Luigi Ricci was an Italian assistant conductor, accompanist, vocal coach

Vocal coach

A vocal coach is a music teacher who instructs singers on how to improve their singing technique, take care of and develop their voice, and prepare for the performance of a song or other work. Vocal coaches may give private music lessons to singers, or they may coach singers who are rehearsing on...

, and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

.

Career

Luigi Ricci began studying music as a child, and at the age of only twelve, started accompanying voice lessons given by the famous baritone
Antonio Cotogni

Antonio Cotogni

Antonio Cotogni was an Italian baritone of the first magnitude. Regarded internationally as being one of the greatest male opera singers of the 19th century, he was particularly admired by the composer Giuseppe Verdi...

, who had performed several 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 operas under the composer's supervision. At this early age, Ricci began taking meticulous notes on traditions, which Cotogni was passing on to him from work with 19th Century composers and conductors.

Ricci became an assistant conductor with the Rome Opera House and in that capacity worked eight years with 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...

 and thirty-four
years with Pietro Mascagni

Pietro Mascagni

Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...

. Other composers with whom he was associated include Ottorino Respighi

Ottorino Respighi

Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral "Roman trilogy": Fountains of Rome ; Pines of Rome ; and Roman Festivals...

, Umberto Giordano

Umberto Giordano

Umberto 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...

, Riccardo Zandonai

Riccardo Zandonai

Riccardo Zandonai was an Italian composer.-Biography:Zandonai was born in Borgo Sacco, Rovereto, then part of Austria–Hungary....

, and Ildebrando Pizzetti

Ildebrando Pizzetti

Ildebrando Pizzetti was an Italian composer of classical music.- Biography :Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions...

. Among the many great conductors with whom he worked were Gino Marinuzzi

Gino Marinuzzi

Gino Marinuzzi was an Italian conductor and composer, particularly associated with Wagner and the Italian repertory....

, Vittorio Gui

Vittorio Gui

Vittorio Gui was an Italian conductor and composer.Gui was born in Rome in 1885. In 1933 Bruno Walter invited him to be guest conductor at the Salzburg Festival....

, Ettore Panizza

Ettore Panizza

Ettore Panizza was an Argentinian conductor and composer, one of the leading conductors of the early 20th century. Panizza possessed technical mastery and was popular and influential during his time, widely admired by Richard Strauss.- Biography :Panizza was born in Buenos Aires, of Italian parents...

, Tullio Serafin

Tullio Serafin

-Biography:Tullio Serafin was a leading Italian opera conductor with a long career and a very broad repertoire who revived many 19th century bel canto operas by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti to become staples of 20th century repertoire...

, Victor de Sabata

Victor de Sabata

Victor de Sabata was an Italian conductor and composer. He is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished operatic conductors of the twentieth century, especially for his Verdi, Puccini and Wagner. He is also acclaimed for his interpretations of orchestral music...

; as well as singers such as Ezio Pinza

Ezio Pinza

Ezio Pinza was an Italian basso opera singer with a rich, smooth and sonorous voice. He spent 22 seasons at New York's Metropolitan Opera, appearing in more than 750 performances of 50 operas...

, Beniamino Gigli

Beniamino Gigli

Beniamino Gigli was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism...

, Toti dal Monte

Toti Dal Monte

Antonietta Meneghel , better known by her stage name Toti Dal Monte, was a celebrated Italian operatic soprano with a sweet and limpid lyric voice. She was a favourite artist of the celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini...

, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years....

, Maria Caniglia

Maria Caniglia

Maria Caniglia was one of the leading Italian dramatic sopranos of the 1930s and 1940s.- Life and career :...

, to name but a few.

Ricci was the author of a collection of four volumes on "Variations, Cadenzas, and Traditions", and of two books "Puccini interprete da se stesso", and "34 anni con Pietro Mascagni". He collaborated on the musical direction of forty-two films and on numerous opera recordings with RCA

RCA

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

.

Ricci was also active as a vocal coach at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia is one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, based in Italy.It is based at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, and was founded by the papal bull, Ratione congruit, issued by Sixtus V in 1585, which invoked two saints prominent in Western...

 where he taught amongst many others to Sesto Bruscantini

Sesto Bruscantini

Sesto Bruscantini was an Italian baritone, one of the greatest buffo singers of the post-war era, especially renowned in Mozart and Rossini....

, Anna Moffo

Anna Moffo

Anna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...

, Rosalind Elias

Rosalind Elias

Rosalind Elias is an American mezzo-soprano, a rich-voiced singer of fine musicianship who enjoyed a long and distinguished career at the Metropolitan Opera.-Life and career:...

, Ezio Flagello

Ezio Flagello

Ezio Flagello was an Italian-American bass, particularly associated with the Italian repertory. He sang at the Metropolitan Opera from 1957 to 1984.- Career :...

.

Selected works

Compositions

• Variazioni-Cadenze Tradizioni per Canto. Vol. I: Voci Femminili (Ricordi
  Casa Ricordi
  Casa Ricordi is a classical music publishing company founded in 1808 as G. Ricordi & Co. by violinist Giovanni Ricordi in Milan, Italy...
  
  )
• Variazioni-Cadenze Tradizioni per Canto. Vol. II: Voci Maschili (Ricordi)
• Variazioni-Cadenze Tradizioni per Canto. Appendice N.1: Voci Miste (Ricordi)
• Variazioni-Cadenze Tradizioni per Canto. Appendice N.2: Variazioni e Cadenze di G. Rossini (ricordi)

Books and articles

• Puccini interprete di se stesso, Ricordi Milan, (1954) 2003. ISBN 8875927251
• 34 anni con Pietro Mascagni, Edizioni Curci, 1976.
• "Fleta e le note filate presente Puccini", Rassegna musicale, Vol. 30, no. 2, April 1977

Recording

• Giuseppe Verdi: Il trovatore (Stella Roman (Soprano); Silvia Sawyer (Mezzo Soprano); Anna Marcangeli (Soprano); Gino Sarri (Tenor); Antonio Manca Serra (Baritone); Vittorio Tatozzi (Baritone); Nino Mazziotti (Baritone); Rome Opera House Chorus and Orchestra; Conductor: Luigi Ricci) CD Label: Preiser Records