Franco Corelli
Franco Corelli (8 April 1921 – 29 October 2003) was an Italian tenor active in opera from the 1950s to 1976, particularly associated with heroic roles of the Italian repertory, he was noted for his handsome stage presence and his thrilling upper register.
Born in Ancona, the son of a ship worker. He originally studied for a degree in marine engineering, then studied briefly with Rita Pavoni at the Pesaro Conservatory of Music, but was, initially, mostly self-taught. Later he sought advise from the legendary tenor, Giacomo Lauri Volpi. In 1950, he won the Maggio Musicale in Florence, earning a debut at the Spoleto Music Festival the following year, as Don José in Carmen. The same year, he made his debut at the Rome Opera as Manrico in Il trovatore. In the following years he sang mostly in smaller opera houses throughout Italy and on Italian radio.
He reached La Scala in Milan in 1954, as Licinio in Spontini's La Vestale, opposite Maria Callas, whom he would later partner in Fedora, Il Pirata and Poliuto. Important debuts quickly followed at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence and the Verona Arena in 1955, the Vienna State Opera, as Radames, and the Royal Opera House in London, as Cavaradossi, in 1957, the Teatro Nacional Sao Carlos in Lisbon, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the San Francisco Opera in 1958, the Berlin State Opera in 1961.
He made his debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera on 27 January 1961 as Manrico in Il Trovatore, opposite another debutante, Leontyne Price. He would sing to great acclaim at the Met until 1974 in roles such as Calaf, Cavaradossi, Maurizio, Ernani, Rodolfo, Edgardo, and also undertook French roles in new productions of Roméo et Juliette and Werther.
He returned to La Scala in 1962, for a revival of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, opposite Joan Sutherland, and made his debut at the Paris Opera in 1970.
With a rich and ringing dramatic tenor voice and movie-star good looks, Corelli won a wide public following, despite complaints from some critics about what they perceived as self-indulgence of phrasing and expression.
Corelli retired from the stage in 1976 at the young age of 55. He died in Milan in 2003, aged 82, having suffered a stroke earlier that year, and was interred there in the Cimitero Monumentale.
He was married to soprano Loretta di Lelio.
Selected recordings
Sources
- The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia, edited by David Hamilton, (Simon and Schuster, 1987) ISBN 0-671-61732-X
- The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera, edited by Paul Gruber, (W.W. Norton & Company, 1993) ISBN 0-393-03444-5