Singer Biographies

ADELINA AGOSTINELLI [soprano] Bergamo, 1882–Buenos Aires, 1954. A student in Milan of Giuseppe Quiroli, whom she later married, Adelina Agostinelli made her debut in Pavia, 1903, as Fedora. In 1904 she premiered at La Scala with Mattia Battistini in Simon Boccanegra and created for that house in 1911 the Marschallin in their first Rosenkavalier. She appeared with success in South America, Russia, Spain, England, and her native Italy. Between 1908 and 1910, Agostinelli was on the roster of the Manhattan Opera. One New York press notice indicates that her rendering of the “Suicidio” from La gioconda on a Manhattan Sunday night concert “kept her busy bowing in recognition to applause for three or four minutes.” Agnostinelli performed for several seasons at the Teatro Colón in Boito’s Mefistofele, La bohème, and Pagliacci. Her career continued into the mid-1920s when she retired to Buenos Aires where she taught. Agostinelli’s voice is captured on Edison cylinders and on Pathé, Fonografia-Nazionale (including duets with her second husband, tenor Pedro Tabanelli), and one extant test for Columbia in 1909.

CARLO ALBANI [tenor] Trieste, 1872. Carlo Albani was born of Italian and French parents, studied under Enrico Delle Sedie, and made his first appearance in La forza del destino in Milan. He sang Rhadamès at the Paris Opéra in 1910 (in French) and reprised this role in Rome at the Teatro Costanzi in 1916. Also at the Costanzi, Albani added Manrico in Il trovatore and Don Alvaro in La forza del destino. He sang with considerable success in St. Petersburg and also in the principal musical centers of North and South America, however his lack of presence in the U.S. might be explained by an interesting incident that occurred in 1907. Oscar Hammerstein booked Albani to sing in Il trovatore for the New York Manhattan Opera Company. The press was unkind to Albani and he disappeared after the second performance, breaching his contract and leaving the opera company without a Manrico. While singing with the San Carlo Opera in Boston, an officer of the law shadowed Albani during a performance of Il trovatore in conjunction with the legal difficulties associated with the New York Manahattan Opera Company, thus marking the closing of the tenor’s U.S. career. Albani’s repertoire was large, consisting of over forty operatic roles, but he is most closely identified with those in William Tell and Romeo and Juliette. He made cylinders for Edison and also recorded for Victor (Red Seal), Pathé, Odeon, and several small companies.

ORESTE BENEDETTI [baritone] Pisa, 1874–Novara, 1917. Originally a worker in a brick factory, Oreste Benedetti became acquainted with the father of Titta Ruffo, who arranged for his admission to the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome and for him to live with the “Ruffo” family. Young Titta, when he heard Benedetti sing, said, “I envied Benedetti’s voice so much, I would have liked to steal it. … It was a divine voice.” A student of Andrioli, Benedetti made his debut at Rome’s Teatro Quirino in 1894 as Count di Luna in Verdi’s Il trovatore. Performances in a number of Italian theaters followed and during the 1897–1898 season he appeared in Buenos Aires in several leading roles including Rigoletto. In 1898, Benedetti made his Teatro Costanzi debut as Valentin in Faust. Most of his career was centered in Italy and included roles such as Nelusko (L’Africaine), Gunther (Götterdämmerung), Telramund (Lohengrin), as well as the expected Verdi and Puccini parts. He last appeared in public as Kyoto in Mascagni’s Iris at the end of 1915. Only one commercial recording was issued of his voice, an Edison cylinder of a duet from La bohème with tenor Aristodemo Giorgini. Interestingly, all Edison publicity material referred to his first name in error as “Preste.”

