Giuseppe Anselmi

Giuseppe Anselmi (November 16, 1876, Nicolosi - May 27, 1929, Zoagli) was an Italian operatic tenor. He became famous throughout Europe during the first decade of the 20th century for his performances of lyric roles. He never sang in the United States.

Life and career

Anselmi came from the Catania area on the east coast of Sicily. He studied violin and piano at the Naples Conservatory as a teenager, and then joined an operetta troupe with which he toured Italy and the Middle East. The music publisher Giulio Ricordi allegedly heard him and advised him to undergo vocal instruction with Luigi Mancinelli, one of Italy's leading conductors.

According to some sources, Anselmi's first appearance on stage in an operatic role happened as early as 1896, when he sang Turiddu in Greece. His Italian operatic debut took place in Genoa in 1900 and his career took off quickly from there. He appeared initially at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, in late December of that year and, in 1901, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. Engagements at La Scala, Milan, and the Monte Carlo Opera ensued in 1904 and 1908 respectively. He was much admired at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and also sang in Brussels, Berlin and Vienna prior to World War I. His greatest triumphs, however, occurred in the cities of St Petersburg, Warsaw and, in particular, Madrid, where he even eclipsed the famous tenor Enrico Caruso in popularity.

Although his style of singing was not liked at first by the London critics, he nonetheless became a favorite with audiences in the British capital, and he sang intermittently at Covent Garden until 1909.

Anselmi's operatic career tailed off at the end of World War One. He spent his remaining years teaching and composing music in Italy. He also gave the odd concert. Anselmi died in 1929 of pneumonia at Zoagli in the Italian province of Liguria. He had retained a deep affection for Madrid and he bequeathed his heart to that city, where it was exhibited inside an urn at the Teatro Real museum.

Voice and Recordings

Commentators often describe Anselmi (and his famous contemporary Alessandro Bonci) as being among the last exponents of the old bel canto method of Italian singing, which was largely supplanted in Italy during the early 1900s by a more forceful mode of vocalism associated with verismo opera. Michael Scott (Record of Singing 1978) notes however that if Anselmi were a exponent bel canto it must have been when that School was in decline. Anselmi's treatment of much of the classical (bel canto) repertoire has relatively sketchy runs and ornaments (compared with the accuracy of Patti, Plancon, De Lucia and Battistini, true survivors of the Bel Canto tradition). Anselmi was as capable of agitation as any Verismo tenor (see his recording of Vesti la giubba from Pagliacci. ).

Anselmi had a sweet-toned if rather throaty and fluttery lyric tenor voice, which he employed with memorable grace and elegance. His upper range extended to a high B but his lowest notes were not so secure. There is a clear division between the registers. Anselmi is forever clearing his throat at the beginning of his recordings (famously in the Fonotipia recording of Amor ti vieta) and even during phrases (The Fonotipia recording of Apri la tua finestra). Anselmi' intonation is almost always suspect (most notably in the recitative to his famed Fonotipia recording of Quando al sere al placido from Verdi'sLuisa Miller where the forced top notes - and many other notes - are considerably sharp. He had a fine stage presence and was a handsome man, which made him extremely popular with many opera-goers certainly in the Latin countries. He was named Il tenore di donne which apparently had a double meaning; details of his personal life have never emerged. He was noted for his performances as Almaviva and Don Ottavio but he also excelled in the roles of Edgardo, Ernesto (in Don Pasquale), Duca di Mantua, Alfredo, Faust, Enzo, Cavaradossi, Loris and Lensky, among others.

Anselmi's stylish singing is preserved on discs which he made between 1907 and 1913 for Fonotipia Records in Milan and Edison Records in London. A good selection of these recordings can be heard on Compact Disc reissues by Pearl, Marston and other companies.

Sources

• Le guide de l'opéra, les indispensables de la musique, R. Mancini & J-J. Rouvereux (Fayard, 1986), ISBN 2-213-01563-6
• The Record of Singing, Michael Scott (Duckworth, 1977)
• The Grand Tradition, J.B. Steane (Duckworth, 1974)
• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (Second Edition), Harold Rosenthal and John Warrack (Oxford University Press, 1980)

External links

• History of the Tenor - Sound Clips and Narration