Gianna Galli
Encyclopedia
Gianna Galli was an Italian opera
tic soprano
who had an active international career from the 1950s through the 1970s. She specialized in the lyric soprano
repertoire and was particularly known for her portrayals of Puccini
heroines.
, Galli began studying singing in her youth. In 1952, at the age of 17, she won the international singing competition in Spoleto
. Later that year, she made her professional opera debut at the Teatro Comunale Modena
. Her career progressed rapidly, and she was soon heard in major opera houses internationally. She became particularly associated with the operas of Giacomo Puccini, with her signature roles being Mimì in La Bohème
, Minnie in La fanciulla del West
, and the title roles in Manon Lescaut
and Tosca
. She made her United States debut in 1958 at the New York City Opera
as Mimì.
In 1961 Galli created the role of Catherine in the world premiere of Roberto Rossellini
's Uno sguardo dal ponte,which was based on Arthur Miller
's A View from the Bridge
, at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
. She returned to that theatre in April 1962 to perform the role of Thamar in the premiere of Franco Mannino
's La stirpe di Davide. The following June she sang the role of the False Angel in the world premiere of Manuel De Falla
's oratorio
Atlàntida
which was presented in a staged production at La Scala
in Milan. Other roles which she created in world premieres were Nicole in Mannino's Il diavolo in giardino (1963, Teatro Massimo
) and Slam in Giacomo Manzoni
's Atomtod (1965, La Scala).
In her native country, Galli also performed frequently in Italian language operetta
s. In 1961 she starred in the film adaptation of Carlo Lombardo and Virgilio Ranzato's operetta Il paese dei campanelli which was directed by Vito Molinari. She also made several appearances on Italian television during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. She notably performed the role of Lisa in Mario Lanfranchi
's 1956 television film of Vincenzo Bellini
's La Sonnambula
with Anna Moffo
as Amina. On disc she recorded the role of Rosa Mammai in Francesco Cilea
's L'arlesiana
with fellow singers Ferruccio Tagliavini
, Pia Tassinari
, and Paolo Silveri
in 1967.
, Salvatore Licitra
, and Marco Spotti.
Galli lived the last several years of her life in Monte Carlo
, Monaco
. She died there at the age of 75.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
who had an active international career from the 1950s through the 1970s. She specialized in the lyric soprano
Lyric soprano
A lyric soprano is a type of operatic soprano that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre which can be heard over an orchestra. The lyric soprano voice generally has a higher tessitura than a soubrette and usually plays ingenues and other sympathetic characters in opera. Lyric sopranos have...
repertoire and was particularly known for her portrayals of Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
heroines.
Singing career
Born in ModenaModena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
, Galli began studying singing in her youth. In 1952, at the age of 17, she won the international singing competition in Spoleto
Spoleto
Spoleto is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.-History:...
. Later that year, she made her professional opera debut at the Teatro Comunale Modena
Teatro Comunale Modena
The Teatro Comunale di Modena is an opera house in the town of Modena, , Italy...
. Her career progressed rapidly, and she was soon heard in major opera houses internationally. She became particularly associated with the operas of Giacomo Puccini, with her signature roles being Mimì in La Bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, Minnie in La fanciulla del West
La fanciulla del West
La fanciulla del West is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco. Its highly-publicised premiere occurred in New York City in 1910...
, and the title roles in Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut is a short novel by French author Abbé Prévost. Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité . It was controversial in its time and was banned in France upon publication...
and Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
. She made her United States debut in 1958 at the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
as Mimì.
In 1961 Galli created the role of Catherine in the world premiere of Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta to the movement.-Early life:Born in Rome, Roberto Rossellini lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had...
's Uno sguardo dal ponte,which was based on Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
's A View from the Bridge
A View from the Bridge
A View from the Bridge is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller that was first staged on September 29, 1955 as a one-act verse drama with A Memory of Two Mondays at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The play was unsuccessful and Miller subsequently revised the play to contain two acts; this...
, at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma is an opera house in Rome, Italy. Originally opened in November 1880 as the 2,212 seat Costanzi Theatre, it has undergone several changes of name as well modifications and improvements...
