Biography of Giuseppe Di Stefano

Pippo, tenor emigrant

July 24, 1921
March 3, 2008
International tenor, Giuseppe Di Stefano, or just goofy, as they called friends, born in Sicily, near Catania, Motta Sant'Anastasia, the 24 July 1921. Savior, his father, must stop the policeman to marry his beloved Angela Gentile, seamstress of Syracuse. Together, because of financial hardship, they decided to move to Milan. Here the little Joseph was educated in a Jesuit Seminary, where she sings in the choir, but it is only much later that the friend Danilo Fois, bringing it to the scale, makes him discover love for Opera. As master, Giuseppe Di Stefano owes much to the baritone Luigi Montesanto, also a native of Palermo and the Sicilian immigrant in Milan, first interpreter of Puccini's "Tabarro". Afterwards, Florentine raw Voices "competition, in 1938, Montesanto becomes his agent. At the outbreak of World War II By Stephen is drafted, but his restless character avoids the Russian front, at the expense of many days spent in jail.
Gets a license largely fictitious thanks to Lieutenant Doctor Giovanni Tartaglione, and preserves forever a photograph on her desk, and the pop music under the pseudonym of Nino Florio without permanently to forced intruppamento and passing in Switzerland the last months of the war. Here making some recordings on the radio in Lausanne still intact, with alternating Opera and light music. These were the years when he realizes of its enormous singing ability. The official debut, after the war, takes place on 20 April 1946, in Reggio Emilia. Interprets Des Grieux in Massenet's Manon.
With this same work after a sudden and meteoric career that took him to some of the best Italian theaters, also Debuts abroad, in Barcelona, ushering in the season of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Not even a year since his debut on stage and brings the 15 March 1947 at La Scala, Manon. The following year, as Duca di Mantova in Rigoletto, in New York, at the Metropolitan Theatre in which back by popular demand until 1951. And it is at this point that comes into the picture in his life a very important figure: Maria Callas. However, sharing artistic influence, is mutual. Giuseppe Di Stefano manages to instil in the great singer all his enthusiasm and vitality. Two years earlier, however, in 1949, he married a beautiful young singing student, Maria Garcia, with whom he begins a life long 25 years and that will give him three children. Callas recovers from its emotional disappointments and start with Di Stefano a very important artistic partnership that would last until the years ' 70.
They climb together on stages in Germany and France United States Japan Australia and New Zealand, and. But some remain memorable performance at La Scala in Milan, as Lucia di Lammermoor of 1954, in which Goofy Di Stefano and Maria Callas are directed by Herbert von Karajan, and Carmen del 1955, under the direction of Karajan, opposite Giulietta Simionato. That same year, is directed by the great Director Luchino Visconti, in the opera La Traviata, opposite Callas, and three years later, in 1958, Giuseppe Di Stefano takes part in the return at Milan's La Scala of soprano Renata Tebaldi, for the opera Tosca. Is his heyday. When his famous almost become legendary "pianissimo". In the years ' 60 and ' 70 the tenor he devoted himself to teaching, with seminars and workshops not only in Italy.
Gets quite successful in Germany in the genre of operetta, considered noble by the Germans, while in 1973 returns in grand style opposite Maria Callas, for the latest world tour of the singer: a public success and unprecedented media, which gave fans a series of memorable recordings. Two years later, Giuseppe Di Stefano loses his second daughter, Luisa, due to an incurable disease. The shock is strong and the following year, by consensus, decide to separate from his wife Maria. In 1977 Goofy is in Germany, on tour. There he meets a young soprano in Hamburg, Monika Curth, who soon became his second wife, full confidence and enthusiasm. The last time on the stage in an opera performance Of Stephen makes her in 1992, at the baths of Caracalla, in the role of the Emperor Altoum, in Turandot. Then he spent the last years of his life between Kenya and its area, together with his wife Monika and her children. Until December 2004 when, in the House in Diani, Kenya, to defend his dog from the aggression of some robbers is seriously injured. Admitted to a hospital in Mombasa, gets serious about stroke and goes into a coma on December 7. The 23 is transferred to a hospital in Milan, without ever recover from the incident and remain in a State of illness until his death. This March of the 3 captures the 2008, at his home in Santa Maria Hoè, near Lecco, at the age of 86 years.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.