Amelita Galli-Curci

Amelita Galli-Curci (18 November, 1882 – 26 November, 1963) was an Italian operatic coloratura soprano. She was one of the best regarded singers of the early 20th century.

Biography

She was born as Amelita Galli into an upper-middle-class family in Milan, where she studied piano in her youth. She was inspired to sing by her grandmother. Operatic composer Pietro Mascagni also encouraged Galli-Curci's singing career. By her own choice, Galli-Curci's singing was largely self-trained, from listening to other sopranos, reading old singing method books, and practicing piano exercises with her voice.

Galli-Curci made her operatic debut in 1906 at Trani, as Gilda in Rigoletto and she rapidly became acclaimed throughout Italy.

In 1908 she married the Marchese Luigi Curci, and added his last name to hers. They eventually divorced and in 1921 Galli-Curci married Homer Samuels, her accompanist.

She toured widely in Europe and South America. In 1915 Galli-Curci sang two performances of Lucia di Lammermoor with Enrico Caruso in Buenos Aires. These were to be her only appearances with the legendary tenor. Galli-Curci arrived in the United States in 1916 a virtual unknown. Her stay was intended to be brief, but the acclaim she received for her performance as Gilda in Rigoletto in Chicago, Illinois was so wildly enthusiastic that she accepted an offer to remain with the Chicago Opera Company. She was a member of the company through 1924. Also in 1916, Galli-Curci signed a recording contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company and recorded extensively for the company until 1930. In 1921 Galli-Curci joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York remaining with this organization until her retirement from opera in 1930.

Galli-Curci was a student of the Indian meditation and yoga teacher Paramhansa Yogananda. [*cite book | last =Ferguson | first =Charles W. | title =The New Book of Revelations: The Inside Story of America's Astounding Religious Cults | publisher =Doubleday, Doran, & Company | year =1930 | location =New York , p. 460.] She wrote the forward to Yogananda's 1929 book "Whispers from Eternity". [cite book | last =Yogananda | first =Swami | authorlink =Paramahansa Yogananda | coauthors = | title =Whispers from Eternity | publisher =Self-Realization Publishing | year =1929 | location =Los Angeles , forward.] [cite web | last = Yogananda | first = Swami | title =Online Whispers from Eternity, first edition | url =http://www.whispersfrometernity.org/contents/foreword.html | accessdate = 2008-01-23]

Convinced that opera was a dying art form, Galli-Curci retired from the operatic stage in January 1930 to concentrate instead on concert performances. Throat problems had plagued her for many years and she underwent surgery in 1935 for the removal of a thyroid goiter. Great care was taken during her surgery, which was performed under local anethesia; however, her voice suffered following the surgery. A nerve to her larynx (or "voice box"), the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve, is thought to have been damaged, resulting in the loss of her ability to sing high pitches. This nerve has since become known as the "nerve of Galli-Curci."

In 2001, Crookes and Recaberen "examined contemporary press reviews after surgery, conducted interviews with colleagues and relatives of the surgeon, and compared the career of Galli-Curci with that of other singers" and found that her vocal decline most likely did not result from a surgical injury. [cite article | last =Crookes | first =Peter | title =Injury to the Superior Laryngeal Branch of the Vagus During Thyroidectomy: Lesson or Myth? | publisher =Annals of Surgery | date =April 2001 | volume =233(4) ]

In 1936, Galli-Curci made her ill-advised return to opera as Mimi in "La Boheme" in Chicago. It was painfully clear that her singing days were over and after a few more recitals she went into complete retirement living in California until her death in November 1963 at the age of 81. A portrait of Galli-Curci, by the artist Violet Oakley, hangs in the private collection of Bishop Council Nedd II in Harrisburg, PA.

Bibliography

* "The Last Prima Donnas", by Lanfranco Rasponi, Alfred A Knopf, 1982. ISBN 0-394-52153-6

Notes

External links

* [http://www.chez.com/craton/musique/galli-curci/english.htm Extensive Galli-Curci site with biography, photos, and sound clips]
* [http://www.chez.com/geneaturlure/amelita_galliCURCI.htm Galli-Curci, the San Diego Nightingale]