Gioconda, written for soprano, while the lead tenor part of Enzo, whose affections are sought both by Gioconda and another major character, Laura, has been taken by Giuseppe Di Stefano, Carlo Bergonzi, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo among others.

Ponchielli had such a talent for music that he won a scholarship to Milan Conservatory at nine years old and had written his first symphony by the time he was 10.

He left the Conservatory in disappointment after being denied the professorship that was supposed to have been his prize in a competition and for a number of years his main musical occupation was as a bandmaster, at first in Piacenza and then Cremona.  He arranged and wrote more than 200 compositions for wind instruments.

The Milan Conservatory, which Ponchielli attended
from the age of nine years

His passion for opera was undiminished, however, and he achieved his first breakthrough with I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), an opera based on the novel by Alessandro Manzoni, which he had originally written soon after completing his studies and which earned him his first contract with a music publisher in 1872.

The original premiered at the Teatro Concordia in Cremona in 1856; the revised version was first performed at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan. The leading soprano role was taken by Teresina Brambilla, from Cassano d'Adda, just outside Milan, whom Ponchielli would marry.

Ponchielli wrote 11 operas in total but none won him the acclaim he received for La Gioconda, which was based on Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, a play by Victor Hugo.

Listen to Luciano Pavarotti performing Cielo e Mar from La Gioconda

Nonetheless, works such as Il figliuol prodigo and Marion Delorme, from another play by Victor Hugo, both performed at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, are recognised as having been influences on a new generation of composers from which Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni and Umberto Giordano emerged.

In 1881, Ponchielli was appointed maestro di cappella of Bergamo Cathedral, and from the same year he was a professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory, where his students included Puccini, Mascagni and Emilio Pizzi.

He died of pneumonia in Milan in 1886 and was buried in the city's Monumental Cemetery.

Travel tip:

Paderno Fasolaro, a small town in the heart of the Po Valley, is now known as Paderno Ponchielli in honour of its most famous native son.  It was given the name after local residents began a petition on the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1934, although it took until 1950 for the President of the Republic, Luigi Einaudi, to issue a decree making the change legal.

The cathedral at Cremona is a fine
example of Romanesque style

Travel tip:

The city of Cremona has a strong musical tradition, particularly in the production of violins and other stringed instruments.  It was home to rival violin makers Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppe Guarneri and the Amati family.  Cremona has an exceptional Romanesque cathedral, with an ornate facade including a Renaissance logia with three niches, flanked by two orders of loggette (small logias).

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Francesco Cilea – opera composer

Calabrian remembered for beautiful aria Lamento di Federico 

Francesco Cilea

Composer Francesco Cilea was born on this day in 1866 in Palmi near Reggio di Calabria.

He is particularly admired for two of his operas, L’Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur.

Cilea loved music from an early age. It is said that when he was just four years old he heard music from Vincenzo Bellini’s opera, Norma, and was moved by it.

When he became old enough, he was sent to study music in Naples and at the end of his course of study there he submitted an opera he had written, Gina, as part of his final examination. When this was performed for the first time it attracted the attention of a music publisher who arranged for it to be performed again.

Cilea was then commissioned to produce a three-act opera, meant to be along the lines of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, by the same publisher.

The resulting work, La Tilda, was performed in several Italian theatres, but the orchestral score has been lost, which has prevented it from enjoying a modern revival.

In 1897, Cilea’s third opera, L’Arlesiana was premiered at the Teatro Lirico in Milan.

In the cast was the young Enrico Caruso, who performed, to great acclaim, the famous Lamento di Federico. This beautiful aria - often known by its opening line, È la solita storia del pastore, has kept the name of the opera alive until present day and it has been performed and recorded by many famous tenors over the years, including Luciano Pavarotti.

Enjoy Pavarotti singing Lamento di Federico

In 1902, Cilea’s opera, Adriana Lecouvreur was received enthusiastically at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, again starring Enrico Caruso. Around the same time, Cilea accompanied Caruso on the piano when he made one of his early recordings for the gramophone.

Cilea’s last opera, Gloria, was premiered at La Scala in Milan in 1907 under the baton of Arturo Toscanini, but it was a failure and was withdrawn after only two performances.

After this Cilea turned his attention to teaching and became director of the Conservatorio Vincenzo Bellini in Palermo, although he continued to compose chamber and orchestral music.

The Cilea Mausoleum in Palmi

He supported the career of the Italian soprano, Magda Olivero, whose performances, in the title role of Adriana Lecouvreur, he particularly admired.

Cilea spent the last years of his life living in Varazze, near Savona in Liguria, and he died there in 1950.

Travel tip:

Palmi, where Francesco Cilea was born, is a small commune in the province of Reggio di Calabria in southern Iraly. A seaside resort, Palmi has been referred to as ‘the terrace on the strait of Messina.’ A mausoleum decorated with scenes from the myth of Orpheus, was built there in memory of Cilea.

The Teatro Cilea in Reggio di Calabria

Travel tip:

Reggio di Calabria, often referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio, is the biggest city in the region of Calabria in southern Italy. The theatre in the city was renamed Teatro Comunale Francesco Cilea in the composer’s memory.

More reading:

The genius of Puccini

The dominance of Giuseppe Verdi

Lasting appeal of Enrico Caruso


(Photo of Cilea Mausoleum by Palminellafede CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Teatro Cilea by Franc rc CC BY-SA 3.0)

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