Carlo Bergonzi

For many listeners Carlo Bergonzi embodied the very essence of Verdian elegance throughout both his own era and the wider span of the twentieth century. His mother and father, passionate opera enthusiasts, escorted the six-year-old boy to a performance of Il trovatore; the following morning they discovered him belting out “Di quella pira” while arranging a makeshift scene with pots and pans. He first sang in church choirs and took on juvenile parts with the Busseto Opera. At fourteen he auditioned before Edmondo Grandini, who classified him as a baritone and accepted him as a pupil; Bergonzi therefore relocated to Brescia, although wartime service and subsequent incarceration in a German prisoner-of-war camp for anti-Nazi activities halted his lessons. Once hostilities ceased, he enrolled at the Boito Conservatory in Parma, where Ettore Campogalliani continued to train him as a baritone. After completing his studies he made his professional bow as Schaunard in La bohème in 1947, then assumed his first leading role, Rossini’s Figaro, at Lecce the following year, remaining active in principal baritone parts at that theater. Yet he remained certain that his true voice was tenor. Drawing on conservatory training, tenor recordings, and memories of sharing the stage with Schipa and Gigli, he finally appeared as a tenor in 1951 at Bari, singing the title role in Andrea Chenier, and soon added the Verdi heroes Riccardo in Un ballo in maschera and Alvaro in La forza del destino. To preserve agility he also undertook lighter assignments such as Nemorino and the role of Nero in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. In 1953 he created the part of Mas’Aniello in Napoli’s opera at La Scala and made his London debut as Alvaro. Chicago’s Lyric Opera welcomed him in 1955, the Metropolitan Opera the next year; his first appearance at Covent Garden, again as Alvaro, did not occur until 1962. Thereafter he became a mainstay at the world’s leading houses, celebrated equally for vocal quality and unwavering reliability. He retained remarkable flexibility, moving among lyric, spinto, and occasional verismo assignments. Although he never excelled as a physical actor and lacked matinée-idol features, he proved an astute vocal interpreter, shading each character with the hues he judged appropriate rather than imposing a uniform timbre. During the 1980s he increasingly favored recitals and orchestral concerts while establishing himself as a respected instructor focused on vocal technique.

He committed all of his principal Verdi roles to disc. Among these, he repeatedly singled out the 1976 Philips set of thirty-one major arias drawn from every Verdi opera—an album honored with the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, the Premio della critica discografica italiana, and Stereo Review’s Record of the Year award—as the recording of which he was proudest. His complete Deutsche Grammophon Pagliacci under von Karajan demonstrates his complete ease in verismo repertoire, while an exemplary collection of Italian songs appeared on Sony.