Giuseppe Taddei

Giuseppe Taddei (born June 26, 1916) is an Italian baritone who enjoyed a long and distinguished career, particularly in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi.

Taddei was born in Genoa, Italy and studied in Rome, where he made his professional debut at the in 1936 as the Herald in "Lohengrin". He sang at the Rome Opera until being conscripted into the army in 1942. After the war, he resumed his opera career and appeared for two seasons at the Vienna State Opera. He made his debut in London in 1947, at the Cambridge Theatre. The following year, 1948, saw his debut , at the Salzburg Festival, La Scala in Milan, the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples.

His American debut took place at the San Francisco Opera in 1957, followed by the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1959. He sang regularly at the Royal Opera House in London from 1960 to 1967.

A versatile singer and ressourceful actor, Taddei was equally effective in comic and dramatic. His huge repertory included most notably the two Figaros, from "Nozze di Figaro" and "Il barbiere di Siviglia", both Leporello and Don Giovanni in "Don Giovanni", both Belcore and Dulcamara in "Elisir d'amore", as well as "Ernani", "Macbeth", "Rigoletto",Amonasro in "Aida", Iago in "Otello", "Falstaff" , Barnaba in "La Gioconda", Gérard in "Andrea Chenier", Scarpia in "Tosca", etc.

His wonderful vocal longevity allowed him to continue singing into old age, making a triumphant, if belated, debut at the Metropolitan Opera, on September 25, 1985, as "Falstaff", at the age of 69.

Giuseppe Taddei left many recordings, notably as Figaro in "Nozze di Figaro" and Leporello in "Don Giovanni" in the famous Carlo Maria Giulini versions, as "Macbeth", opposite Birgit Nilsson, conducted by Thomas Schippers, as Scarpia in "Tosca" and as "Falstaff", both conducted by Herbert Von Karajan.

Sources

* "The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia", edited by David Hamilton ISBN 0-671-61732-X
* "The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera", edited by Paul Gruber ISBN 0-393-03444-5

Early Cetra Recordings

Verdi - "Ernani" - Caterina Mancini, Gino Penno, Giuseppe Taddei, Giacomo Vaghi, 1950 - Fernando Previtali

Verdi - "Falstaff" - Giuseppe Taddei, Rosanna Carteri, Lina Pagliughi, Amelia Pini, Saturno Meletti - 1949 - Mario Rossi

Verdi - "Rigoletto" - Giuseppe Taddei, Lina Pagliughi, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Giulio Neri - 1954 - Angelo Questa

Rossini - "Guglielmo Tell" - Giuseppe Taddei, Mario Filippeschi, Rosanna Carteri, Giorgio Tozzi, Fernando Corena - 1951 - Mario Rossi

Rossini - "Il barbiere di Siviglia" - Giuseppe Taddei, Giulietta Simionato,
Luigi Infantino, Carlo Badioli, Antonio Cassinelli - 1950 - Fernando Previtali

Trivia

Italians have an explanation as to why Giuseppe Taddei did not perform abroad very much - "We gave Tito Gobbi to the world but we kept Giuseppe Taddei for ourselves" !