Mattia battistini biography of george

Italian opera singer

Mattia Battistini (27 February – 7 November ) was an Italian operatic baritone, referred to as the "King of Baritones" in multiple publications.^[1][2]

Early life

Battistini was born in Rome on 27 February He spent most of his childhood in the Collebaccaro di Contigliano village, near Rieti, where his parents owned an estate.

His grandfather Giovanni and uncle Raffaele were personal physicians to the Pope, and his father, Cavaliere Luigi Battistini, was a professor of anatomy at the University of Rome. Battistini attended the Collegio Bandinelli and later the Istituto dell' Apollinare.

Battistini dropped out of law school to explore music with Emilio Terziani (who taught composition) and with Venceslao Persichini (professor of singing) at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia—then the Liceo Musicale of Rome. Battistini worked with conductor Luigi Mancinelli and the composer Augusto Rotoli and consulted with baritone Antonio Cotogni to refine his technique.

Early career

Battistini made his operatic début at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, as Alfonso in Donizetti's La favorita. The date for this has often been given as 11 December , although 9 November is the correct date according to certain sources.^[3][4]

During the first three years of his professional career, he toured Italy, singing main roles in such varied operas as La forza del destino, Il trovatore, Rigoletto, Il Guarany, Gli Ugonotti, Dinorah, L'Africana, I Puritani, Lucia di Lammermoor, Aïda, and Ernani.

He also participated in several operatic premières. In he went to Buenos Aires for the first time, touring South America for more than 12 months. On his go back trip, he appeared in Barcelona and Madrid where he sang Figaro in Rossini's comic masterpiece Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

In , he undertook his first visit to the Royal Opera House at London's Covent Garden, where he appeared as Riccardo in Vincenzo Bellini's I Puritani in a stellar cast containing Marcella Sembrich, Francesco Marconi, and Edouard de Reszke.

He also sang opposite leading soprano Adelina Patti in other Covent Garden productions.

Battistini made his debut at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in Two years later, he once more sailed to Buenos Aires to fulfill a series of singing engagements; but this proved to be his last trans-Atlantic excursion, and he never appeared again in South America.

He also avoided North America despite receiving overtures from the management of the New York Metropolitan Opera. In his absence, Battistini's core repertoire was allocated to the Italian baritones Mario Ancona, Giuseppe Campanari, Antonio Scotti, and after Pasquale Amato.

Battistini is said to have developed a permanent horror of oceanic travel due to his adverse experiences on the particularly rough voyage to Buenos Aires. was also the year of his début at La Scala, Milan. La Scala's audiences acclaimed him, and he was re-engaged for the next season.

The Russian years

From onwards, Battistini established himself as an immense favorite with audiences at Russia's two imperial theatres in Saint Petersburg and Moscow: the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi respectively.

He returned to Russia regularly, appearing there for 23 seasons in total, and touring extensively elsewhere in eastern Europe, using Warsaw as his stepping-stone. He would journey to Warsaw, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Odessa like a prince, traveling in his intimate rail coach with a retinue of servants and innumerable trunks containing a vast stage wardrobe renowned for its elegance and lavishness.

Mattia Battistini 27 February — 7 November was an Italian operatic baritonereferred to as the "King of Baritones" in multiple publications. Battistini was born in Rome on 27 February He spent most of his childhood in the Collebaccaro di Contigliano village, near Rietiwhere his parents owned an estate. His grandfather Giovanni and uncle Raffaele were personal physicians to the Popeand his father, Cavaliere Luigi Battistini, was a professor of anatomy at the University of Rome.

The composer Jules Massenet was prepared to adjust the role of Werther for the baritone range when Battistini elected to sing it in Saint Petersburg in , such was the singer's prestige.

The industrious Battistini also appeared with some regularity in Milan, Lisbon, Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, and Paris (where he sang for the first time in ^[5]).

But his many social connections in Russia, and the favor that he enjoyed with the imperial family and the nobility, ensured that Russia—more than perhaps even Italy—became his skilled home before the outbreak of the First World War, in The war led to the destruction, by the Bolsheviks in , of the Tsarist regime and the aristocratic society that had enriched touring Italian opera stars like Battistini and his tenor compatriots Francesco Tamagno, Francesco Marconi, and Angelo Masini.