CELESTINA BONINSEGNA [soprano] Reggio Emilia, Italy, 1877–Milano, 1947. Celestina Boninsegna’s parents were convinced of her vocal aptitude and provided the opportunity for studies at Liceo Rossini in Pesaro with Virginia Boccabadati. Her official debut was at Bari as Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust. In 1899 in Piacenza, she took part in Goldmark’s Queen of Sheba followed by Elsa in Lohengrin. In 1901 she sang Rosaura in the first Rome performance of Mascagni’s Le maschere. Through the following decade she appeared in many of the world’s principal opera houses, including Covent Garden, La Scala, and the Metropolitan, where she made her debut in 1906 with Caruso in Aida. Her New York appearances were limited, reviewers preferring the “icy” yet elegant Emma Eames to the “slavish demeanor” and “ample form swathed in chocolate-colored underwear” of Boninsegna’s presentation. She had much greater success with the Boston Opera, adding in addition to her two Met roles, Aida and Santuzza, the parts of Leonora (Il trovatore), Gioconda, Valentine (Les Huguenots), and Tosca. Her acting skills were not favorably compared to her contemporaries such as Bellincioni, Burzio, Storchio, and Destinn. Boninsegna’s voice was rich and resonant that was well suited to Verdi heroines. She was contracted for a series of Columbia and Edison records. The Columbias joined her earlier Italian Gramophone and Pathé recordings as operatic best sellers, but only one of her Edison sides was issued, despite the Edisons being technically superior. Some Pathé and further Gramophone records were made of Boninsegna in the later ’teens as her career came to a close. She retired from the stage in 1921 and spent the next two decades teaching singing. She later resided in the Verdi Casa di riposo in Milano.

ITALO CRISTALLI [tenor] Piacenza, Italy, 1879–Castel San Giovanni near Piacenza, 1932. Italo Cristalli studied at the Piacenza Conservatory and began singing small roles in that city’s opera house. His principal debut was Alfredo in La traviata in 1903. Later that year he had particular success as Lohengrin at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo. This was to become one of his principal roles. He sang at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome (1907 and 1919) and a season at the Metropolitan Opera, 1913–1914. There he was kept busy with Edgardo, Turiddu, Nemorino, Rodolfo, the Italian Singer in Der Rosenkavalier, and Clitandro in Wolf-Ferrari’s L’amore medico, as well as Sunday concerts. His career was truly international, as his performance venues included Madrid, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Japan, China, and Russia, as well as most opera houses in Italy (although, surprisingly, not La Scala). Other roles included Werther, Don Jose, Osaka (Iris) and Siegfried (Götterdämmerung). Only one Columbia record exists of his voice other than these previously unpublished Edison titles.

ELEONORA DE CISNEROS née Broadfoot [mezzo-soprano] New York, 1878–1934. Eleonora Broadfoot studied under Madam Murio-Celli and made her debut on 24 November 1899 at the Metropolitan as Rossweisse in Walküre. During the 1899–1900 Met season she sang Lola (Cavalleria rusticana, 20 January 1900); Amneris (Aida, 22 February 1900); and Genie (Die Zauberflöte, 30 March 1900). In 1901 she went to Paris to work with Trabadello (Mary Garden’s teacher), Victor Maurel, and Jean de Reszke. During the next two years she was busy singing in the Italian provinces. In 1904 came an engagement for the autumn season at Covent Garden as Amneris, followed by Ulrica, Princess de Bouillon (Adriana Lecouvreur), and Ortrud. In the 1905–1906 season de Cisneros debuted at La Scala as the Countess in Tchaikovsky’s Dama di Picche and on 29 March 1906 she created Candia in Franchetti’s La figlia di Jorio. De Cisneros also sang with the Hammerstein company (1906), the San Carlo in Naples (1910), and the newly established Chicago Opera (1910) before touring Australia with Nellie Melba in 1911. De Cisneros also sang in Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Lisbon, and several South American cities. Her operatic repertoire comprised most of the leading contralto and dramatic soprano roles, but her favorites were Dalila, Carmen, Amneris, and Brünnhilde in Walküre. De Cisneros recorded for Pathé, Edison (both published cylinders and discs), and Columbia.

