Giuseppe Taddei
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Giuseppe Taddei (born June 26, 1916) is an Italian baritone who enjoyed a long and distinguished career, particularly in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi.
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[edit] Career
Taddei was born in Genoa, Italy and studied in Rome, where he made his professional debut at the in 1936 as the Herald in Lohengrin. He sang at the Rome Opera until being conscripted into the army in 1942. After the war, he resumed his opera career and appeared for two seasons at the Vienna State Opera. He made his debut in London in 1947, at the Cambridge Theatre. The following year, 1948, saw his debut , at the Salzburg Festival, La Scala in Milan, the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples.
His American debut took place at the San Francisco Opera in 1957, followed by the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1959. He sang regularly at the Royal Opera House in London from 1960 to 1967.
A versatile singer and ressourceful actor, Taddei was equally effective in comic and dramatic. His huge repertory included most notably the two Figaros, from Nozze di Figaro and Il barbiere di Siviglia, both Leporello and Don Giovanni in Don Giovanni, both Belcore and Dulcamara in Elisir d'amore, as well as Ernani, Macbeth, Rigoletto, Amonasro in Aida, Iago in Otello, Falstaff , Barnaba in La Gioconda, Gérard in Andrea Chenier, Scarpia in Tosca, etc.
His wonderful vocal longevity allowed him to continue singing into old age, making a triumphant, if belated, debut at the Metropolitan Opera, on September 25, 1985, as Falstaff, at the age of 69.
Giuseppe Taddei left many recordings, notably as Figaro in Nozze di Figaro and Leporello in Don Giovanni in the famous Carlo Maria Giulini versions, as Macbeth, opposite Birgit Nilsson, conducted by Thomas Schippers, as Scarpia in Tosca and as Falstaff, both conducted by Herbert Von Karajan.
[edit] Sources
- The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia, edited by David Hamilton ISBN 0-671-61732-X
- The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Operat, edited by Paul Gruber ISBN 0-393-03444-5
[edit] Early Cetra Recordings
Verdi - Ernani - Caterina Mancini, Gino Penno, Giuseppe Taddei, Giacomo Vaghi, 1950 - Fernando Previtali
Verdi - Falstaff - Giuseppe Taddei, Rosanna Carteri, Lina Pagliughi, Amelia Pini, Saturno Meletti - 1949 - Mario Rossi
Verdi - Rigoletto - Giuseppe Taddei, Lina Pagliughi, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Giulio Neri - 1954 - Angelo Questa
Rossini - Guglielmo Tell - Giuseppe Taddei, Mario Filippeschi, Rosanna Carteri, Giorgio Tozzi, Fernando Corena - 1951 - Mario Rossi
Rossini - Il barbiere di Siviglia - Giuseppe Taddei, Giulietta Simionato, Luigi Infantino, Carlo Badioli, Antonio Cassinelli - 1950 - Fernando Previtali
[edit] Trivia
Italians have an explanation as to why Giuseppe Taddei did not perform abroad very much - We gave Tito Gobbi to the world but we kept Giuseppe Taddei for ourselves !