This history-shaping political development, coupled with Battistini's refusal to sing in the Americas, meant that his career after the war's ending in was confined to Western Europe.

Battistini's choice of bride had befitted his esteemed social status in Tsarist Russia and the West; he married a Spanish noblewoman, Doña Dolores de Figueroa y Solís, who was the offspring of a marquis and a cousin of Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val.

In January , Battistini and a young Russian admirer, Varvara Grigorievna Kovalensky (–), had a son Petya (–).

Blessed with uncommon physical strength Battistini was recognizable to give as many as thirty-four encores after a complete recital. He was able to perform every night of the week, and found little difficulty in tackling different roles on consecutive days. The ardency of his devoted fans was such that they would tend to him, reverently wiping his brow, or, if deprived of his actual presence, would break shop windows so as to pirate a photograph of him. The Tsar of Russia, who only received the most elite in St.

For around ten years, Battistini and Varvara corresponded and worked out details of Petya's upbringing, eventually enrolling him at the Collegio Nazareno under the name Pietro Kovalensky. Though mother and father never married (Battistini was already married and a devout Catholic) and broke off contact, they did reconcile after Varvara's husband Vladimir Mrosovsky died.

By that point, Petya (now known as Peter Mrosovsky) had finished school in England and graduated from Cambridge.^[6] There he had been friends with the likes of Nabokov, to whom he introduced James Joyce'sUlysses with a first edition copy smuggled from Paris.

^[7]

Final years and death

Battistini formed his own organization of singers following the – war.

Mattia Battistini - Bel Canto Baritone - Classical Tune and ...: Mattia Battistini (27 February – 7 November ) was an Italian operatic baritone, referred to as the "King of Baritones" in multiple publications. [1][2] Battistini was born in Rome on 27 February He spent most of his childhood in the Collebaccaro di Contigliano village, near Rieti, where his parents owned an estate.

He toured with them and appeared frequently in concerts and recitals. He sang in England for the final time in and gave his last concert production one year before his death. His voice was reportedly still steady, responsive, and in great overall condition.

His last singing engagement occurred in Graz, Austria, on 17 October He withdrew to his estate at Collebaccaro di Contigliano, Rieti, dying there from heart failure on 7 November

Battistini also taught voice in later years; among his pupils were the Basque baritone Celestino Sarobe^[8] and the Greek baritone Titos Xirellis.^[9]

Recordings

Battistini's initial sequence of records was cut in Warsaw in for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company.

Between and , he recorded extensively for the Gramophone Co Ltd and its associated companies. His records were issued in the US by Victor. Battistini's last recording session took place in February The earliest of his discs feature a piano accompanist but his later sung offerings were backed by a small band of orchestral musicians and, occasionally, a few choristers.

Selected reissues

On vinyl long-playing disc

EMI, the imaginative producer, issued a complete Battistini collection late in the LP era, remastered from the imaginative rpm shellac discs by audio technician Keith Hardwick.

On compact disc

• Mattia Battistini: The Complete Recordings –, 6 CDs, Marston Records (USA).^[10]
• The Complete Recordings: Mattia Battistini, Volume 1 (–), Romophone (UK).
• Mattia Battistini: a recital of arias by Mozart, Flotow, Donizetti, Gounod, Verdi, Ambroise Thomas, Preiser—Lebendige Vergangenheit (Austria).
• Mattia Battistini: Il Re dei Baritoni, Preiser—L.V. Austria; a 2-CD edition that boasts a discerningly chosen and well-transferred cross-section of the singer's large, recorded output.
• Mattia Battistini, Volumes 1–3, Pearl (UK).
• Mattia Battistini Rarities, Volumes 1–2, Symposium (UK).

This singer is found, too, on many historical CDs passionate to vocal compilations.

Biography. M attia Battistini (February 27, , Rome - November 7, , Contigliano) - Italian opera singer, baritone, adherent of the so-called school of "sweet" singing, maestro of bel canto. He studied music and vocalism since childhood, but proceeding from family traditions, he primarily received medical degree at the University of Rome.

An appreciation of his recordings

Mattia Battistini was esteemed as one of the greatest of singers and even a cursory acquaintance with his many discs will make it clear why he was so celebrated by his contemporaries.