MARIE DELNA [contralto] Paris, 1875–Paris, 1932.  Marie Delna’s given name was Marie Ledant. She was a pupil of Rosine Laborde and made her debut at the Opéra-Comique in 1892 as Didon in Berlioz’s Les Troyens à Carthage. There, she created no fewer than nine roles including Charlotte in the first Paris performance of Massenet’s Werther (1893), Marceline in the world premiere of Bruneau’s L’attaque du moulin (1893), and Dame Quickly in the first Paris performance of Verdi’s Falstaff (1894) with the composer in attendance. In 1898, she made her Paris Opera debut as Fidès in Meyerbeer’s Le profète with the acclaimed tenor, Albert Alvarez. Delna announced her retirement in 1903 when she married M.A.H. de Saône, but within three years, she was back at the Opéra-Comique as Marceline. In 1907–1909, she sang at the Théâtre de la Gaîté Lyrique in La vivandière, Orphée,  L’attaque du moulin, Le profète, and La favorite. Delna was engaged by the Metropolitan to sing five roles in the winter of 1910 but owing to differences with maestro Toscanini, she sang only two performances of Orphée.  All of her additional roles were cancelled. While in New York, she sang in a performance of L’attaque du moulin, not at the Met, but at the New Theater (at 61st Street and Central Park West), with Edmond Clément as Dominique and Dinh Gilly as the miller Merlier.  Back in Paris, she created Tilli in Lazzari’s La lépreuse in 1912. By the end of World War I, Delna’s career was virtually over.  She made occasional concert appearances, and in 1925, she sang in Léo Puget’s operetta, Maurin des Maures at the Folies-Dramatiques. Having separated from her husband, she supported herself by teaching. After a brief illness, she died in 1932. Her first records were a large group for Pathé. In 1910, while in New York, she recorded five cylinders for Edison, all published.  Presumably on that day, she recorded the same arias on twelve-inch discs, all unpublished. Only “Che farò” from Orféo still survives at the Edison archive (CD 1, track 13.) In the summer of 1911, Delna made another group of twelve-inch disc recordings for Edison, three of which exist as wax masters issued here for the first time (CD 1, track 14) (CD 2, tracks 1 and 2). In 1913, Delna made four Edison ten-inch discs, three of which were published. All of Marie Delna’s published recordings can be heard on Marston issue The Complete Recordings of Marie Delna and Selected Recordings of Jeanne Marié De’Lisle 52056.

For more information on Delna’s life and career, see Peter van der Waal’s article in The Record Collector, September, 2010, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 154-186 and Vincent Giroud’s essay contained in the Marston issue.

ANDRÉS DE SEGUROLA [bass] Valencia, Spain, 1874–Barcelona, 1953. Andrés Segurola studied with Varvaro in Barcelona and made a successful debut there in 1898. In the course of the next few years he sang at various Italian and French theaters. Then in 1902 he was invited to the Met by Maurice Grau; he appeared at the very end of the season in two performances of Aida. The following season he was engaged at La Scala. His career continued in Europe until 1908; in that year he was booked by Hammerstein to appear at the Manhattan. There he sang a particularly memorable Basilio in a cast that included Tetrazzini, Sammarco, and Gilibert. In 1909 he returned to the Met and was to remain a member of the company for the next eleven years. He sang Basilio, Méphistophélès, Rodolfo in Sonnambula, Colline, and Alvise. He created Jake Wallace in the world premiere of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West and Nicolao in Gianni Schicchi. Gradually competition from other bassos, chiefly Léon Rothier and Adamo Didur, reduced him to comprimario roles such as Lodovico in Otello and Sparafucile in Rigoletto. After he left the Met, he continued to give concerts. He appeared in several films, including with Grace Moore in the 1934 film One Night of Love. He recorded for G&T, beginning in 1903, then for the Gramophone Company, and finally he recorded several Victor Red Seal ensemble and duet recordings.

