Now Corelli is gone. No other tenor of the late 20th century generated as much excitement—or controversy. As famous for his matinee-idol looks as for his clarion voice and animal magnetism, he combined nervous idiosyncrasies with technical adeptness, the latter perhaps surprising for one primarily self-taught. From the beginnings of his career, in Spoleto in 1951, through his early and sudden retirement from the Met in 1975, his fans were as strident in their adulation as his detractors were in their deprecation.
His career, while a relatively short one, followed an unusual trajectory, in that he assumed the more lyrical roles of Rodolfo in La bohème, Werther, and Roméo after such heavier fare as Radamès in Aïda, Enzo in La Gioconda and Alvaro in La forza del destino. Happily, many of the finest moments in his career are preserved in live and studio recordings, as well as television appearances and film—a priceless legacy that gives a glimpse into what the excitement was all about.
Franco Corelli was born April 8, 1921 in Ancona, in the region of Le Marche, Italy, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Other famous singers from the region include his great tenor predecessor, Beniamino Gigli, born in Recanati, and the sopranos Renata Tebaldi, born in Pesaro, and Anita Cerquetti, born in Macerata, both among the tenor’s most distinguished colleagues. He grew up in a musical family, attending performances at the opera house in Ancona with his father and grandfather. This theater was destroyed in 1943, during World War II. One story says that Corelli, a young untrained amateur, made his way onto the stage of the bombed-out theater by way of a shaft of light from a hole in the roof, trying out his voice there and startling a flock of pigeons into flight.
Corelli was always drawn to the sea and, indeed, began training as a naval engineer at the University of Bologna. There, a friend, an amateur singer, persuaded him to enter a vocal competition. Though he did not win, he was encouraged enough that he entered the Pesaro Conservatory. His training there was so misguided (or misunderstood) that he lost his high notes and dabbled with the idea of becoming a baritone instead. (Indeed, throughout his career, he retained a strong lower register—and a strong distrust for teachers of singing.)
With occasional guidance from Arturo Melocchi (who also taught Mario del Monaco, the other great Italian dramatic tenor of that period), Corelli gradually regained his high voice. He learned the most, however, through immersion in and constant study of the recordings left by his great tenorial predecessors, particularly those of Enrico Caruso, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi and Aureliano Pertile. In addition, beginning in the mid-sixties, Corelli spent a significant portion of his summer vacations at Lauri-Volpi’s home in Valencia, where he and his mentor would spend hours singing together and comparing notes on vocal technique. Thus, he developed a technique that stood him in good stead for the duration of his career.
To some, Corelli was a “bull in a china closet,” but this technique lent his singing a surprising amount of nuance, the ability to diminuendo a high note from the most clarion forte to the most delicate pianissimo. This effect can be heard in his rendition of “Celeste Aïda” from his 1966 EMI studio recording of the complete opera and, even more impressively, in countless live performances.
In 1951, Corelli won a competition sponsored by the Maggio Musicale in Florence. From there, he debuted in Spoleto (in the days before the Spoleto Festival). In a characteristic act of self-doubt, Corelli fretted over his ability to master the technical demands of Radamès in Aïda and had the role of his debut changed to Don José in Carmen, which he felt better suited his visceral, as yet undisciplined delivery. His success led to his engagement by the Rome Opera for Zandonai’s Giulietta e Romeo.
Over the next few years, Corelli sang not only in Rome, but in Florence, Ravenna, Trieste, Palermo and elsewhere in Italy, in the expected Carmen and Tosca as well as Prokofiev’s War and Peace, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Norma (his first encounter with Maria Callas), Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide, Spontini’s Agnese di Hohenstaufen, and two long-forgotten world premieres. Perhaps the most surprising role assumptions of his career were Handel’s Sesto in Giulio Cesare, with Virginia Zeani and Giulietta Simionato, (Rome and Milano, 1955 and 1956) and Hyllus in Hercules (or Eracle!) at La Scala in 1959 with Fedora Barbieri and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.
In December of 1954, he made his La Scala debut, opening the season as Licinio in the legendary Luchino Visconti production of Spontini’s La Vestale, opposite Maria Callas and Ebe Stignani. In a thankless role, Corelli nevertheless made a strong impression, thanks in part to his matinee-idol looks and his statuesque build. Indeed, he was known in the Italian press and among his adoring fans as coscie d’oro (golden thighs).
He opened each season at La Scala from 1959-60 through 1964-65 in operas as diverse as Donizetti’s Poliuto, Verdi’s La Battaglia di Legnano as well as his signature roles in Andrea Chenier, Cavalleria rusticana, Trovatore and Turandot. Other memorable portrayals at La Scala included the title role in Ernani, Dick Johnson in Fanciulla del West, Raoul in Les Huguenots, Loris in Giordano’s Fedora and Gualtiero in Bellini’s Il Pirata. After 1965, he no longer appeared at La Scala.
Callas and Corelli’s career paths crossed many times. Indeed, it has been suggested that Callas played a significant part in securing Corelli’s La Scala debut as Licinio. Corelli partnered her there in 1955 as Loris in Fedora and was also at her side for many of the more vulnerable moments in her later career, beginning with the infamous “Rome walkout,” when Callas canceled a January 1958 performance of Norma mid-performance due to an indisposition (this in spite of the presence of the president of Italy in the audience).
They appeared as Gualtiero and Imogene in a new production of Bellini’s Il Pirata in 1958 that ended with Callas’ stormy exit from La Scala until her eventual return, again alongside Corelli, in Donizetti’s Poliuto in 1960 (her last new production in that theater and one in which Corelli scored one of his greatest triumphs, even if Callas did not). He also appears opposite her in the 1960 EMI studio recording of Norma (one of her last complete recordings, and one of his first) and again sang Pollione to her Norma in her final performances at the Paris Opéra in 1964. In 1965, he was Cavaradossi in her farewell Met performances as Tosca.
