Aureliano Pertile
Aureliano Pertile (9 November 1885 – 11 January 1952) was an
Life and career
Pertile was born in Montagnana, Northern Italy, 18 days after the birth of another celebrated tenor, Giovanni Martinelli, in the same town. He studied with Vittorio Orefice in Padua, and Gaetano Bavagnoli in Milan, before making his operatic debut as Lyonel in Martha, in 1911, in Vicenza.
After singing in regional Italy and South America, Pertile first sang at the premier Italian opera house,
In his only season at the Met, his other roles included des Grieux in Manon Lescaut, Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana, Grigori in Boris Godunov (with Feodor Chaliapin), Radames in Aida, Canio in Pagliacci (opposite Florence Easton), and Julien in Louise (opposite Geraldine Farrar). He also participated in performances of Louise with the Met's touring company at Philadelphia and in Brooklyn.
Thereafter he returned to Italy, where he established himself as the leading tenor at La Scala from 1927 to 1937, becoming a favourite singer of the principal conductor Arturo Toscanini.
As well as previously mentioned works, his La Scala repertory included the title role in
In all his La Scala roles, Pertile achieved compelling dramatic results despite possessing a voice that was not especially suave or beautiful. It was sometimes even described by critics as "brutta" (ugly). He was particularly effective in
Pertile also sang at the
.He appeared, too, in unusual operatic works, creating for example the role of Fernando in Felipe Boero's opera Tucuman (in 1918) and the title role in Constantino Gaito's Ollantay (in 1926).
His final stage appearances were in Italy in 1946, in Pagliacci. He then taught at the Milan Conservatory until his death in 1952.
Recordings
Pertile made recordings from 1922 to 1942 (the final three items consisting of excerpts from Otello with Gina Cigna as Desdemona). Numerous CDs containing selections of Pertile's solo recordings and examples of his work in complete operas have been issued by various record companies since the 1980s.
In 1995, a comprehensive anthology of his recordings were issued in an album (with the accompanying monograph, La voce e l'arte di Aureliano Pertile) from TIMAClub. His three complete operatic recordings, namely Aïda (with Dusolina Giannini in the title role, 1928), Il trovatore (1930) and Carmen (in Italian translation, 1932), were not included in the 1995 release but they are available on other CD labels.
Sources
- Hamilton, David; Andris-Michalaros, Aliki (1987). The Metropolitan Opera encyclopedia: a comprehensive guide to the world of opera. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-500-01425-7.
- Rosenthal, Harold; Warrack, John (1980). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (2nd ed.). London: Oxford University Press. OCLC 60900670.
- OCLC 252923732.
Bibliography
- Aureliano Pertile e il suo metodo di canto, by D. Silvestrini, 1932.
- Pertile, una voce, un mito, by Bruno Tosi, 1985.
External links
- History of the Tenor / Aureliano Pertile / Sound Clips and Narration
- Aureliano Pertile in an excerpt from Manon Lescaut on YouTube(audio only).
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