Giorgio Tozzi was for many years a leading bass

Bass (voice type)

A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...

 with the Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

, as well as playing lead roles in nearly every major opera house worldwide.

Career

Tozzi was born George John Tozzi in Chicago, Illinois. He studied at DePaul University

DePaul University

DePaul University is a private institution of higher education and research in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul...

 with Rosa Raisa

Rosa Raisa

Rosa Raisa was a Polish-born, Italian-trained, dramatic operatic soprano. In 1926 she created the role of Turandot at La Scala, Milan.-Career:...

, Giacomo Rimini and John Daggett Howell, making his professional debut in the Broadway production of Britten

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...

's The Rape of Lucretia in 1948 as Tarquinius. His signature roles included Figaro in Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's The Marriage of Figaro

The Marriage of Figaro

Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...

, Phillip II in Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's Don Carlo, Hans Sachs

Hans Sachs

Hans Sachs was a German meistersinger , poet, playwright and shoemaker.-Biography:Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg . His father was a tailor. He attended Latin school in Nuremberg...

 in Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...

, and Méphistophélès in Gounod

Charles Gounod

Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

's Faust

Faust (opera)

Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...

.

In 1957 he portrayed the title role in a nationally broadcast performance of Modest Mussorgsky

Modest Mussorgsky

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...

's Boris Godunov

Boris Godunov (opera)

Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...

with the NBC Opera Theatre

NBC Opera Theatre

The NBC Opera Theatre was an American opera company operated by the National Broadcasting Company from 1949 to 1964. The company was established specifically for the purpose of filming both established and new operas for television...

. In 1958 he created the role of The Doctor in Barber

Samuel Barber

Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...

's Vanessa

Vanessa (opera)

Vanessa is an opera in three acts by Samuel Barber with an original English libretto by Gian-Carlo Menotti. It was composed in 1956–1957 and was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 15, 1958 under the baton of Dimitri Mitropoulos in a production designed by...

.

Tozzi was the recipient of three Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

s: in 1960 the Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance, Operatic or Choral

Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance, Operatic or Choral

The Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance - Operatic or Choral was awarded in 1959. The equivalent award, Best Classical Performance - Opera Cast or Choral was awarded in 1960. Since 1962 the award has been divided into separate awards for opera and choral performances...

 for The Marriage of Figaro with Erich Leinsdorf

Erich Leinsdorf

Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...

; in 1961 the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording

Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording

The Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording has been awarded since 1961. The award was originally titled Best Classical Opera Production. The current title has been used since 1962....

 for Puccini's Turandot

Turandot

Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...

, with Erich Leinsdorf; and in 1963 the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for Georg Solti

Georg Solti

Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...

's recording of Verdi's Aida

Aida

Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...

(with Leontyne Price

Leontyne Price

Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...

 and Jon Vickers

Jon Vickers

Jonathan Stewart Vickers, CC , known professionally as Jon Vickers, is a retired Canadian heldentenor.Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. In 1950, he was awarded a scholarship to study opera at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto...

). Tozzi also sang the bass part in the recording of Sir Thomas Beecham

Thomas Beecham

Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...

's version of Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

's Messiah

Messiah (Handel)

Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...

for RCA Victor in 1959.

After dubbing the singing parts for the character of Emile de Becque (acted by Rossano Brazzi

Rossano Brazzi

-Biography:Brazzi was born in Bologna to Adelmo and Maria Brazzi. He attended San Marco University in Florence, Italy, where he was raised from the age of four...

) in the 1958 film version of South Pacific

South Pacific (film)

South Pacific is a 1958 musical romance film adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, and based on James A. Michener's Tales of the South Pacific...

, Tozzi spent many years playing the role of de Becque himself in various revivals and road tours of the show, including one at Lincoln Center in the late 1960s. In 1980, Tozzi earned a Tony award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his work as Tony in The Most Happy Fella

The Most Happy Fella

The Most Happy Fella is a 1956 musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Frank Loesser. The story, about a romance between an older man and younger woman, is based on the play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard...

.

He was a professor at Juilliard, Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...

, and Indiana University

Indiana University

Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...

. In 2006 he retired as Distinguished Professor of Voice at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music

Jacobs School of Music

The Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, is a music conservatory established in 1921. Until 2005, it was known as the Indiana University School of Music...

.

Tozzi published a novel in 1997, The Golem of the Golden West.

Personal life

Tozzi was twice married. He first married Catherine Dieringer, who predeceased him; in 1967 he married Monte Amundsen, a singer, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

Tozzi died on May 30, 2011, in Bloomington, Indiana

Bloomington, Indiana

Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....

, aged 88, of a heart attack. He was survived by Amundsen, their children, Eric Tozzi and Jennifer Tozzi Hauser, and three grandchildren.

Sources