Giuseppe Di Stefano Discography

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Born on Jul.24th,1921,in Motta Sant`Anastasia (Catania),Di Stefano received his early education at a Jesuit seminary.Prompted to explore singing as a career by a fellow pupil who had heard his renditions of popular songs,the tenor went to Milan to study with baritone Luigi Montesanto and later Mariano Stabile,with whom Di Stefano credited as having conveyed to him the importance of enunciation.The tenor won a vocal competition in 1938 in Florence,but was conscripted the following year;he was discharged shortly thereafter,having been deemed a second-rate soldier by an officer who thought he might be of more service as a singer on the home front.As the war spread across Italy,Di Stefano fled to Switzerland where he began performing in Radio Lausanne opera broadcasts.The tenor`s proper debut arrived in 1946,when he sang Des Grieux in production of Manon Lescaut at Reggio Emilia`s Teatro Municipale.Less than a year later,he found himself on the stage of the Rome Opera,and the following year he again marvelously assumed the role of Des Grieux at Teatro alla Scala.In 1948,he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Rigoletto,and over the next eight years,went on singing roles always at the Met:Mignon,Alfredo,Nemorino,Rinuccio,Fenton,Rodolfo,and,famously,the title role in Gounod`s Faust,which marked the tenor`s Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast debut.Rudolf
Bing,then the Met`s general manager,would later recall those performances in his memoirs,remarking that Di Stefano`s diminuendo on the high C capping Faust`s famed Act III aria(Salut!demeure chaste et pure)remained in his memory as the most beautiful sound to emerge from a human throat during his tenure at the house.Still,Bing and Di Stefano had an uneasy relationship owing to the tenor`s nonchalance over contractual obligations,and in 1952 Bing banished him from the company stage for three years.During that time the tenor continued to sing in other North American house(San Francisco and Chicago).A 1951 Traviata in São Paulo marked Di Stefano`s first performance with Callas,and,over next five years the pair went on to make their seminal recordings on EMI.In 1955 at Lyric Opera of Chicago Di Stefano sang Pinkerton to Maria Callas`s only on-stage Cio-Cio San.During the mid-1950s,Di Stefano began adding increasingly dramatic roles to his repertoire as Don José,Canio,Turiddu,Radamès,Calaf and Alvaro-a shift that many felt his essentially lyric voice never recovered from and,along with professional
imprudence,precipitated his vocal decline.The tenor`s British debut came in 1957,as Nemorino at the Edinburgh Festival,and his first
performance at Covent Garden,in 1961,was as Cavaradossi.A 1963 run of Bohème at Covent Garden found Di Stefano replaced,after the first performance,by Pavarotti.Di Stefano`s performance schedule became increasingly intermittent throughout the `60s.He retired from the opera stage following a 1972 Carmen at La Scala.In 1973 Di Stefano convinced Callas to undertake an unfortunate international recital tour that was halted the following year because of vocal difficulties experienced by both singers.In 1949 Di Stefano married Maria Girolami,with whom he had two children before they separated in 1980.In 1994 the tenor married Monika Kurth and shared homes with her in Brianza and Diani,Kenya.
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Notes by Sean43-Giovanni Mascellaro