editorials August 01, 2019 August 01, 2019

Why did Amelita Galli-Curci lose her voice?

DOI: 10.20945/2359-3997000000162

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

Amelita GALLI BELLISOMI (born in Milan, Italy, in the year of 1882 and died in 1963, in La Jolla, California, USA) was a prestigious coloratura soprano from the first half of the 20^th century, well-known over the world. In her youth, she wished to become a piano soloist, but after an audition with a family friend, Pietro Mascagni (composer of Cavalleria Rusticana, L’amico Fritz, Le maschere, among others), he convinced her to pursue a career of opera singer. She made her operatic debut at Trani, as Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, and from that time onwards, she became very popular and widely acclaimed by critics and public in Italy. She married an aristocratic man, Marquis Luigi Curci in 1908, when she adopted the hyphenation Galli-Curci (AG-C) along all her singing life, despite their divorce in 1920. She toured Europe, Russia and South America. In Buenos Aires, she performed twice with Enrico Caruso at The Colon Theatre, in 1915 (). She travelled to Argentina several times due to professional engagements, but also probably because a significant part of her family lived there. We have to underline that, after an economic crash, her father migrated to Argentina. Her two brothers, Enrico and Giuseppe, also artistically well-endowed, used to live in the city of Rosario (Argentina) ().

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