Nicola Rossi-Lemeni
Nicola Rossi-Lemeni[lower-alpha 1] (November 6, 1920 – March 12, 1991), was a basso opera singer of mixed Italian-Russian parentage.
Rossi-Lemeni was born in Istanbul, Turkey, the son of an Italian colonel and a Russian mother. In his prime he was one of the most respected bassos in Italy. The composer Ildebrando Pizzetti wrote the opera Assassinio nella cattedrale (1958) specifically for Rossi-Lemeni. He was also a prize-winning poet and a painter.
Career
The basso made his debut as Varlaam in Boris Godunov at La Fenice, Venice, in 1946. He sang at the Teatro alla Scala from 1947 to 1960, the Teatro Colón (1949) and Covent Garden (1952). He appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, opening the 1953/54 season, in Faust (with Jussi Björling, Victoria de los Ángeles and Robert Merrill, conducted by Pierre Monteux and directed by Peter Brook in his Met debut),[1] followed by the title roles of Don Giovanni and Boris Godunov.
Rossi-Lemeni was married to Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani. Among his recordings are Don Carlos (with Mirto Picchi, 1951), The Barber of Seville (with de los Ángeles, 1952), and—opposite Maria Callas—I puritani (1953), Norma (1954), Il turco in Italia (1954) and La forza del destino (1954). He was then featured in two recordings of La serva padrona, the first (1955) conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, the second (1959) alongside Zeani. In 1952, he recorded excerpts from Boris Godunov with Leopold Stokowski and the San Francisco Symphony for RCA Victor, which have been reissued on CD.
Rossi-Lemeni was a pontifical knight in the Order of St. Sylvester. He died in Bloomington, Indiana.
References
Notes
- ↑ His father's last name was Rossi, but his mother wanted her family name added, "Rossi Lemeni" (without a hyphen). However, many publications and recordings hyphenate the name.
Sources
- The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack and Ewan West, Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19-280028-0
- Rodolfo Celletti and Alan Blyth. "Rossi-Lemeni, Nicola.", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press. (subscription required)
External links
- Biographical website
- Virginia Zeani's biographical website
- Nicola Rossi-Lemeni in an excerpt from Don Carlos on YouTube
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Pages with broken file links
- Pages containing links to subscription-only content
- Italian opera singers
- Operatic basses
- Musicians from Istanbul
- 1920 births
- 1991 deaths
- Italian people of Russian descent
- Indiana University faculty
- Knights of St. Sylvester
- Italian emigrants to the United States
- Italian basses
- 20th-century Italian singers
- 20th-century opera singers
