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Renato Bruson
Renato Bruson
Genres	Classical Music
Occupation	baritone Opera Singer
Instrument	Voice
Years active	1961 - present

Renato Bruson (born January 13, 1936) is an Italian operatic baritone. Bruson is considered one of the main interpreters of our time in this role, notably in Verdi’s and Donizetti’s works. He was born in Este near Padua, Italy.

Biography and career

Bruson's passion for music matured in the parish choir when he was a child. He began his music studies at the conservatory of Padua where he was awarded a scholarship that allowed him to attend the courses in face of economic problems. He did not receive much support from his family that considered him a good-for-nothing. In his own words: "They thought that I only wanted to study music because I had no desire to work. At that time, the general feeling where I lived was that if someone worked, they had a future, whereas those who studied, especially if they studied music, were considered failures who would never find their path in life." However, he could continue his studies with the help of the administration of the conservatory and the support of friends.

Bruson made his opera debut as the Conte di Luna in Il trovatore at the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale in Spoleto in 1961. The following year he was Riccardo in I puritani at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome. His first Metropolitan Opera appearance was as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor in 1969. In 1970 he started his collaboration with conductor Riccardo Muti in Un ballo in maschera in Florence. He made his debut at La Scala in 1972 as Antonio in Donizetti's Linda di Chamonix, at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1972 as Ezio in Attila (opera), at the Covent Garden in 1975 in the role of Renato in Un ballo in maschera substituting with great success Piero Cappuccilli. He debuted at the Vienna State Opera in 1978 with Macbeth (opera) with such a success that the prestigious Austrian theatre awarded him with the important title of Kammersänger. In the 80's he turned to the '700 with Mozart's Don Giovanni and to Italian Verismo with Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chenier.

He is considered by some critics the finest Rigoletto since Tito Gobbi. They appreciate his elegant and expressive phrasing, velvety tone, musical intelligence and acting qualities. He excels in long, lyrical lines. He is also appreciated for not disdaining smaller roles and for not assuming a divo attitude. Bruson once described himself in the following terms: "I am self critic enough to understand what I can get at. Since I knew I did not have a thundering voice to make coarse effects, I sought the interpretation since I think it is more important that the public go home with something in their hearth that some sounds in their ears".^[1]

Acknowledgements

Carlo Maria Giulini: "I believe Renato Bruson now is the Falstaff. He has the wit, the intelligence, the dignity and, of course, the voice. Basta.".

Giuseppe Sinopoli: "Only the baritone Renato Bruson has a similar ability (referring to Mirella Freni) to make expression and word coincide, he explores it with all the semantic charge it contains. And this is not the result of an intellectual activity but is a privileged instinct".

Music critic Christian Springer wrote of Bruson: "Bruson was the quintessential Verdi baritone in the second half of the last century. A Verdi baritone not as it was understood (or rather, misunderstood) in the 1950's and 60's, but a Verdi baritone as understood and desired by the composer himself."

Honors and awards

Bruson has received numerous honors, including:

Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Urbino
Honorary citizenship of Parma
Honorary citizenship of Ortona (birth city of Francesco Paolo Tosti, of whom he performed many works)
Honorary citizenship of Palmi (birth city of Francesco Cilea)
Honorary memberchip of the "Donizetti Society" of London
Cavaliere di Gran Croce of the Italian Republic
Commendation of the Order of the Knights of Malta
Kammersänger awarded by the Wiener Staatsoper

He received 7 the Orphée d'or by the French Académie du disque Lyrique in 1980 for the Luisa Miller on Deutsche Grammophon.

Trivia

Bruson, you sing very well but you have no personality! was the verdict after an audition at La Scala in Milan in 1963.

Bruson told the following story during an interview. He was in Montecarlo in the 60's with the conductor Franco Mannino to sing in La traviata. "During the rehearsals an employee of the theatre addressed him [Mannino] with a very unpleasant ‘italiens de merde!’. He lost his temper, we both ended in a fight, and the police came. Then, after the opera performance, Prince Rainier invited us in the royal box to apologize. There was also Grace Kelly, very beautiful, radiant. We drank champagne offered by the prince, and forgot everything with a laugh."

References

Tita Tegano - Renato Bruson: 40 anni di "Recitar cantando" (40 Years of Acting by Singing) - Pantheon, 2001, ISBN 88-7434-012-5
Tita Tegano - Renato Bruson: L'interprete e i personaggi - Azzali Editore, 1998

External links

Notes

^ Anna Dalponte interviews Bruson (in Italian)

[1] Anna Dalponte interviews Bruson (in Italian)

[1]