There were many other divas with whom he often shared the stage. Renata Tebaldi was a frequent colleague, beginning in 1958 with Tosca and Forza in Naples, through Adriana Lecouvreur at the Met in 1963 and 1968, and in a series of duo recitals late in their respective careers. On one of the most remarkable evenings at the old Metropolitan Opera—Jan. 27, 1961— Corelli shared his Metropolitan Opera debut in Il Trovatore with Leontyne Price. He also appeared opposite her in innumerable Met performances of La forza del destino, Aïda, Ernani and Tosca.
Less than a month after his debut as Manrico, Corelli made an even stronger impression singing Calaf in Turandot opposite Birgit Nilsson, the first Met performances of this opera in more than 30 years. These two powerhouses faced off as (usually) friendly rivals in this opera, as well as the occasional Aïda and Tosca.
There is an oft-repeated tale of an onstage tussle between the two in Act Two of a Met Turandot run-out performance in Philadelphia (in the days when the Met used to do occasional performances at the Academy of Music there). On that occasion, Nilsson held her high C longer than Corelli and he stomped off the stage in a fury. Rudolf Bing, the general manager of the Met, used all his powers of coercion to cajole an enraged Corelli into continuing his performance, suggesting that in lieu of their third-act kiss Corelli should bite his soprano rival instead. Assured that Corelli would continue, Bing departed the theater to return to New York, perhaps, as Nilsson suggests in her autobiography, for fear of what onstage fireworks would subsequently transpire.
Depending on whom one believes, Nilsson, Corelli or Bing, the third-act maceration either did or did not take place, but either way, Nilsson found out about Bing’s suggestion and sent him a telegram the next day: “MUST CANCEL NEXT PERFORMANCE STOP HAVE RABIES STOP BIRGIT”
Throughout his Met career, Corelli continued to make important guest appearances in London, Paris, Vienna, Salzburg, Lisbon and Barcelona, but came to spend more and more time in the United States, either in New York or on the Met spring tour. In the mid-sixties his appearances outside the United States became increasingly rare.
Corelli surprised more than a few of his followers when, later in his career, he took on Rodolfo in La bohème, Roméo (both in 1964) and Werther (in 1971), roles normally associated with more lyric voices. These assumptions, particularly of the French repertoire, proved controversial, though there are those who found his portrayals definitive, in spite of the stylistic inconsistencies and linguistic infelicities. On the other hand, fans waited in vain for his assumption of roles such as Arnold in Guillaume Tell, Des Grieux in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut and, particularly, Otello. Rudolf Bing sought to have Corelli open Bing’s final season at the Met as Otello, but it was not to be, All we have of Corelli’s Otello is a 1954 studio recording of the first-act entrance, a live recording of the love duet with Teresa Zylis-Gara from the 1972 Met Gala in honor of Bing and, from Corelli’s final public appearance in 1981, a live recording of Otello’s death scene.
Corelli’s nerves and anxiety attacks in the theater were legendary. His wife, Loretta, (a former singer herself) would stand in the wings sprinkling holy water, holding a picture of the Madonna to calm his nerves and coax his best performances. Rudolf Bing claimed that he more than earned his salary merely tending to Corelli’s nervous demands. Corelli himself acknowledged that on many occasions, he was more concerned about his voice than with acting or communication. And yet, there were many performances in which the singer, clearly at ease, would give more fully of himself, and his stage presence and acting would acquire a naturalness that was sometimes lacking. A 1953 Tosca filmed for Italian television, for instance, reveals more subtlety and intimate dramatic insight than his detractors gave him credit for.
Eventually, though, Corelli’s nerves proved his undoing. Live recordings from the ‘70s bear testament to a greater nervous tension, which led to an occasional thickening of his voice and a less consistent emission. Eventually, he decided to take a hiatus from singing, which, it gradually became apparent, was actually a retirement. Apart from two informal concert appearances in New Jersey in 1980 and 1981, his final appearances in opera were as Rodolfo in La bohème in Torre del Lago in 1975.
Corelli and his wife remained in New York, where he taught a few pupils, for many years. Eventually, he moved back to Italy, living out his final years in Milano, where he died on Oct. 29, 2003 at the age of 82.
Even those of Corelli’s colleagues who had difficulty with his tenorial antics (and his beloved black poodle) respected him as a person. A gentle and modest man, he greatly valued his privacy. He took his calling very seriously, and many of his fellow artists commented that Corelli never seemed to enjoy his enormous success. As Corelli himself said in a mid-sixties interview, “I sleep music. I see notes in my dreams. I never rest because I am always trying to improve myself. If I have three months of absolute freedom, I use them to project my technical instrument. Without it I am nothing.”
There is much anecdotal material available online and in books about the man, but no full-scale authorized biography. Corelli gave his consent for the sole published biographical study only with the provision that the author not discuss his private life. Though it contains useful appendices and a thrilling CD of live performances, the body of the book reads like a fan magazine. One hopes that the gap created by the lack of a serious biographical consideration will be filled someday soon.
On the other hand, if there was ever a singer who needed to be heard and not written about, it was Corelli. The combination of virility and pathos in his singing made him unique. This is not to say that he lacked faults. Two characteristics of his singing are particularly off-putting to contemporary listeners: an explosiveness of attack and release in his delivery and a marked lisp that is particularly invasive in his studio recordings. (Some fans claim that this was no speech impediment, merely the regional dialect of his native Le Marche.) Even his detractors, however, acknowledge his superior voice and technique.
The white-hot animal intensity of Corelli’s best performances will probably never be matched. For many, he remains the greatest tenor of the last century.
