Gianandrea Gavazzeni

Although he never rose to prominence as an international podium luminary, Gianandrea Gavazzeni earned a reputation as one of opera’s most reliable and admired conductors, long regarded as a leading guardian of the authentic Verdi style at La Scala. He also wrote music, yet later withdrew from that pursuit entirely.

At eleven he enrolled at Rome’s Accademia di Santa Cecilia for piano lessons that continued from 1921 to 1924. The following year he transferred to Milan Conservatory, completing his studies there in 1931 with composition—chiefly under Ildebrando Pizzetti—as his principal focus.

He began professionally as a répétiteur charged with readying singers according to each conductor’s conception, while also performing as a pianist and contributing music criticism to the press.

Once podium opportunities arose, he promoted the scores of his colleagues Pizzetti, Luigi Dallapiccola, Gian-Francesco Mailipiero, and Goffredo Petrassi, the leading modernists then active in Italy, having already endorsed their work in his journalistic writings.

During those years he composed steadily; the oratorio Canti per Sant'Alessandro (1934) and the opera Paolo e Virginia (1935) were both presented to favorable notice, and he produced additional orchestral and vocal pieces. In 1949, however, as his conducting engagements multiplied, he declared his retirement from composition and forbade any further performances of his music.

His first appearance at Milan’s La Scala took place in 1948; he returned regularly through 1977 and served as the company’s artistic director from 1965 to 1972. He also appeared often at Florence’s Maggio Musicale. British audiences first encountered him at the 1957 Edinburgh Festival, where he led the smaller touring troupe known as La Piccolo Scala. In 1965 he conducted Donizetti’s Anna Bolena at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and he made his United States debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1976. Engagements throughout Europe, several visits to Moscow’s Bol’shoi, and performances in Canada and the United States followed. He became best known for his readings of Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and the verismo repertory.

Journalism remained a parallel vocation. His volume Musicisti d’Europe, published in Milan in 1954 and issued in English as Musicians of Europe, offered a notable assessment of the postwar classical scene; his biographical and analytical studies of Bellini and Donizetti likewise continue to be held in esteem.