Giovanni Zenatello
Encyclopedia
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...
singer. Born in Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
, he enjoyed an international career as a dramatic tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
of the first rank. Otello became his most famous operatic role but he sang a wide repertoire. In 1904, he created the part of Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
.
Career
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
but he never felt comfortable in this range and later switched to the higher tenor register. Nonetheless, it was as a baritone that he made his professional debut at Belluno
Belluno
Belluno , is a town and province in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Located about 100 kilometres north of Venice, Belluno is the capital of the province of Belluno and the most important city in the Eastern Dolomiti's region. With its roughly 37,000 inhabitants, it the largest populated area...
in 1898. His tenor debut—as Canio—did not come until the following year, at Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
.
Zenatello's operatic career gathered momentum during the early years of the 20th century, and on February 17, 1904, he created the role of Pinkerton in the world premiere of Giacomo 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...
's Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
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...
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. La Scala was Italy's leading opera house, and he remained a member of its company of singers until 1907.
He also sang at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, in 1905-06 and 1908–09; at the Manhattan Opera House in 1907-1910; and with the New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
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...
company, on tour, replacing Enrico Caruso, in 1909. He was a member of the Boston Opera Company
Boston Opera Company
The Boston Opera Company was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts that was active from 1909 to 1915.-History:The company was founded in 1908 by Bostonian millionaire Eben Dyer Jordan, Jr. and impresario Henry Russell...
from 1909-1914 and sang often, too, in South America and Mexico and in various cities of Continental Europe.
Zenatello's voice had matured into that of a clarion-voiced dramatic tenor during his La Scala years, and he succeeded Francesco Tamagno
Francesco Tamagno
Francesco Tamagno was an operatic tenor from Italy who sang with enormous success throughout Europe and America. On 5 February 1887, he cemented his place in musical history by creating the role of Otello in Giuseppe Verdi's masterpiece of the same name...
(1850–1905) as the world's greatest exponent of Giuseppe 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 Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
. He performed this extremely taxing role more than 300 times, beginning in 1908, and recorded highly acclaimed extracts from the work on 78-rpm discs.
Zenatello returned to Covent Garden in 1926, singing Otello in a series of performances which were partly recorded live by HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
. After a final stage appearance (in New York City) in 1933, he retired from opera and taught singing and dabbled in the management of promising young singers. The coloratura
Coloratura
Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and...
soprano Lily Pons
Lily Pons
Lily Pons was a French-American operatic soprano and actress who had an active career from the late 1920s through the early 1970s. As an opera singer she specialized in the coloratura soprano repertoire and was particularly associated with the title roles in Léo Delibes' Lakmé and Gaetano...
was a notable 'discovery' of Zenatello's in the twilight of his on-stage career. He took Pons under his wing and arranged for her an audition before the Met's general manager, which resulted in the young French-born singer making a successful New York debut in 1931. Later, however, they fell out.
As to his private life, Zenatello lived with the Spanish mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
Maria Gay
Maria Gay
Maria Gay was a Catalan opera singer, a mezzo-soprano born as Maria de Lourdes Lucia Antonia Pichot Gironés. She has sometimes been referred to as Maria Gay Zenatello.-Biography:...
from 1906 until her death in 1943. They were often described as husband and wife although they may never have actually married. He and Gay performed opposite each other on many occasions and settled down together in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in 1936.
Back in 1913, Zenatello had been instrumental in having the Verona Arena
Verona Arena
The Verona Arena is a Roman amphitheatre in Piazza Bra in Verona, Italy, which is internationally famous for the large-scale opera performances given there. It is one of the best preserved ancient structures of its kind....
, built originally by the ancient Romans, restored and turned into a world famous open-air venue for operatic performances. That same year the arena was used to mount a grand production of 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...
, marking the centenary of Verdi's birth. In 1947, Zenatello arranged for a promising young soprano named Maria Callas
Maria Callas
Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
to appear at the arena's Summer Festival in Amilcare Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli was an Italian composer, largely of operas.-Biography:Born in Paderno Fasolaro, now Paderno Ponchielli, near Cremona, Ponchielli won a scholarship at the age of nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old.Two years...
's operatic masterpiece, La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...
. This appearance would give Callas invaluable exposure in Italy and help set her on the path to future stardom.
Zenatello died of natural causes in New York City in 1949, aged 73.
Recordings
Zenatello left an important musical legacy in the form of a considerable number of commercial recordings of his voice, made both acoustically and, after 1925, with the aid of microphone technology. His first discs were made in Italy by The Gramophone Company in 1903, followed by a long series for Fonotipia RecordsFonotipia Records
Fonotipia Records, or Dischi Fonotipia, was an Italian gramophone record label established in 1904 with a charter to record the art of leading opera singers and some other celebrity musicians, chiefly violinists. Fonotipia continued to operate into the electrical recording era, which commenced in...
. Later, he recorded for the Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, Edison
Edison Records
Edison Records was one of the earliest record labels which pioneered recorded sound and was an important player in the early recording industry.- Early phonographs before commercial mass produced records :...
and HMV labels. These recordings of operatic arias, duets and ensembles, as well as of a few song titles, have been reissued on CD in recent years, most notably by the English firms Pearl and Symposium Records and on the Austrian Preiser label. They reflect the wide range of his repertoire and the best of them confirm the impressive power, thrust and ardency of his singing. Zenatello left recorded memoirs from the roles he created (including arias and duets from Siberia, Madame Butterly, and Figlio di Jorio).
A radio interview with an elderly Zenatello, recorded in 1947, includes a creditable (if transposed downwards, due to the singer's age) performance of the aria Niun mi tema from Otello. This interview was reissued in the 1960s and can be heard on CD.
Roles created
- 1903: Vassili in SiberiaSiberiaSiberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
(GiordanoUmberto GiordanoUmberto Menotti Maria Giordano was an Italian composer, mainly of operas.He was born in Foggia in Puglia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples...
). - 1903: Init in OceànaOceàna (opera)Oceàna is an opera in three acts composed by Antonio Smareglia to a libretto in Italian by Silvio Benco. It premiered at La Scala on 22 January 1903 in a performance conducted by Arturo Toscanini.-Roles:...
(Antonio SmaregliaAntonio SmaregliaAntonio Smareglia was an Austro-Hungarian opera composer of Italian ethnicity.-Life:Antonio Smareglia was born in the town of Pola , in a house on Via Nettuno which still stands and in which there is now a small museum of his life and work...
) - 1904: Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly (Giacomo Puccini).