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Tito Schipa

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Tito Schipa
Tito Schipa in 1920 with a camera

Tito Schipa (Italian pronunciation: [ˈskipa]; born Raffaele Attilio Amedeo Schipa; 2 January 1889 in Lecce – 16 December 1965) was an Italian tenor, considered the greatest tenore di grazia and one of the most popular tenors of the century.

Biography

Schipa was born as Raffaele Attilio Amedeo Schipa on 27 December 1888 in Lecce in Apulia into an Arbëreshë family;[1] his birthday was recorded as January 2, 1889 for military conscription purposes.[2] He studied in Milan and made his operatic debut at age 21 in 1910 at Vercelli. He subsequently appeared throughout Italy and in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1917, he created the role of Ruggiero in Puccini's La rondine.

In 1919, Schipa traveled to the United States, joining the Chicago Opera Company. He remained with the Chicago company until 1932, whereupon he appeared at the New York Metropolitan Opera from 1932 to 1935, and again in 1941. He also sang at the San Francisco Opera, beginning in 1924.

From 1929 to 1949 he performed regularly in Italy, including at La Scala, Milan and the Rome Opera. He returned to Buenos Aires to sing in 1954. In 1957, he toured the Soviet Union.

Schipa's artistry is preserved on film. For example, in 1929 he appeared in a Vitaphone movie short, singing "M'appari tutt'amor" from Flotow's opera Martha.

Schipa's stage repertoire, which in his early career had encompassed a wide range of Verdi and Puccini roles, eventually contracted to about 20 congenial Italian and French operatic roles, including Massenet's Werther, Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore and Cilea's L'arlesiana. In concert, Schipa performed a preferred array of lyrical operatic arias and songs, including Neapolitan and Spanish popular songs.

Schipa made numerous audio recordings of arias and songs during his career, beginning in Italy in 1913. His recorded output included a famous 78-rpm set of Donizetti's Don Pasquale, made in 1932. This is still in circulation on CD. He also recorded several tangos, some of which were composed by him in Spanish, mostly in Buenos Aires and New York. Thanks to his early Latin American tours, Schipa was a very popular tenor in Latin America.

Like his contemporary Richard Tauber, Tito Schipa was also a conductor, a tradition carried on today by Plácido Domingo. Although a few contemporary critics considered Schipa's voice to be small in size, restricted in range and slightly husky in timbre, he was still extremely popular with the public. Michael Scott (The Record of Singing: 1978), while admiring Schipa's charm and taste, points out that it is not correct to say that Schipa was a master of bel canto; indeed Scott and others regard Schipa's recording of "Il mio tesoro" from Mozart's Don Giovanni as one of the worst ever made, with sloppy runs and sketchy ornamentation. Yet it has often been noted that this is probably the worst recording Schipa ever made; and surviving fragments from a live New Orleans performance of the opera in 1935 show him in superb form.

On July 18, 1919, he was initiated to the Scottish Rite Freemasonry[3][4][5] in the Lodge Espartana of Buenos Aires.[6]

1939, Tito Schipa declines an invitation from Italian-American groups to perform 12 concerts in order to raise money for the Anti-Fascist movement in Italy. Although he was offered $1,000 for the appearance, Schipa refused and is quoted in his letter, dated February 23, 1939,[7] "I am sorry that I cannot sing for Loubet; but you MUST understand my situation; and my relationship with Achille Starace in Italy and all authorities there. And you know the purpose of the benefit for which Loubet asks me to sing for. Not tell anybody the reason; thell that I cannot come to New York or some other excuse; but don't ask me the impossible".

1941, Schipa has his last concert at the Met before returning to Fascist Italy, "where he was a pet of the Benito Mussolini regime". This was an era of his life he would never really live down. After returning to the United States, his first post war concert was poorly attended.[8] Schipa retired from the operatic stage in 1958 to teach voice, initially in Budapest, when he returned to the Met for one last performance in 1962, "the place was packed.[9] He died from diabetes December 16, 1965 at the age of 77 in Manhattan, New York City, while teaching there.

Legacy

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.[10]

His son Tito Schipa Jr. is a composer, singer-songwriter, producer, writer and actor.[11]

Selected filmography

References

  1. ^ Tito Schipa. 2004. p. 25.
  2. ^ Tito Schipa
  3. ^ "Quanti personaggi dello spettacolo fra le logge italiane". Archived from the original on Jul 19, 2017. Retrieved Oct 2, 2018.
  4. ^ "Da Belli a Totò a Gino Cervi, MASSONICAmente racconta gli artisti della squadra e del compasso" (in Italian). Jan 2, 2015. Archived from the original on Oct 2, 2018. Retrieved Oct 2, 2018.
  5. ^ "Cinema: Totò massone, la Gran Loggia d'Italia lo commemora". adnkronos.com (in Italian). Rome. Oct 22, 1999. Archived from the original on Jun 9, 2014. Retrieved Oct 2, 2018.
  6. ^ Vittorio Gnocchini, L'Italia dei Liberi Muratori, Erasmo ed., Roma, 2005, p. 250.
  7. ^ Naugatuck News(Connecticut), March 11, 1947, page 4, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25009558/tito_schipa_portrait_of_a_nazi/
  8. ^ Tito Schipa Obituary, New York Daily New, December 18, 1965, page 53 https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25010007/tito_schipa_obituary/
  9. ^ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25010007/tito_schipa_obituary/
  10. ^ Delta Omicron Archived 2010-01-27 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ Enrico Deregibus. Dizionario completo della Canzone Italiana. Giunti Editore, 2010. ISBN 8809756258.
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