Giacinto Prandelli (8 February 1914 – 14 June 2010) was an Italian operatic

tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...

, particularly associated with the Italian and French repertoires.

Life and career

Born in

Lumezzane Lumezzane (, locally ) is a town and (municipality) in the province of Brescia, in the Italian region of Lombardy. With a population of 22,255 (), it is one of the largest towns in its province. It is situated in the Gobbia Valley, which is a s ...

, Italy, Prandelli sang as a boy in a church choir. He studied in Rome with Fornarini, and in Brescia with Grandini, and made his stage debut at the

Teatro Donizetti The Teatro Donizetti is an opera house in Bergamo, Italy. Built in the 1780s using a design by architect Giovanni Francesco Lucchini, the theatre was originally referred to as either the Teatro Nuovo or Teatro di Fiera. The first opera to be mou ...

Bergamo Bergamo ( , ; ) is a city in the Alps, alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from the alpine lakes Lake Como, Como and Lake Iseo, Iseo and 70 km (43 mi) from Lake Garda, Garda and Lake ...

, as Rodolfo, in 1942. He made his debut at the

Rome Opera The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma (Rome Opera House) is an opera house in Rome, Italy. Originally opened in November 1880 as the 2,212 seat ''Costanzi Theatre'', it has undergone several changes of name as well modifications and improvements. The pres ...

in 1943, as

Alfredo Alfredo (, ) is a cognate of the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon name Alfred (name), Alfred and a common Italian language, Italian, Galician language, Galician, Portuguese language, Portuguese and Spanish language personal name. Given name Artists a ...

, he then appeared in Bologna, Genoa, Florence, Cagliari, Palermo, Catania, and made his debut in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, at the Teatro Lirico, as Rinuccio, in 1944. He sang the solo tenor part in

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Opus number, Op. 125, is a choral symphony, the final complete symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed between 1822 and 1824. It was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824. The symphony is regarded by many criti ...

, under

Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orche ...

in 1946. In the early 1950s, he began an international career, appearing in Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Lisbon, Buenos Aires. He made his

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center), Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Referred ...

debut in 1951, his

San Francisco Opera The San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola (1881–1953) based in San Francisco, California. History Gaetano Merola (1923–1953) Merola's road to prominence in the Bay Area began in 1906 wh ...

debut in 1954, and his

Lyric Opera of Chicago Lyric Opera of Chicago is an American opera company based in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox (Chicago opera), Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, w ...

in 1956. He excelled in Italian and French lyric roles, such as;

Edgardo Edgardo is an Italian-language form of the name Edgar. It may refer to: * Edgardo Abdala (born 1978), Chilean-Palestinian football midfielder * Edgardo Adinolfi (born 1974), Uruguayan football player *Edgardo Alfonzo (born 1973), former Major Leag ...

, Duca di Mantua,

, Enzo, Rodolfo, Pinkerton, Cavaradossi, des Grieux,

Werther ''Werther'' is an opera (''drame lyrique'') in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann (who used the pseudonym Henri Grémont). It is loosely based on Goethe's epistolary novel ''The S ...

Gounod Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...

's and Boito's

Faust Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...

, etc. He also sang in many contemporary works by

Alfano Alfano is a village and small ''comune'' in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy. As of December 31, 2012, the comune had a population of 1082. History There is little reliable evidence on the ancient history of A ...

, Wolf-Ferrari, Menotti, Respighi. Prandelli's final stage appearance was in 1976 as Paolo in ''

Francesca da Rimini Francesca da Rimini or Francesca da Polenta (died between 1283 and 1286) was an Italian noblewoman of Ravenna, who was murdered by her husband, Giovanni Malatesta, upon his discovery of her affair with his brother, Paolo Malatesta. She was a ...

'' at the Teatro Grande in Brescia. He can be heard in a number of recordings, notably; ''

La bohème ''La bohème'' ( , ) is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions '':wikt:quadro, quadri'', ''wikt:tableau, tableaux'' or "images", rather than ''atti'' (acts). composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto b ...

'', ''

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

'', ''

Adriana Lecouvreur ''Adriana Lecouvreur'' () is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1849 play '' Adrienne Lecouvreur'' by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé. It was first performed on 6 November 1902 ...

'', ''

''. He appeared in a television (

RAI (), commercially styled as since 2000 and known until 1954 as (RAI), is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terrestrial and subscription television channels a ...

) production of '' Manon Lescaut'', opposite Clara Petrella in 1956. The Italian music company Azzali Editori, Via Massimo D'Azeglio 76/A, 43100 Parma has published in 2003 a comprehensive, 303-pages life of Prandelli: "GIACINTO PRANDELLI, Del Recitar Cantando...", by Cornelia Pelletta. The text is in Italian, with 40 pages of photographs, and an inserted digital remastered CD, Giacinto Prandelli singing 18 arias from L'Elisir d'Amore, Rigoletto, Luisa Miller, Lohengrin, Werther, Manon, La Gioconda, La Bohème, Adriana Lecouvreur, Fedora, Francesca da Rimini, Manon Lescaut, and Tosca." The book was launched at Milan's La Scala in the presence of Prandelli himself six years before his death in 2010.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prandelli, Giacinto 1914 births 2010 deaths Italian operatic tenors Musicians from the Province of Brescia 20th-century Italian male opera singers