MARIA GALVANY [soprano] Mancha Real, (Andalusia) 1875–Madrid, 1927. Maria Galvany studied under Napoleone Verger at his private school in Madrid. This resulted in an intensive period of training as a bel canto soprano at the hands of people who were familiar with 19th century technique. She made her debut in Cartegena, 1896 in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor. Her Teatro Real debut was in the same role on 4 January 1898, in which a reviewer referred to her as an old-style soprano. During the next two years she gained a wide range of experience both as the “star” of a small troupe of singers and as one of the leading sopranos of a national company; she made a career choice at this early age to become a freelance bel canto soprano limiting her repertoire to those of the early-to-mid 19th century operas. She left the Teatro Real and moved on to Portugal (1900–1901) in which an article described her as “an enchanting Lucia, a magnificent Amina, splendid in La traviata, extraordinary in the Barber, and sublime in Rigoletto.” She performed in Italy, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Holland, Russia, France, Germany, Egypt, and Ukraine. She also received a royal decree from Queen Alexandra, consort of Edward VII, to sing at Buckingham Palace in 1909. She performed in the San Francisco bay area in 1912. Galvany completed a twenty-year career and retired at age forty. She died some twelve years later in Madrid. Her repertoire was limited, her travel extensive, and yet she did not sing at La Scala, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan, or the Paris Opéra. She appealed to a wide constituency and she left a large recorded legacy.

(Biographic information provided by Robert Bunyard, The Record Collector, vol. 57, no. 1, March 2012, pp. 2-32.)

HEINRICH HENSEL* [tenor] Neustadt, Germany, 1874–Hamburg, 1935. Heinrich Hensel studied with Gustav Walter in Vienna, and later with Eduard Bellwidt in Frankfurt. His debut was in 1897 at the Freiburg Stadt Theatre, in Flotow’s Alessandro Stradella. He remained in Freiburg for three years. In 1900, he was secured by the Frankfurt Opera appearing as Lyonel in Flotow’s Martha, and continued to sing there until 1906. Tenure with the opera at Wiesbaden followed (1906–1911) where he appeared with great acclaim as Masaniello in Auber’s La muette de Portici; Erik in Die fliegende Holländer; Stolsing in Die Meistersinger, and Tannhäuser. Hensel sang at the Bayreuth Festival as Parsifal and Loge during its 1911 and 1912 seasons. New York City heard him at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1911 as Siegmund, Siegfried, Lohengrin, and Jenik in Smetana’s Bartered Bride. He sang at Covent Garden (1911–1914) singing Wagnerian repertoire, including London’s first staged Parsifal in 1914. From 1912 through 1929 he was the leading Heldentenor at the Hamburg Opera. He died in Hamburg in 1935. Hensel’s voice was captured by Pathé, the Gramophone Company, and Parlophon, but it was Edison who achieved the most sonically successful results.

GIUSEPPE KASCHMANN (Josip Kašman) [baritone] Lošinj (Lussino in what is now Croatia), 1850–Rome, 1925. Josip Kašman studied singing with Ivan Zajc in the Croatian capital of Zagreb. He also took lessons from Alberto Giovannini in Udine. His first public performance occurred in Zagreb in 1869. He was cast in the lead role in a production of the first full scale Croatian opera, Zajc’s Mislav, on 2 October 1870. Six years later he made his Italian operatic debut as Don Alphonse (Donizetti’s La favorite) in Turin. Before long, he had established himself as one of the best baritones in Italy, making an impressive debut at La Scala in the 1878–1879 season (Don Carlo.) It was during this phase of his career that he seems to have altered the Croatian spelling of his name to Giuseppe Kaschmann. He reached the peak of his success in the 1880s and 1890s, building an international reputation and performing at such important venues as Bayreuth in Parsifal and Tannhäuser and the Metropolitan Opera in 1883 and 1896, as well as continuing to appear at La Scala. Audiences in Spain, Portugal, Russia, Monaco, Egypt, Brazil, and Argentina also had an opportunity to hear him perform during his prime but he never sang in London. He was particularly renowned for his performances in operas by Verdi and Wagner, though his greatest role was probably Hamlet in Thomas’s opera. In 1903, he made five recordings in Milan for G & T. These are extremely rare and sought-after. They show that he possessed a fluent and flexible Italianate voice, which was characterized by a prominent vibrato and aristocratic phrasing. Reputedly he was an accomplished actor exhibiting a memorable stage presence. He was singing many major roles until he was nearly sixty, and continued to perform as late as 1921–1922, though by this stage of his career he switched to the buffo repertoire of Rossini, Donizetti, and other composers of comic opera. He also taught singing. His finest student was the celebrated buffo Salvatore Baccaloni.

