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Of Italian tenor Daniele Barioni,
Mario del Monaco said in 1959, when the young tenor was at
his peak: "You
have the most beautiful tenor voice of our times. Go on being
sure of yourself, since nobody can cheat you." Later
Del Monaco shall have said: "Luckily,
Barioni
has disappeared, otherwise he could have sent us all
picking radishes"1 Barioni,
on many occasiones likened with Del Monaco,
despite having a more lyrical instrument, did disappear early from the International
Opera firmament, but those who saw him in his prime recall
a tenor of supreme worth.
Barioni was born on 6 September 1930 in Copparo
in the province of Ferrara, in the north of Italy. After
a five-year study with Attilio Bordonali in Milano, initially
studying in the baritone key, he made his operatic debut2 21
July 1954 at the Teatro Nuovo in Milano as Turiddu in Cavalleria
Rusticana. He then sang in all major Italian opera houses,
to much success. Met manager Rudolf Bing coincidentally heard
him sing and hired him for the Met in Tosca, La Boheme, Madama
Butterfly and La Traviata, and he made his debut at the Metropolitan
on 20 February 1956 as Mario Cavaradossi to Delia Rigal's
Tosca and George London's Scarpia. Conductor was Mitropolous.
Barioni, then unknown to the Met public, pleasantly surprised
the audience with his warm and dark-hued lyric tenor voice.
Only two days later he sang Rodolfo in La Boheme
with Licia Albanese and Ettore Bastianini under Fausto Cleva,
a role he had first performed in Johannesburg, South Africa,
in September 1955.3 There were
more performances of La Boheme in November, but this time
conducted by Schippers and with Lucine Amara as Mimi and
Enzo Sordello as Marcello, before Madama Butterfly in December
with Albanese and later on the Met's very own Dorothy Kirsten
as Butterfly.
Barioni quickly became popular among the Met
public in La Boheme, Tosca and Madama Butterfly, even though
he on many occasions came second to tenors like Campora,
Bergonzi, Björling and Tucker.
In 1958 he starred in the Italian music film
Carosello di Canzoni by Luigi Capuano, in the middle of a
hectic season at the Met. In February he sang opposite Maria
Callas4 in La Traviata and
during the 1958-59 season he sang the part of Turiddu
in Cavalleria
Rusticana,
with
Zinka
Milanov as co-lead, performing in the double-bill with Pagliacci
where the illustruous Canios included Mario del Monaco and
Carlo Bergonzi. Barioni also sang in the double-bill with
the Metropolitan Opera Company's touring performances
to different theatres in the US and Canada. In January
1960 he added Macbeth to his repertory, singing opposite
Warren and Rysanek and he was successful as Cavaradossi in
Tosca in Bologna, where he alternated in the role with amongst
others Franco Corelli. He was now gradually approaching the
spinto repertory. With the arrival of the new decade his
appearances at the Met also became less frequent and he was
seen in theatres elsewhere in the US, in South America and
he gradually returned to his native Italy. In 1961 he added
Turandot to his repertory in Rio de Janeiro and Andrea Chenier
in Sao Paolo.
His last performance with the Met came in
1962 with Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, which rounded off a
total of 54 performances over a period of seven years.
Back in Italy he performed in Cavalleria Rusticana
at the Arena di Verona (1960), an opera he also sang in Roma
and the Caracalla (1960 and 1962), along with Tosca (1959
and 1962). Roma became his artistic home early 1960s and
he performed every year at the Opera di Roma from 1960 to
1964: Tosca in 1960 and 1963, Madama Butterfly in 1961, Cavalleria
Rusticana in 1962 and 1963 and La Bohème in 1964.
His popularity in Italy was helped by several
radio concerts sponsored by Martini & Rossi in the early
1960s: Cavalleria Rusticana in 1959, La Fanciulla del West
in 1961 with Tebaldi and Guelfi and La Gioconda in 1964.
In 1963 he revisited the American continent
and sang in Philadelphia in Lucia di Lammermoor before heading
to Mexico City, where he performed in La Gioconda and Turandot
at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. In Shreveport (US) the same
year he added Il Trovatore to his repertory, Manon Lescaut
in Cincinati in June 1964 and Aida in Tulsa in November.
1965 brought Lisboa's Sao Carlos to his list
of theatres, where he performed in Tosca, and soon after
he made his role debut in Don Carlos in Hartford (US). At
the same time he initiated a long collaboration with the
Philiadelphia Opera, where he became the leading tenor the
following five years, his successes counting La Bohème with
Moffo in 1965, Traviata with Tucci and Madama Butterfly
with Sighele in 1966, and Traviata and Butterfly with Tucci
in 1967.
Tragedy and success struck him with equal force
in 1966. It was the year in which he were to make his long
awaited La Scala debut, first in Madama Butterfly in March
opposite Virginia Zeani as Butterfly, and then Cavalleria
Rusticana in June, conducted by Antonio Tonini, in the spectacular
edition opened by Karajan. Had Barioni come to the theatre
a couple of months earlier, one can only speculate if he
could have been cast for the legendary recording in Milano
of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci under Karajan for Deutsche
Gramophon. He did not, however, and the tenor in both recordings
during October 1965 was Carlo Bergonzi, and in splendid vocal
shape moreover. It was also the year in which he received
clamorous success at the Teatro Fenice of Venezia in Turandot.
