Lebendige Vergangenheit - Luciano Neroni

Luciano Neroni was born on 11 February 1909 in Ripatransone in the Ascoli Piceno province of Italy. He was the second child of a dialect poet, who was also a music enthusiast, and a mother of noble birth. His uncle, a composer, was a pupil of Ponchielli and a friend of Puccini, his aunt was a mezzo-soprano, and his grandfather was a conductor and a friend of Verdi. Even as a child, Luciano had obvious vocal talent: when he was 13 he performed in his hometown as a tenor in an operetta that his uncle conducted. Following his school-leaving examination (1928), his parents encouraged him to train as a singer at the Conservatorio in Milan. His first lessons were as a baritone and then as a bass with Mario Sammarco (the baritone in the premiere performances of Andrea Chenier and Zazil) and then with Gambardella and Giacopetti. He later attended the opera school of the great soprano Gilda Dalla Rizza. In 1930 he was called up for military service but was soon discharged because of a life-threatening case of pleurisy. After resuming his vocal studies, Neroni sang his official debut in 1931 in Ascoli Piceno in a concert that featured Beniamino Gigli. In 1933 he took part in the singing competition of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, where the jury consisted of such famous personalities as Umberto Giordano, Alessandro Bonei, Salomea Krusceniski, Riccardo Stracciari, Rosina Storchio and Tullio Serafin. But the competition (in which Giulietta Simionato also took part) was won by his colleague of the same age, Giulio Neri. On 16 April of the same year, Neroni sang his stage debut in Recanati as Don Basilio in II barbiere di Siviglia. Soon after that he sang Count Rodolfo in La sonnambula and Raimondo in Lucia di.Lammermoor. Through the competition, the radio broadcast r EIAR (Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche, the predecessor of today's RAI) became interested in Neroni. He can be heard in two concerts as well as in Aida (King) and a contemporary opera recorded by the radio. Apart from an interruption caused by the war, he remained true to the EIAR up to his death, singing a number of operas that were little known in Italy (including I misteri dolorosi by Cattozzo, Giordano's Il Re, Wagner's Die Meistersinger, Tannhäuser and Die Walküre, Humperdinck's Königskinder, Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Rimsky-Korsakov's The Legend ofthe Invisible City of Kitezh, performing all ofthem in Italian). He worked with such illustrious colleagues as Lina Pagliughi, Francesco Merli, Carlo Tagliabue, Tancredi Pasero, Gino Bechi, Ebe Stignani and Gina Cigna. Along with Stracciari he took part in a 1934 tour of numerous Italian cities with Il barbiere di Siviglia, making his breakthrough. Neroni quickly leamed the classic bass roles of the Italian reper­ toire, including those in La Gioconda, Norma, Aida, Rigoletto, La Wally, Il trovatore, Mose, L'elisir d'amore, La boheme, Laforza del destino and Falstaff and began singing them not only in Italy but abroad as well (Bucharest 1935). Following successful appearances (La boheme and La sonnambula, 1938) at Parma's Teatro Regio, which was held in awe by singers at the time, he succeeded in moving to La Scala in Milan in 1940. There he debuted in La forza del destino (Marchese di Calatrava) and also performed in Mozart's L'oca del Cairo, Massenet's Manon and Verdi's Rigoletto (Monterone). In the same year he sang Wotan for the first time at a Wagner concert at La Scala. Because Neroni was exempted from wartime military service for health reasons, he spent those years singing in Italy. During that time he worked at the most important theatres, concentrating his engagements at the Massimo in Palermo, the Bellini in Catania and the San Carlo in Naples. To open the 1949 season there, he performed in Nabucco, a production that became famous because of Maria Callas's brilliant interpretation of Abigaille. In 1950 he was engaged in Florence, Rome and Turin. In Lisbon he sang Rossini's Stabat mater, Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore and Bizet's Les Pecheurs de perles, and a short time later Il trovatore and Falstaff in Bologna. In poor health he returned to Ripatransone, where he received an invitati­ on to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. But before he could take advantage of this important opportunity he died in his home town on 23 October 1951 at the age of only 42. In 2005 the town is staging the first international singing competition dedicated to the bass, the Concorso Internazionale di Canto Lirico "Luciano Neroni". Among his recorded performances, in addition to several solo numbers, are complete recordings of Nabucco, Turandot, Lucia di Lammermoor and Haydn's The Seasons.