Amelita Galli-Curci (1881-1963), one of the Golden Age’s most public opera stars, rode the roller coaster of unimaginable fame and fortune, only to suffer a career-ending illness that brought her reign to an end at age 55. Her death—in La Jolla, Calif. at the age of 81 on Nov. 26, 1963—still grabbed headlines four days after JFK’s assassination.
My fascination with Amelita Galli-Curci began in the early 1980s. I went to the library (no Internet in those days!) examined some blurry microfilm, and then located a monaural collection of arias. I was enchanted, and played the scratchy recording until it had deep grooves worn in my favorites. I felt a true connection to the diva—as if she was singing to me alone —a feeling many fans who experienced her magic in live performances also say they felt.
My next stop was my grandmother—an opera fan from childhood—who spent every Saturday at the Chicago Opera in the years preceding and during the First World War. My grandmother shared her experiences as an audience member hearing Galli-Curci, Mary Garden, Tita Ruffa and other Golden Age greats.
In the intervening years, I continued to research the glamorous diva as I pursued my own career. There was surprisingly little scholarship available, save a worshipful biography, which painted Amelita as a saint (she wasn’t) and a mean-spirited article reprinted in a tome about famous prima donnas—written by a supporter of one of Galli-Curci’s supposed rivals—which portrayed her as a self-absorbed harridan (she wasn’t).
Slowly I began to piece together the information available in the library, newspapers and other primary sources and eventually located rare books and magazines from the period via the Internet (an irony which did not escape me). By the 1990s, most of Galli-Curci’s numerous recordings became available on CDs. I bought them all, and began to put together the puzzle.
Amelita Galli was born in Milan, Italy on Nov. 18, 1881. Her father, Enrico, was a wealthy businessman. The exact nature of his business is not clear, but it is known that he speculated widely in a variety of ventures, possibly with his wife’s money. Her mother, Enrichetta Bellisoni, was a descendant of the aristocratic Spanish DeLuna (yes —Trovatore!) family. Amelita’s maternal grandmother had been an opera singer. Amelita was a piano prodigy and won awards at an early age.
Unlike most wealthy young Milanese women, Amelita pursued a musical education, earning the equivalent of a master’s degree in music from the Royal Conservatory in Milan in 1903. The young noblewoman looked forward to an academic career, but that career proved to be short-lived.
Around the turn of the last century, Amelita’s father began spending much of his time in Argentina, investing his fortune in silver mines there. His losses were devastating and he never returned to his family, leaving them nearly destitute. Amelita was the only family member with a marketable skill, and made a local reputation as a skilled concert artist. Her life took a surprising turn one evening in 1905 when Pietro Mascagni, the popular composer of Cavalleria Rusticana, heard the young performer entertaining at a soiree. Galli-Curci credits the composer as having discovered her, but there is no evidence in Mascagni’s scholarship that he did anything other than encourage her to develop her gifts.
Amelita decided to heed Mascagni’s advice, and explore her options. By 1905, she was offering her singing services to provincial opera companies, working for little or no money. With her mother in tow, she made the rounds of many small touring companies, mostly singing Gilda in Rigoletto, a role that the singer always claimed was lucky for her. Her natural charm—and three-and-a-half octave voice—endeared her to audiences. Her first documented performance in an opera was at Traini in southern Italy in 1906, as Gilda in Rigoletto. She scored a triumph, which led to other provincial engagements throughout 1906 and 1907.
Amelita’s regional success encouraged her to return to Milan to seek employment at La Scala. Unfortunately, her hopes were dashed when La Scala’s director, Signore Mengardi, offered her only supporting roles. The diva took Mengardi’s lack of enthusiasm as an insult, claimed to have torn up the contract he offered and vowed never to sing at La Scala—and she kept her promise.
