Carlo Bergonzi
Tenor Carlo Bergonzi, for many, epitomized Verdian grace and style, not only for his generation, but for the entire 20th century. His parents were great opera lovers and took him to see Il trovatore when he was just six. Bergonzi responded enthusiastically: the next morning, his parents found him in the kitchen, singing "Di quella pira" as best he could, and staging the scene with kitchen implements. He performed under slightly more formal auspices, in church choirs and in child roles in the Busseto Opera. When he was 14, he auditioned for Edmondo Grandini. Grandini decided that Bergonzi was a baritone and offered him lessons. Bergonzi moved to Brescia to study with him, though his studies were interrupted by the war and later by his imprisonment for anti-Nazi activities in a German prisoner-of-war camp. When the war ended, he returned to Italy and began studies at the Boito Conservatory in Parma.
At the conservatory, he was still considered a baritone. He studied with Ettore Campogalliani and after graduation, made his professional debut as Schaunard in La bohème in 1947, his debut in a lead as Rossini's Figaro in 1948 at Lecce, and continued to sing leading baritone roles there, even at one point replacing Tito Gobbi as Rigoletto. However, he himself remained convinced that he was a tenor. Finally, having used what he had learned at the conservatory and recordings of other tenors, particularly Caruso, Schipa, Gigli, and Pertile, and what he remembered from singing on stage with Schipa and Gigli, he made his debut as a tenor at Bari as Andrea Chénier in 1951 and soon sang two major Verdi tenor roles: Riccardo (Un ballo in maschera) and Alvaro in La forza del destino. To keep his voice flexible, he also sang lighter roles, such as Nemorino and even Nero in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. In 1953 he made his La Scala debut creating the role of Mas'Aniello in Napoli's opera and his London debut as Alvaro, his American debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1955, and his Met debut the following year. His Covent Garden debut, again as Alvaro, was not until 1962. He became a regular performer at nearly all of the great opera houses, renowned not only for his singing, but for consistency. He kept his versatility throughout his career, alternating lyric and spinto roles and even some verismo roles. He was never a great stage actor, nor did he have the matinee-idol looks of some of his contemporaries, but was an excellent vocal actor, singing each role with the colors he felt it demanded, rather than a "one voice fits all" approach. During the 1980s he began to focus more on recitals and concert performances and also became a well-known teacher, concentrating on technique. He created a voice school in Busseto, and was instrumental in the "Concorso internazionale di voci verdiane," a competition for aspiring Verdi singers.
He recorded all of his major Verdi roles. He often referred to his 1976 recording on Philips of 31 major arias from every Verdi opera, which won the Deutscher Schalplattenpries, Premio della critica discographica italiana, and the Stereo Review Record of the Year awards, as the recording of which he was proudest. His complete recording of Pagliacci on Deutsche Grammophon for von Karajan shows him thoroughly at home in the verismo style. On Sony, he made an exemplary recording of Italian songs.
© TiVo
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Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Renata Scotto, Carlo Bergonzi, Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Sir John Barbirolli
Opera - Released by Warner Classics on 1 Jan 1967
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi : Aida
Renata Tebaldi, Giulietta Simionato, Carlo Bergonzi, Wiener Singverein, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1959
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ponchielli: La Gioconda, Op. 9
Carlo Bergonzi, Robert Merrill, Renata Tebaldi, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia, Lamberto Gardelli
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 15 Dec 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Leoncavallo: Pagliacci
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1966
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Carlo Bergonzi - The Sublime Voice
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 14 Feb 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: La Traviata - Highlights
Dame Joan Sutherland, Carlo Bergonzi, Robert Merrill, Coro Del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestre du Mai Musical Florentin , Sir John Pritchard
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Operatic Recital
Carlo Bergonzi, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia, Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1958
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: Rigoletto
Renata Scotto, Carlo Bergonzi, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Orchestra del Teatro della Scala di Milano, Rafael Kubelik
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1960
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Puccini: La Bohème
Renata Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi, Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia, Tullio Serafin
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1959
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Carlo Bergonzi - Italian Songs (Voice)
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 24 Nov 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Great Carlo Bergonzi
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 26 Sep 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: La Traviata
Dame Joan Sutherland, Carlo Bergonzi, Robert Merrill, Orchestre du Mai Musical Florentin , Sir John Pritchard
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1966
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi Arias
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: Macbeth
Leonard Warren, Leonie Rysanek, Carlo Bergonzi
Opera - Released by Urania on 6 Feb 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Sir John Barbirolli, Renata Scotto, Carlo Bergonzi, Anna Di Stasio, Rolando Panerai
Opera - Released by Warner Classics on 17 Feb 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi : Il Trovatore
Ettore Bastianini, Antonietta Stella, Fiorenza Cossotto, Carlo Bergonzi, Orchestra del Teatro della Scala di Milano, Tullio Serafin
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1963
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vocal Recital: Bergonzi, Carlo – Verdi, G. / Bellini, V. / Donizetti, G. / Rossini, G.
Carlo Bergonzi, Vincenzo Scalera
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released by CapriccioNR on 1 Jan 1988
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Famous Duets
Carlo Bergonzi, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Jesús López-Cobos
Opera - Released by Orfeo on 1 Jan 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Canzoni napolitaines
Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released by Ensayo on 1 May 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tosti: Art Songs (Edoardo Muller)
Classical - Released by Orfeo on 1 Jan 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: La Traviata - Highlights
Dame Joan Sutherland, Carlo Bergonzi, Robert Merrill, Coro Del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestre du Mai Musical Florentin , Sir John Pritchard
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo