Mario Basiola

Mario Basiola (12 July 1892 – 3 January 1965) was an Italian operatic baritone.

Early Years & Education

Mario Basiola was born in Annicco in the province of Cremona to Alessandro, an artisan basketweaver, and Marta Milanesi. He spent his youth mostly working in the fields, never receiving a proper school education. He began singing in church, but military service took him to Rome, where he remained as a soldier during World War I.

There he participated in a contest to enter the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and out of sixty competitors, he was one of five chosen. He was placed with baritone Antonio Cotogni,^[1] one of the greatest representatives of the mid-to-late-19th century Italian vocal school. He studied Cotogni from June 1915 to Cotogni's death in 1918, becoming one of his favorite students.^[2]

His study with Cotogni was crucial in his acquiring a technique and style that allowed him to portray the situations in the verismo literature without compromising his “vocal organization.” Basiola at times denounced the era in which he worked (especially in certain interpretive tastes), and he did not display the tendency toward sensational and boisterous vocalism as much as some of his contemporaries. Instead he maintained the capacity to deal with singing (especially in the Verdi literature) with a correctness and measure, with a malleability of timbre, and with a sureness in the upper voice that made him “one of the few baritones of his generation capable of representing the true traditional Italian school.^[3]” This training period was very profitable for Basiola but also very difficult; when he was expelled from the Conservatory for “insufficient voice” caused by a bout of physical wasting, Cotogni came to his aid again. Initially, Basiola’s voice was not well defined because of its "amphibious" color that lay somewhere between tenor and baritone. When it settled into its high baritone, the young singer learned his roles “note for note, breath for breath,... gesture for gesture from his revered teacher,^[4]” basing everything on Cotogni’s principle of intentionality (itself fundamental in 19th century vocal schooling): in order to emit a good and correct sound, the singer should first imagine it, hear it within himself, and make every effort to realize this idealized sound with his own voice, thus avoiding the sound from being introduced into cavities that diminish or exclude the fundamental harmonics. In his first performances at Santa Cecilia, he sang the duets from La forza del destino and Don Carlo with tenor Giacomo Lauri-Volpi. In 1916 followed his first wartime benefit concerts in and around Rome, in which he sang arias from Massenet’s Hérodiade, Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, etc. in the presence of Cotogni, who praised his student enthusiastically.

Career

Debut & Italy

Basiola made his debut on June 20, 1918 in La traviata at the Teatro Morgana in Rome.^[5] In November was his first Barbiere di Siviglia, for which he received good reviews. In 1919 he made a tour through the Italian provinces, essaying his first Rigoletto and Alfonso in La favorita. He was signed for Catalani’s Loreley and Luporini’s I dispetti amorosi at the Teatro del Giglio. In 1920 Emma Carelli signed him for Pagliacci at the Teatro Verdi in Florence. Over the next year, he sang primarily in regional theaters in Italy, taking on the standard baritone repertoire ranging from Malatesta in Don Pasquale, to Verdi roles like Don Carlo in Ernani, to veristic works like Fedora and La Wally. By 1922, he was being paired with stars like Elvira de Hidalgo and Toti Dal Monte. A brief tour took Basiola to Egypt. He debuted at Port Said as Alfonso, a role that “exalted his legato singing, for which Cotogni had taught him all the subtlest nuances and even where to breath in order to deliver such broad, sustained phrases.”^[4]

America

1923 was a very important year for Basiola: he was cast for a US tour with the San Carlo Opera Company, headed by impresario Fortunato Gallo. He debuted October 3 at New York’s Century Theatre in Aida and Otello. Through 1925 Basiola continued to perform in all the major American theaters, mainly in Verdi roles but also in more recent repertoire, in particular Barnaba in La Gioconda, Pagliacci, and Carmen. He had lively success, and critics brought to light, among the qualities of his voice, its sonority and homogeneity throughout the registers, with such a wide range and clarity of color as to compare it to a tenor's voice. In June 1924 Basiola sang at the Ravinia Festival, performing with Lauri-Volpi in Lucia di Lammermoor and Rigoletto. Finally in the 1925-1926 season, Basiola was hired by Giulio Gatti-Casazza at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he remained until 1932. He debuted on November 11, 1925 in Aida alongside Elisabeth Rethberg and Giovanni Martinelli, under the direction of Tullio Serafin, followed by Madama Butterfly with Beniamino Gigli. His theater activity was very intense at the time; and there was almost no month in which the Basiola was not committed to the Metropolitan and other major US theaters. Among his most notable performances from this first season at the Metropolitan Opera were a Faust with Feodor Chaliapin and a Gioconda (replacing Titta Ruffo) with Rosa Ponselle. In 1926 he essayed Cavalleria rusticana (the work that Basiola would perform most often at the Metropolitan) and Rigoletto with Marion Talley. In May 1926 he went to Cuba and in July participated again in the Ravinia Festival, where he performed Montemezzi’s L'amore dei tre re and Don Pasquale. In the 1926–27 season, Basiola debuted in Spontini’s La vestale, then performed Lucia di Lammermoor, Barbiere alongside Amelita Galli-Curci, and Pagliacci.

