Gianni Raimondi
I wish to thank Daniele Godor for the recordings (Rigoletto x 2). I wish to thank Thomas Silverbörg for the recordings (Guillaume Tell, Puritani, Luisa Miller).
Raimondi trained his voice with Antonio Melandri in Bologna and Ettore Campogalliani in Mantova, among others.
After his 1947 debut, he spent a few years in Italy (besides several secondary theaters, also at the Carlo Felice in Genova, the
Comunale in Bologna and both the Comunale and the Maggio musicale in Florence.
In 1952, he sang abroad for the first time, in
Monte Carlo; in 1953, he was in London (Stoll Theatre, as Alfredo) and Paris (Opéra, as Duca), and the same year, he arrived at the Teatro San Carlo in
Naples, where he would sing frequently until 1970. The Teatro Massimo in Palermo was his next important stage, and here, too, he
was to sing very often.
But his most important theater was La Scala: from his 1956 debut to 1975, he sang there every season:
Turiddu, Sobinin, Fernand, Wilhelm Meister, Gennaro, Edgardo, Ismaele, Duca, Percy (Anna Bolena), Rinuccio, Rodolfo, Pinkerton,
Idreno (Semiramide), Arrigo, Gabriele Adorno, Fritz, Pollione and Arnold.
In 1954, he made his Marseille and Brussels debuts;
Barcelona followed in 1956, the Vienna Staatsoper in 1957 (68 performances until 1977, as Rodolfo, Cavaradossi, Duca, Pinkerton,
Alfredo and Riccardo), the Arena di Verona in 1957, as well (he sang there again in 1961, 1964, 1968 and 1978), San Francisco in
1958, the Colón in Buenos Aires in 1961 (he returned a few times until 1970), Ciudad de México and Rome in 1962,
Madrid in 1964. In 1965, he made his Met debut (44 performances until 1969, as Rodolfo, Duca, Cavaradossi, Pinkerton, Edgardo and
Faust). He was for the first time in Lisbon in 1966, in Philadelphia, Venice and Parma in 1967, in Berlin (Deutsche Oper) in 1969,
in Hamburg in 1970, Torino in 1973, Zürich in 1977. His farewell was a concert in Rome in 1980.
Reference: Kutsch & Riemens
Rigoletto – Budrio, 8 November 1947 Lucia di Lammermoor – Massa Carrara, 6 December 1947 Don Pasquale – Bologna, 11 November 1948 Madama Butterfly – Lisbona, 16 April 1040 La traviata – Bologna, 7 August 1949 La bohème – Lugano, 7 October 1950 Mignon – Lugano, 7 October 1950 Prodaná nevěsta (Vašek) – Firenze, 18 January 1952 Armida – Firenze, 26 April 1952 La pietra di paragone – Firenze, 29 May 1952 Linda di Chamounix – Bergamo, 23 September 1952 La favorite – Lugano, October 1942 Die lustige Witwe – Palermo, 20 November 1952 Amelia al ballo – Palermo, 26 November 1952 L'elisir d'amore – Algeri, 20 January 1954 Il contrabasso (by Bucchi) – Firenze, 20 May 1954 Madame Bovary (by Pannain) – Napoli, 16 April 1955 Anna Bolena – Milano, 14 April 1957 Mosè – Milano, 18 December 1958 Zhizn za tsarja/A life for the tsar – Milano, 20 March 1959 Gianni Schicchi – Milano, 14 April 1959 Tosca – Milano, January 1960 I puritani – Milano, 20 February 1960 Elisa (by Cherubini) – Firenze, 10 May 1960 Faust – Milano, 1 Marz 1962 Semiramide – Milano, 17 December 1962 Un ballo in maschera – Vienna, 29 September 1963 L'amico Fritz – Milano, 7 December 1963 Guillaume Tell – Milano, 11 February 1965 Nabucco – Milano, 7 December 1966 La resurrezione di Cristo – Verona, 20 August 1969 La Gioconda – Rio de Janeiro, 5 September 1969 Macbeth – Palermo, 27 December 1969 Lucrezia Borgia – Milano, 24 February 1970 I vespri siciliani – Milano, 7 December 1970 Simon Boccanegra – Milano, 7 December 1971 Roberto Devereux – Venezia, 11 February 1972 I masnadieri – Roma, 25 November 1972 Norma – Milano, 22 December 1972 Reference: Daniele Rubboli Gianni Raimondi, felicemente tenor, Azzali, 1992 |