PAOLA KORALEK* [soprano] Budapest, 1882–Viareggio, 1924. Entering the choir of the Budapest Royal Theater as a child, Paola Koralek eventually studied with Hans Richter and Arthur Nikisch. Her debut was at the Royal Theater in 1900 in Goldmark’s Queen of Sheba. She moved to Italy in 1903 and made her debut there in December at the Ciabreta of Savona as Tosca. This, Aida, and Gioconda she declared as her preferred roles, although she just as frequently sang Maddelena in Andrea Chenier. In 1908 Koralek appeared at the Vittorio Emanuele of Messina. The terrible earthquake that destroyed the city occurred while she was performing Aida. The opera house collapsed, killing the tenor, Angelo Gamba, but she survived. In 1910 she traveled to Montevideo for a season, returning to Italy for performances throughout the provinces. She appears to have ended her operatic career around 1914. Her issued recordings were for Pathé in 1912 and included groups of excerpts from Mascagni’s Isabeau (9) and La gioconda (6). Of her Edison discs none was issued.

UMBERTO MACNEZ* [tenor] Pesaro, Italy, 1883–Pesaro, 1947. Umberto Macnez first studied with Felice Coen in his native Pesaro. He made his debut in Buenos Aires, singing Count Almaviva to Luisa Tetrazzini’s Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia. His Covent Garden debut was in 1910, followed by a season at Rome’s Costanzi, 1910–1911. At the Metropolitan Opera he was a leading tenor during the 1912–1913 season, singing eight roles, including the title part in the Met premiere of Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann. At La Scala he made his debut during the 1916–1917 season as Rabaud’s Mârouf. He seems to have become less active in the 1920s, the last traced performance having been in Piacenza, 1927, as Alfredo in La traviata. His repertoire comprised a large number of the standard operatic roles, but those with which he is most closely identified are the principal tenor parts of the operas Rigoletto, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Manon, and La sonnambula. Macnez made a few recordings for the Gramophone Company in 1910 and several sides for Edison. Only one of the latter group was commercially issued.

POMPILIO MALATESTA [bass] Born in 1879, Malatesta was noted primarily for character and buffo roles. His career included La Scala, the Rome Costanzi, Covent Garden, and La Fenice in Venice, but the Metropolitan Opera in New York was his long-term home where he was on the roster from 1915 through 1939. There he appeared in dozens of small roles in Italian, as well as French and English. These included several world premieres (La fanciulla del West, Gianni Schicchi, and Merry Mount, to cite three). He also sang with the San Francisco Opera and in 1938 was in the La Scala premiere of Refice’s Margherita da Cortona.  What became of him after he left the Met in 1939 hasn’t been traced.

MARIE RAPPOLD* [soprano] London, 1873–Los Angeles, 1957. Marie Rappold was born Marie Winterroth to German parents in London. She studied voice in New York with Oscar Saenger after her parents had immigrated to the U.S. In the 1890s Marie married Dr. Julius Rappold in Brooklyn, whom she later divorced. Rappold made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Sulamith in Goldmark’s Die Königin von Saba in 1905 and performed an additional twenty-three roles, including Elsa, Euridice, Desdemona, Leonora in Il trovatore, and the Woodbird in Siegfried. In 1913, Rappold wed tenor Rudolf Berger who died just two years later. Rappold left the Metropolitan Opera in 1920. During the 1920s she appeared in Havana with the Chicago Opera. In 1925 she appeared before an audience of 20,000 in New York’s Yankee Stadium with tenor Bernardo DeMuro singing one of her major roles: Aida. In the later 1930s she retired to Los Angeles where she taught until the year before her death. Rappold was an exclusive Edison artist, having begun with cylinders in 1906 and continuing on cylinders and then discs as one of Edison’s most popular sopranos. Her recorded repertoire ran the gamut from popular songs of the day and concert literature, through arias and duets from Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini.