Amongst the arsenal of vocal weapons that he displays on record was the flawless blending of his registers coupled with the sophisticated use of ornamentation, portamento, and fil di voce, as well as an array of rubato and legato effects.

His art was perfected before the advent of "passion-torn-to-tatters" verismo opera in the s, and together with the likes of Pol Plançon and Mario Ancona (and, to a lesser extent, Alessandro Bonci), he represented the twilight of the art of male bel canto singing on disc.

Fortunately, the sound of Battistini's clear, high-placed, and open-throated baritone voice took good to the primitive acoustic recording process with only his very lowest notes sounding pallid.

Mattia Battistini, the great Italian baritone, was born in Rome on 27th February After completing his studies, his debut came about as follows: It is The leading baritone of the Teatro Argentina is indisposed, the opera La Favorita has been announced and the director is in despair when someone recommends a year-old student. Thus, on 11th Decemberbegins a glorious career that lasted almost 50 years.

He also handled the trying conditions of the early sound 'studios', with their boxy confines and wall-mounted recording funnel, much enhanced than did many of his contemporaries, who often felt inhibited or intimidated by their uninspiring surroundings.

His singing was considered to be 'old-fashioned', even in the circa era. Consequently, his discs provide a retrospective reference to Italian singing practice of the early-to-midth century (the era of Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini)—as well as exemplifying the "grand manner" style of vocalism for which much Romantic operatic music was written.

Battistini delivers this kind of music in a virile, bold, and patrician way. He is not averse, however, to showing off his voice by prolonging top notes or embellishing the written score with a liberality that might surprise 21st-century listeners who are imbued with the modern notion that a composer's work is sacrosanct.

Perhaps Battistini's most historically illuminating recording is that of "Non mi ridestar", the Italian version of "Pourquoi me reveiller", a tenoraria from Massenet's Werther. Massenet transposed the protagonist's role downwards for baritone in a special version made especially for Battistini, harking back to an age when composers tailored their musical parts to fit the talents of one singer, and a singer of Battistini's stature could make almost any modifications seem acceptable.

For those listeners sampling Battistini's discography for the first time, his touchstone recorded performances include versions of arias from Don Sebastiano, Macbeth, Don Carlos, Tannhäuser and L'Africana—plus a scintillating series of excerpts of Don Carlo's scenes from Ernani, arguably his greatest part, which he committed to wax in For an evaluation of Battistini's technique, style, and legacy on disc, see his entry in Volume One of Michael Scott's survey The Record of Singing (published by Duckworth, London, , ISBN&#;).

Bibliography

Elsa Boscardini, of the Istituto Eugenio Cirese in Rieti, has published several pamphlets about Battistini, namely:

• Mattia Battistini, breve profilo storico-biografico ();
• L'arte di Mattia Battistini ();
• Mattia Battistini entusiasma le platee umbre ();
• Mattia Battistini, il favorito di Pietroburgo ();
• Mattia Battistini, interprete delle melodie di Donizetti (); plus
• Dolores Figueroa y Solís, la esposa de Mattia Battistini (written in Spanish and illustrated).

See also the following books:

Celletti, Rodolfo (): The History of Bel Canto.

Oxford & London, Oxford University Press;

Celletti, Rodolfo (): Le grandi voci. Rome, Istituto per la collaborazione culturale;

Chuilon, Jacques (): Battistini Le Dernier Divo. Paris, Romillat, AND, an English-language edition of Chuilon's detailed book, translated by E.

Thomas Glasow, with a unused preface by Thomas Hampson, and including a CD with 19 titles, and numerous rare photos from Chuilon's private collection, namely, Chuilon, Jacques (April ): Mattia Battistini, King of Baritones and Baritone of Kings, Lanham, MD, USA, Scarecrow Press [1];

Fracassini, G.

(): Mattia Battistini. Milano, Barbini;

Karl Josef Kutsch and Leo Riemens, editors (): Großes Sängerlexikon Basel, Saur;

Lancellotti, A (): Le voci d' oro. Rome, Palombi;

Monaldi, G (): Cantanti Celebri.

Rome, Tiber; and

Palmeggiani, Francesco (): Mattia Battistini, il re dei baritoni Milano, Stampa d' Oggi Editrice, (reprinted with discography, W.R. Moran, editor, New York, Arno Press).

References

External links