In the US he made his first and only commercial recording,
La Rondine with Anna Moffo for the RCA label. Sadly, 1966
was also the year in which his wife, the famous pianist Vera
Francheschi,5 passed away prematurely in leukemia.
It is often said that he never recovered from
her death and it explains why he disappeared from
the internaional opera scene mid 1960s. His zest for life
and for singing was lost.
Apart from La Fanciulla
del West at the Teatro Felice di Venezia with Magda
Olivero in 1967 and a few radio sessions in Torino in
January 1968 with the RAI, Barioni's appearances for the
remainder of the 1960s were associated with smaller theatres
around the US, and he also took on new roles that were not
generally associated with his lyrical spinto instrument:
Rigoletto in Portland in May 1968 and Rosalinda (Die Flädermaus)
in
Vancouver December 1968. His final performances then were
sung in Europe, with the exception of Respighi's Lucrezia
in Buenos Aires in November 1979, the last role he ever undertook:
La Vida Breve in Torino February 1970, Tosca in Dublin in
March and finally Madama Butterfly in Roma and the Terme
di Caracalla in 1971, followed by Napoli's San Carlo in 1972.
1972 may be considered the year in which he
retired from opera, although he kept performing occasionally
throughout the 1970s in opera and concerts. His last appearance
was in a concert with Renata Tebaldi
at the Teatro Comunale, in Ferrara, in 1981, to receive the
Premio Frescobaldi 1980.
- - -
Though his repertory was basically that of a spinto tenor
and he was always asked to repeat his justly famous roles
in Tosca, Fanciulla del West or Cavalleria Rusticana, he
also obtained acclaim in Nabucco, Macbeth, Fedora, Andrea
Chenier, Turandot and Gioconda, and in some operas not
associated with his type of voice, such as Lucia di
Lammermoor and Rigoletto,
or rarely performed opera like Lucrezia by Respighi, La
Rondine by Puccini or La Vida Breve by
De Falla. His repertory included a total of 31 different
operas.
Early in his career he aroused sympathy for his warm, burnished
and beautiful tone, a natural talent, but as he moved into
the heavier spinto repertory the middle register whitened
a bit
and there
was
a tendency to pushing and spread top notes.
Of his recorded legacy, he appears as Calaf in Leontyne
Price's "In questa reggia" on RCA's "Prima Donna" series,
and his
only commercial studio recording was La
Rondine with
Anna Moffo for RCA in 1966. But he cannot be judged by this
performance; far better are his live performances issued on several private
labels, counting:
- Omaggio a Caruso (LP)
- Davanti a lui tremó il Metropolitan (LP)
- Il tenore Daniele Barioni e Napoli (LP)
- Daniele Barioni, Bongiovanni's Il Mito dell'Opera Series
(CD), live recordings and radio shows 1962-68
- La Fanciulla del West, Opera d'Oro, taped live in 1961
with Tebaldi and Guelfi.
- Madama Butterfly, VAI Music, live from New Orleans, 1960,
with Dorothy Kirsten.
 
| Notes: |
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| 1 "Sei la piú bella
voce di tenore dei nostri giorni. Vai sicuro, che nessuno
ti puó fregare;" Mario del Monaco about Barioni
in 1959, and later: "Per fortuna che Barioni si é defilato,
altrimenti ci mandava tutti a rapanelli." |
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| 2 His first appearance was in 1949 at the
Circolo Italia in Milano, in a concert with the Chilean
soprano Claudia Parada. |
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| 3 That year (1955) he also sang in Egypt. |
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| 4 Some sources hold that Barioni should
have been dismissed from the Met by imposition of Maria
Callas, or that Callas shall have refused to sing with
Barioni. The first rumour is clearly not true as Barioni
kept performing at the Met up to 1962. Barioni and Callas
sang together only once,
a single
performance
of La
Traviata on 6 February 1958 with Mario Zanazi as Germont.
According to some sources she shall have considered him
a 2nd rate singer and not fit to share the stage with
the Diva. An anecdote, and supposedly told by tenor Giuseppe
Campora, has it that Callas shall have ordered Rudolf
Bing to
substitute
Barioni
in Lucia for a tenor of her liking,
and
Bing
was forced to call home Campora from Canada,
where he was guest appearing. A tenor was sent to Canada
as his substitute there. A 2nd anecdote tells of how
Barioni experienced serious pitch problems in Traviata
with Callas and became notoriously sharp at
the end
of "un
di
felice,"
making
Callas
sound flat.
There shall have been a riot and the event sparked
a controversy in the Times,
with Leonard Bernstein rushing to Callas' defense. A
final anecdote, and which often confuses Barioni with
baritone Enzo Sordello, occured during a Saturday matinee
broadcast of Lucia di
Lammermoor on 8 December 1956 (Callas' only Met broadcast),
when Sordello held a note longer than Callas in their
Act 2, scene 1 duet. She
said "Basta!" to him, something that could
be heard quite clearly on the air. The tenor on this
occasion was Giuseppe Campora. |
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| 5 Daniele Barioni married Vera Francheschi
in 1957, and had a son, Giulio Barioni,
born in 1958. Vera Francheschi was born in USA in 1929,
the daughter of Italian parents.
She recorded, among other things, the Chopin's complete
piano music for RCA. |
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