Leone Giraldoni

• https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leone_Giraldoni
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leone_Giraldoni

Leone Giraldoni (born 4 July 1824, Paris; died 19 September 1897, Moscow) was a celebrated Italian operatic baritone. He created the title roles of Gaetano Donizetti's Il duca d'Alba (1882) and Verdi's Simon Boccanegra (1857) as well as the role of Renato in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera (1859).

Giraldoni studied in Florence with Luigi Ronzi and made his début as the High Priest in Pacini's Saffo (Lodi, 1847). He made his La Scala début as Il Conte di Luna in Il trovatore in 1850 and during his long career sang throughout Europe with considerable success. His final performance was in Filippo Marchetti's Don Giovanni d'Austria at Rome's Teatro Costanzi in 1885. After his retirement he taught voice and singing, first in Milan, and from 1891 at the Moscow Conservatory.[1]

Contemporary accounts describe his voice as warm, smooth and evenly produced. He also was considered to be an effective actor, with a noble and dignified stage presence and beautiful phrasing, qualities which made him one of Verdi's favourite baritones.[2]

Indeed, Giraldoni belonged to a distinguished generation of baritones able to perform the then demanding new works of Verdi, as well as the existing bel canto operatic repertoire, with exemplary style and technical skill. (The finest of Giraldoni's Italian contemporaries were probably Francesco Graziani, Antonio Cotogni, Francesco Pandolfini and Adriano Pantaleoni.)

Giraldoni was married to the well-known soprano and violinist Carolina Ferni. Their son, Eugenio Giraldoni (1870–1924), became a leading baritone like his father. In Rome in 1900, Eugenio created the role of Baron Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca.

It is worth noting that Leone Giraldoni was the author of two works on singing:

• Guida teorico-pratica ad uso dell'artista-cantante, Bologna, 1864 (with a revised and expanded edition published in 1884)
• Compendium, Metodo analitico, filosofico e fisiologico per la educazione della voce, Milan, Ricordi, 1889.

The roles created by Giraldoni:

• Simone Boccanegra, in Simon Boccanegra di Giuseppe Verdi, Teatro la Fenice di Venezia, 12 marzo 1857
• Vittore Pisani, in Vittor Pisani di Achille Peri, Teatro Comunitativo di Reggio Emilia, 21 aprile 1857
• Renato, in Un ballo in maschera Giuseppe Verdi, Teatro Apollo di Roma, 17 febbraio 1859
• Mazeppa, in Mazeppa di Carlo Pedrotti, Teatro comunale di Bologna, 3 dicembre 1861
• Paride, in Romeo e Giulietta di Filippo Marchetti, Teatro Grande di Trieste, 25 ottobre 1865
• Masaniello, in Salvator Rosa di Antônio Carlos Gomes, Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, 21 marzo 1874
• Matteo, in Il violino del diavolo di Agostino Mercuri, Teatro Comunale di Cagli, 12 settembre 1878
• Il duca d'Alba, nel Duca d'Alba di Gaetano Donizetti, Teatro Apollo di Roma, 22 marzo 1882