Giuseppe di Stefano - Part 1
Audio of the Month, February 2007
"The World's Most Beautiful Voice"
A few years back I was commissioned to write a short biography on Giuseppe di Stefano for a commemoration of the tenor in the Cathedral of Damascus (Syria). The organisers had seen the biography on Grandi-Tenori.com and asked me to write a summary for the concert programme. I did, but unfortunately, I never got to see it. I reproduce the summary here along with a selection of audio that I feel make justice to the header: the world's most beautiful voice.
"Giuseppe di Stefano had a romantic lemma of singing: "Ideally people should not even notice that I'm singing at all." He sang with impeccable style, purity and beauty. His secret was just to sing, without gimmickry or artifacts. His timbre and delivery were exceptional, with great personality. He possessed an astonishing capability to attack a high C in full voice and then spin it down to just a thread of sound and sustain it. It made him a logical heir of the legendary Spanish tenor Miguel Fleta (1897-1938), famous for his filature. Yet by the mid 1960s he was gone from the international opera scene and his subsequent years was only an echo of ten years of unparalleled singing in this century.
"Pippo," as he was lovingly nicknamed, was born on 24 July 1921 at Motta Santa Anastasia, a village near Catania on the island of Sicily, Italy, but at the age of six the family moved to Milan. His beautiful voice early caused excitement and as a boy he commenced vocal classes, singing in several boys' choirs. In 1938 he won two song contests, in Milan and Florence respectively and was admitted at the La Scala vocal program for young singers under Adriano Tocchio. From 1940 he studied with the baritone Luigi Montesanto, but his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the 2nd World War and he was drafted. Due to respiratory problems he was saved from active military service and instead he sang both inside military camps and outside, and became quite known in Milan under the pseudonym Nino Florio. When the Germans arrived in Lombardy in 1943, he fled to Switzerland, where he was interned in a refugee camp. Yet he was in good fortune: he was allowed to sing and gave several public performances outside the camp while also making his very first recordings for Radio Lausanne and EMI in Zurich. To my mind, these first recordings show one of the most sensuously beautiful voices on record in history.
When the war ended he returned to Italy and Milan, where he resumed his studies. Impatient to get a career going, he went against his teacher’s advice and made his professional operatic debut on 20 April 1946 in Reggio Emilia as Des Grieux in Manon by Jules Massenet. He was soon to be known throughout Italy and by 1947 he had appeared both in Rome and at La Scala and by 1948 he was at the Met. In the period 1948-52, apart from being successful in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, he was the lyric sensation at the opera house in New York and appeared in more than 100 performances with the Met, however by the early 1950s engagements at La Scala and elsewhere in Italy where in conflict with his commitment to the Met and he was fired. Until 1955, when he returned for one season only, his career was developed in Italy where he had become the leading tenor at La Scala. There, he formed part of one of the most known artistic trios in operatic history: Di Stefano, Callas and Gobbi.
By the end of the 1950s Di Stefano had moved into the more vocally demanding spinto repertory and the health of his voice was gradually in compromise. A few good years early 1960s were to follow, among these in Vienna, but the air eventually went out of the balloon and Di Stefano was cancelled in important theatres. What had happened to the voice of the century? It is not altogether clear. Perhaps his technique was not well developed or he undertook to sing roles not suited his voice. Was he too temperamental or undisciplined? Or did his respiratory problems get the best of him? Di Stefano himself shall once have put the blame on an allergy to some rugs he had installed in his Milan apartment in the 1950s. What is clear, however, is that by the mid 1960s the voice was gone and what seemingly had been the most extraordinary tenor voice since Caruso, was not to be. A respected writer, friend and opera aficionado put it this way: he was the tenor of the century – almost."
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Having first only heard the late recorded output of Di Stefano, I initially tried to avoid him as I found the voice rough and strained. I couldn't figure out why he had so many followers. Discovering his early recordings for Radio Lausanne in Switzerland in the period 1944-46 made all the difference; here was a sensual, caressing voice, a bit unpolished, but so gifted and natural and with such intrinsic beauty.
Below is a selection from Di Stefano's recorded output (studio) from 1944 up to 1958, starting with his recordings for Radio Lausanne in 1944 and with Edoardo Moser at the piano, further recordings in Switzerland in 1945-6 with Henri Ottone at the piano, then his first recordings with orchestra for HMV in Milan and London in 1947 and a few gems from the early 1950s, ending with two Neapolitan canzoni from 1958. None of these pieces are considered a rarity or of limited availability, but for any one new to Di Stefano they constitute a good introduction to his art. For the initiated, these are clips worth listening to over and over again.
File Formats
All audio compressed to 32k Windows Media Audio (wma), v9.1.
Limited availability only.
For more information on Giuseppe di Stefano I refer you to the internal biography on the tenor as well as the wonderful recollection "The Tenor of the Century - Almost" by Dr Neil A. Kurtzman.
Credits
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