Ferruccio Furlanetto

Ferruccio Furlanetto (born 16 May 1949 in Sacile, Italy) is an Italian bass-baritone. His professional debut was in 1979 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, in a production of Verdi's "Macbeth", conducted by Claudio Abbado. He has gone on to sing numerous roles, including both Don Giovanni and Leporello in Mozart's "Don Giovanni", Philip II in Verdi's "Don Carlos", Figaro in Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro", Gremin in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin", Zaccaria in Verdi's "Nabucco", Méphistophélès in Gounod's "Faust", Orestes in Strauss' "Elektra", Fiesco in Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra", the title role of Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov", as well as several other roles.

He has sung in the world's major opera houses. He debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in the 1980-81 season, and has also performed at the Opéra de Paris (Bastille), the Salzburg Easter Festival and the regular Salzburg Festival, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Vienna Staatsoper, and the Tel Aviv Opera.

He is also widely in demand as a concert singer. He sang in Mozart's Coronation Mass under the baton of Herbert von Karajan, in an extraordinary performance at the Vatican in the presence of Pope John Paul II that was broadcast world-wide. He has also appeared often in recital at La Scala, the Berlin Deutsche Oper, the Gran Teatro del Liceu of Barcelona, the Vienna Musikverein, and many other venues.

Mr. Furlanetto is a devoted golfer. Although not a traditional buffo, his comic roles, such as Leporello, are regarded as outstanding. On DVD, the bass-baritone can be seen as the Grand Inquisiteur in Verdi's "Don Carlos", in a production conducted by James Levine and staged by John Dexter, from the Met, in 1983. Also in the cast are Plácido Domingo, Mirella Freni, Grace Bumbry, Louis Quilico and Nicolai Ghiaurov.

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Interview:

2006 - Café Momus (in Hungarian): http://www.momus.hu/article.php?id=3629