July 12, 1927 Basiola married the soprano Caterina Gobbi and returned to Italy for a short time. He returned to open the 1927–28 Metropolitan Opera season with La forza del destino. On April 9, 1928 was born his eldest daughter, Marta Maria Rosa, who was christened at St. Patrick's Cathedral, sponsored by Rosa Ponselle and the ambassador Emmanuele Grazzi. During this period Basiola never stopped studying new roles. Memorable was his debut in Meyerbeer's L'africana in Atlanta, which he then performed at the Metropolitan Opera. In 1929 he gained special acclaim with Ernani and with Il trovatore, often performing alongside Lauri-Volpi. In December he debuted in Respighi’s La campana sommersa. His last performances at the Metropolitan Opera (February 1932) were alongside Georges Thill in Faust and Lili Pons in Les contes d'Hoffmann. He took part also the first American performance of Pizzetti's Fra Gherardo (March 21, 1929), Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko (January 25, 1930), Lattuada’s Le preziose ridicole (December 10, 1930), and Montemezzi’s La notte di Zoraima (December 2, 1931).

The sojourn in America was important for Basiola, but did not bring with it easy affirmation, given the presence of such baritones as Titta Ruffo, Giuseppe De Luca, Antonio Scotti—artists who were idolized by the American public. Basiola was often used as a substitute, and for this he suffered being considered not always on a par with some of his colleagues.

Once back in Italy, Basiola began to sing in the provinces, but he soon became one of the most popular baritones, in that he possessed—like few others—certain qualities needed to interpret the works of the 19th-century repertoire that in those years was being revived because of the shortage of successful new works. Thus came his successes of 1933—alongside Giannina Arangi-Lombardi at the Teatro Carlo Felice in L’africana and at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Bellini's Puritani with Lauri-Volpi, Mercedes Capsir and Ezio Pinza. After his debut at the San Carlo in Naples and a successful 1934 Otello with the Verona Philharmonic ("a proper, controlled Iago, drawing out the character without overdoing it”), Basiola celebrated the centenary of Ponchielli in Cremona, interpreting Amenofi in Il figliuol prodigo. The following year for the centenary of Bellini, he performed Ernesto in Il pirata in Rome and La straniera at La Scala.

He traveled to Poland, Spain, and again to America, where on September 1, 1935 was born his second child, Mario, who was also destined to become a baritone like his father. In 1936, after performing Perosi’s oratorio Il Natale, he performed alongside Tito Schipa in Cilea’s L’arlesiana at La Scala, where, to give Basiola the opportunity to show off his facility in the upper voice, the composer added the phrase "Bravi ragazzi miei" to the third act.

Later career

In these years, Basiola’s activity reached its maximum intensity, with debuts of even more new roles, performances with all the greatest Italian singers of the day, in all the major theaters of Italy. In 1939 he made two tours abroad, being invited to Cairo for Massenet’s Thaïs and to Covent Garden in London for performances of Tosca, Trovatore, and Traviata. Basiola can be heard on live recordings of the latter two, with Jussi Björling and Beniamino Gigli, respectively, as well as on a recording of an EIAR radio broadcast of the Leoncavallo rarity Edipo Re. The 1939–40 season was his last at La Scale, where he took part in a famous revival of Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix, the baritone role of old Antonio having been one of the most famous interpretations of Basiola’s former teacher, Cotogni. The start of World War II took Basiola back to performing for wounded soldiers in the kind of benefit concerts that had characterized the beginning of his career.

After the war Basiola decreased his activity, focusing mainly on provincial theaters. In July 1948 he joined a company for a long tour in Australia: despite the successes, experience was not easy, as the rest of the company was only mediocre, and Basiola was often the only name called out for good review. Back in Milan, tired and partly disappointed, he opened a singing school with his wife, his most notable student being Aldo Protti. He sang increasingly rarely in public, but in 1951 at Cremona, he once again took on Barnaba in La Gioconda, an opera of which Basiola was very fond and which had been a staple of his repertoire.

He died in Milan on January 3, 1965.

Legacy

Historically Basiola’s voice was located in a transitional, intermediate time between late 19th-century vocalism and verismo tastes, somewhat like Carlo Galeffi (also a student of Cotogni). While he lived and worked at a time when deformative tendencies were impinging on the interpretative forms of 19th-century repertoire, Basiola nurtured the legacy of his schooling: he was a high baritone, with a voice clear and free of the defects of the dramatic baritone, with its dark, opaque timbre acquired with artificiality and encumbrances in emission. Basiola also avoided the search for any easy effects that were outside of a purely vocal technical nature. Verismo vocalism, besides being antithetical to the search for “aristocratic” phrasing, tended to place the tessitura in the lower middle voice, causing other singers to forget the technical features that would allow them to dominate the high notes with ease, instead causing them to push in order to fatten the voice, which in turn weighed down its easy emission. Basiola, on the contrary, possessed a voluminous but also mellow voice, with great intensity of vibration throughout the entire gamut of sounds, a extensive range that allowed him to touch and sustain support high A-flat, and a tenor-like ring in the high notes. Basiola was also capable of the kind of mezza voce that comes from good technique in emission. This allowed him to alternate dramatic and incisive expressions with whispered sounds “a fior di labbra,” especially in the Donizetti and Bellini roles or the mournful pleadings of Verdi’s baritone roles. Managing to resolve vocal difficulties without force and maintaining the soft suppleness of the voice gave him the opportunity to enrich the characters such as Tonio, Barnaba, Rigoletto, making them figures that weren’t unilaterally gloomy and vindictive. His broad phrasing and the sonority of his voice also allowed him to create characters that were both noble and imposing. Over time Basiola had to make some concessions to verismo vocalism, and his incessant activity did bring about some cloudiness of the voice, but his technique and style made him much in demand, especially in works from the second half of the 19th century. What he could not entirely achieve was to put an unmistakably personal stamp on his interpretations. Nevertheless Basiola was his immense technical and artistic value during his career and to modern historians of the voice and singing.

Repertoire

Basiola's repertoire comprised nearly 70 roles.

References