Franco Corelli

Franco Corelli (8 April 1921 – 29 October 2003) was an Italian tenor who had a major international opera career between 1951 and 1976.

Associated in particular with the spinto and dramatic tenor roles of the Italian repertory, he was celebrated universally for his thrilling upper register. Dubbed the “Prince of tenors”, Corelli possessed handsome features and a charismatic stage presence which endeared him to audiences. He had a long and fruitful partnership with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City between 1961 and 1975. He also appeared on the stages of most of the major opera houses in Europe and with opera companies throughout North America.

Franco Corelli sings “E Lucevan le stelle”  from Tosca (Puccini)

Corelli was born in Ancona into a family without any musical background. His father was a shipbuilder for the Italian navy and the family lived along the Adriatic Sea.Corelli loved the sea and initially decided to follow in the footsteps of his father by pursuing a degree in naval engineering at the University of Bologna. While studying there he entered a music competition under the dare of a friend who was an amateur singer. While he did not win the competition, he was encouraged by the judges to pursue a singing career and Corelli entered the Pesaro Conservatory of Music to study opera.

Corelli studied under Rita Pavoni and Arturo Melocchi but was unhappy with the results, saying these lessons basically destroyed his upper register. After this Corelli decided to become his own teacher, and referred to voice teachers as “dangerous people” and a “plague to singers”. At first he tried to turn himself into a baritone, but quickly abandoned that pursuit. He then pursued learning the tenor repertoire by imitating the style and vocal effects of the recordings of great tenors like Enrico Caruso, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, Aureliano Pertile, and Beniamino Gigli.

In 1957 Corelli met soprano Loretta di Lelio when she came backstage after one of his performances at the Rome Opera House to get his autograph. They began seeing each other romantically and married in 1958. After their marriage, Loretta gave up her fledgling opera career to serve as her husband’s business manager, secretary, public relations agent, cook, and English translator. Their marriage ended upon Corelli’s death forty-five years later.

Franco Corelli- Tu lo sai (Ferrafo)

Corelli made his debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on 27 January 1961 as Manrico in Il trovatore, opposite soprano Leontyne Price as Leonora who was also making her house debut at the Met that evening. He would sing to great acclaim at the Met until 1974 in roles such as Calaf (with Birgit Nilsson as Turandot), Cavaradossi, Maurizio, Ernani, Rodolfo and Edgardo. He also undertook French parts in new productions of Roméo et Juliette and Werther. He sang at a number of historic nights at the Met including: the closing gala at the old Met, the concert honoring Sir Rudolf Bing’s retirement, and Callas’s legendary comeback Tosca. His last performance at the Met was on December 28, 1974 as Calàf with Ingrid Bjoner, also singing her last performance at the Met, as Turandot. However, Corelli did tour extensively with the Metropolitan Opera in 1975, singing in performances in cities throughout the United States and in Japan.

While singing at the Met, Corelli continued to be a presence on the international stage. In 1961 he made his debut with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He returned to La Scala in 1962, for a revival of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, opposite Joan Sutherland, and that same year appeared as Manrico in a lauded production of Il Trovatore at the Salzburg Festival under Herbert von Karajan and opposite Leontyne Price, Giulietta Simionato, and Ettore Bastianini. Also in 1962 he made his first appearance with the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company as Mario Cavaradossi. He returned to Philadelphia almost every year through 1971 portraying close to a dozen different roles.He made his belated debut at the Paris Opéra in 1970.

In the early 1970s, Corelli’s voice began to show some signs of wear after years of hard use in a demanding repertory. As a result, the resultant nerves surrounding performances became increasingly difficult to handle for the tenor. He made his last opera appearance as Rodolfo in 1976 in Torre del Lago at the age of 55. Corelli later said of the decision, “I felt that my voice was a little tired, a little opaque, less brilliant than before. The singer’s life cost me a great deal. I was full of apprehension and mad at everyone. I was a bundle of nerves, I wasn’t eating or sleeping.”

Franco Corelli sings La fleur from Carmen (Bizet) 

After retiring from the stage, Corelli became a popular voice teacher in New York City, somewhat ironic for a man who himself disdained voice teachers for much of his life. Corelli briefly served as mentor to America’s Got Talent finalist Donald Braswell, who has played many of the same roles as Corelli.He was briefly coaxed out of retirement out of retirement for concerts in 1980 and 1981.He died in Milan in 2003, aged 82, having suffered a stroke earlier that year. He was buried in Milan’s Cimitero Monumentale.

 With a rich and ringing dramatic tenor voice and movie-star good looks, Corelli won a wide public following from early on his career. However, while the public was enthralled with the tenor, music critics were divided, with some complaining about what they perceived as self-indulgence of phrasing and expression.

Corelli as Radames II in Aida (Verdi)

During the 1960s the anti-Corelli sentiment among critics was epitomized by Alan Rich of the The New York Herald Tribune in a 1966 article which, while acknowledged the vibrancy and white heat of his singing, considered Corelli a throwback to an earlier era when, from Mr. Rich’s perspective, musical compromises were common and stylistic refinement lacking. Rich said that, Corelli is “not employed by an opera, but employs it to serve purposes it was not meant to serve.” Also, many critics did not look favourably upon of his performances in French opera, owing to the tenor’s exotic French diction and style.However, Corelli also had his admirers among several highly respected and notable critics, including Harold C. Schonberg of The New York Times, who once defended the expressive liberties taken by Corelli as possessing “its own kind of logic”.

Whatever the critics may have said, Franco Corelli was without doubt one of the finest voices of the 20th Century!