LEO SLEZAK [tenor] Šumperk (Mährisch-Schönberg), 1873–Rottach-Egern (Upper Bavaria, Germany), 1946. Leo Slezak was one of the greatest singer-personalities of the period with a rumbustious sense of humor. Slezak had taken singing lessons with baritone Adolf Robinson before making his debut in Brno in 1896. He performed in Breslau and Berlin. He sang Siegfried and Lohengrin at Covent Garden in 1900 and joined the Vienna Hofoper ensemble in 1901. Except for a hiatus between 1912 and 1917, Slezak remained on the Hofoper roster until 1926. Slezak performed at the Metropolitan Opera between 1909 and 1913. Met audiences acclaimed him in performances of works by Wagner and Verdi, becoming one of the most famous Otellos of his generation after performing the role at the Met in 1909 with Arturo Toscanini conducting. A huge man, he assumed a wide range of important roles: Belmonte, Des Grieux, Tannhäuser, Rodolfo, and Otello. He was enormously successful at the Metropolitan Opera and throughout Europe. He bade farewell to the operatic stage at the age of sixty with a performance of Pagliacci at the Vienna Staatsoper in 1933. Slezak also made a name for himself with his humorous autobiographies and as a comic-film star. He made well over 300 records, the earliest for Berliner in 1901, followed by G&T, Zonophone, and Odeon. He also recorded for Gramophone, Anker, Columbia, Edison, Favorite, Pathé, and Parlophon. His final recordings were made for Polydor, including a large group of electric discs.

DOMENICO VIGLIONE-BORGHESE [baritone] Mondivi, Italy, 1877–Milan, 1957. Domenico Viglione-Borghese made his debut in Lodi, 1899, as the Herald in Lohengrin and appeared in various Italian houses through 1901. He then gave up his career and immigrated to the U.S. where he worked in San Francisco as a dock and railroad worker. He continued vocal studies and was heard by Caruso, who recommended the baritone to a touring troupe featuring Luisa Tetrazzini. Having great success with this company in 1905–1906, he returned to Italy and, in 1907, made a second debut as Amonasro in Parma. He was so successful that he was soon appearing regularly at the Teatro Costanzi and at La Scala. While he was noted as Iago, Barnaba, Tonio, and most of the more dramatic Italian roles, he excelled as Jack Rance in Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, a role he had created for Italy at the Teatro Constanzi in 1911. His career continued until 1940. Viglione-Borghese’s published records were for Fonotipia circa 1914 and for Polydor a decade later. His first records, however, were the two disc recordings he made for Edison in 1911, neither of which was published. We issued one of these on our Edison Legacy volume 1; the other is presented here.

CAROLINA WHITE* [soprano] Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1885–Rome, 1961. Carolina White began vocal studies at the age of seventeen as a pupil of Weldon Hunt in Boston. She furthered her studies with Sebastiani and Roberti in Italy (1907) and Paolo (Paul) Longone, who she married and subsequently divorced. Her stage debut was as Gutrune in Götterdämmerung at the Teatro San Carlo, 1908. She appeared with the Boston and Chicago Opera companies from 1910–1914; she was Minnie in the Chicago premiere of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West (fifteen days after the Met world premiere) and the title role in the American premiere of Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna. Other roles she assumed included Elsa, Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, Salome in Massenet’s Hérodiade, Barbara in Victor Herbert’s Natoma, and Maliella in Wolf-Ferrari’s I gioielli della Madonna. While in Chicago, she complained of being overworked and underpaid, so in 1914, despite excellent reviews and not yet having reached thirty years of age, she left the operatic stage in favor of vaudeville. Her career slowly faded, one momentary flicker having been as Caruso’s co-star in his 1918 silent film, My Cousin. Her work in this film demonstrates a charming personality and considerable beauty. What became of her after 1918 isn’t known, other than that she died in Rome in 1961. Her published records are a group for Columbia (1911–1914) and one Edison cylinder (1910). The same year, she made a group of discs for Edison, but these have remained unissued until our Edison Legacy series.

 

*These artists appeared on Marston’s The Edison Legacy vol. one issue number 52042