. She returned to that theatre in April 1962 to perform the role of Thamar in the premiere of Franco Mannino
Franco Mannino
Franco Mannino was an Italian film composer, pianist, opera director, playwright and novelist, born in Palermo.He made his debut as pianist at the age of 16...
's La stirpe di Davide. The following June she sang the role of the False Angel in the world premiere of Manuel De Falla
Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
's oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
Atlàntida
Atlàntida
Atlántida is an opera by Manuel de Falla based on a Spanish translation of the Catalan poem L'Atlàntida by Jacint Verdaguer.Atlántida started in the 1920s as a cantata, but grew over 20 years to become a full opera. De Falla died in Argentina before it was finished, leaving a loose collection of...
which was presented in a staged production at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan. Other roles which she created in world premieres were Nicole in Mannino's Il diavolo in giardino (1963, Teatro Massimo
Teatro Massimo
The Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele is an opera house and opera company located on the Piazza Verdi in Palermo, Sicily. It was dedicated to King Victor Emanuel II....
) and Slam in Giacomo Manzoni
Giacomo Manzoni
Giacomo Manzoni is an Italian composer. He studied composition from 1948 in Messina with Gino Contilli, and continued his studies from 1950 to 1956 at the Conservatoire of Milan. In 1955 he obtained a doctorate in foreign languages from the Bocconi University in Milan.He wrote the music for the...
's Atomtod (1965, La Scala).
In her native country, Galli also performed frequently in Italian language operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s. In 1961 she starred in the film adaptation of Carlo Lombardo and Virgilio Ranzato's operetta Il paese dei campanelli which was directed by Vito Molinari. She also made several appearances on Italian television during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. She notably performed the role of Lisa in Mario Lanfranchi
Mario Lanfranchi
Mario Lanfranchi is an Italian film director and producer, of both television and film. He was married to Italian-American soprano Anna Moffo.Born in Parma, he studied at the Accademia dei Filodrammatici in Milan...
's 1956 television film of Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
's La Sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
with Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...
as Amina. On disc she recorded the role of Rosa Mammai in Francesco Cilea
Francesco Cilea
Francesco Cilea was an Italian composer. Today he is particularly known for his operas L'arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur.-Biography:...
's L'arlesiana
L'arlesiana
L'arlesiana is an opera in three acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Leopoldo Marenco. It was originally written in four acts, and was first performed on 27 November 1897 at the Teatro Lirico di Milano in Milan...
with fellow singers Ferruccio Tagliavini
Ferruccio Tagliavini
Ferruccio Tagliavini was an Italian operatic tenor mainly active in the 1940s and 1950s...
, Pia Tassinari
Pia Tassinari
Pia Tassinari was an Italian soprano and later mezzo-soprano, particularly associated with the Italian and French repertories....
, and Paolo Silveri
Paolo Silveri
Paolo Silveri was an Italian baritone, particularly associated with the Italian repertory, one of the finest Verdi baritones of his time....
in 1967.
Later life and career
Galli was forced into retirement in 1975 at the age of 40 after suffering vocal problems which at that time were not fixable by surgery on the vocal cords. However, her association with the opera world continued through a second successful career as a manager of singers in Italy. Some of the notable artists she managed were Antonio Coriano, Giuseppe FilianotiGiuseppe Filianoti
Giuseppe Filianoti is an Italian lyric tenor from Reggio Calabria.-Early years:Born in 1974, the Italian tenor obtained his degree in Literature from the Università Degli Studi di Messina, in the Sicilian town of Messina. In 1997, he graduated from the 'Francesco Cilea' Conservatory in his...
, Salvatore Licitra
Salvatore Licitra
-Early life and debuts:Born in Bern, Switzerland, to Sicilian parents, Licitra grew up in Milan. He fell into opera by accident. As many tenors before him, he was not altogether confident about his vocal capabilities and started working as a graphic artist for Italian Vogue...
, and Marco Spotti.
Galli lived the last several years of her life in Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
, Monaco
Monaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
. She died there at the age of 75.