Her disappointment with La Scala was tempered by her introduction to a young nobleman named Luigi Curci, Marchese di Simeri. Curci’s father had heard Amelita sing a Christmas concert in Rome, decided the spirited young singer would make an ideal wife for his son, and introduced them. Luigi Curci was a set designer and architect who was restoring an old church that Galli admired. Curci was handsome and charming, and by the time the tour of the church was finished, the diva was smitten.
Amelita and Luigi were married in Rome in 1908. Amelita’s new status as a countess enhanced a career that was already on the ascent.
Luigi Curci seemed willing to put aside his own professional aspirations to assist Amelita, designing her costumes and sets when possible. The attractive, young Curcis were definitely an “A-list” couple, much in demand at parties and other social events throughout Europe.
The social whirl soon became tiresome, and Amelita, now in her late twenties, knew she needed to accelerate her efforts to reach the next level of her career. Realizing that without the support of La Scala she would probably not achieve stardom in Italy, she set her sights on South America—Havana and Buenos Aires were major centers of operatic activity at this time. Her Spanish background and fluency with language made this a logical choice.
The Curci’s marital problems probably began during this time. Luigi, who had too much time on his hands, began to drink and lost interest in his own artistic endeavors. Wealthy, handsome, and used to the attention he enjoyed in Milan, he may have resented the excessive attention paid his wife. The Curcis also began spending more money than Amelita made, a practice which became a pattern throughout the marriage, and caused a strain in the relationship.
About this time, Amelita became interested in the nascent recording industry. Undaunted by the technical challenges of early recording technology, she spent hours, patiently working out the ideal distance and direction for singing into the horn. Her “Latin Tour” colleague, Enrico Caruso, joined her in the studio, and these recordings remain some of the most valuable documentation of the “acoustic” period of recording. These early recordings have a haunting immediacy and the diva admitted to preferring their sound quality to the electric recordings of the mid 1920s and 1930s. These early recordings helped establish Caruso and Galli-Curci as household names, garnered large incomes, and brought Galli-Curci’s work to a larger audience.
After her South American engagement in 1916, Amelita promised Luigi they would return to Italy. But the sinking of the Lusitania, and the presence of German submarines made Atlantic travel impossible, and they were stranded. Hoping the situation would be temporary, Luigi agreed to accompany his wife to New York.
In New York, Galli-Curci hoped to be hired by the Metropolitan Opera, but Maestro Gatti-Cassazza had engaged his wife, Maria Barrientos, to sing all the coloratura soprano roles that season. Fortunately, Cleofonte Campanini, of the struggling Chicago Opera, was in town looking for singers and was willing to give the diva a chance. Against Luigi’s wishes, the Curcis packed their bags and moved to Chicago.
The previous season had been an artistic and financial debacle for Chicago Opera. Campanini hoped the diva could help fill the void left by Mary Garden, Rosa Raisa, and Tita Ruffa—Chicago’s major attractions, who had left to pursue lucrative opportunities in Europe and couldn’t travel because of the war.
Galli-Curci made her Chicago debut as Gilda on a Saturday matinee—her 34th birthday, Nov. 18, 1916. She was a huge success, causing a riot and a 15-minute standing ovation. Her recording of “Caro Nome” sold more than 10,000 copies in Chicago at a price of $6 a record; a huge amount for that time. She followed up this success with Lucia di Lammermoor, Romeo and Juliet, La Traviata, Dinorah, and numerous recordings.
Campanini immediately recognized the commercial potential of his new star. Amelita, who was originally hired to sing three performances of Rigoletto, was now singing almost every night, a destructive habit which would follow her throughout her career. She was reputed to have been paid $2,000 a performance, but this is doubtful, considering the perilous state of the company’s finances. Campanini pushed Amelita to the brink of exhaustion, causing a rift in December of 1917, when Amelita finally rejected the brutal schedule Campanini insisted on for that season. The rift continued until Campanini’s unexpected death in 1919.
Galli-Curci’s Chicago years marked the beginning of a remarkable relationship with the press, who covered her every move. While she thrived in the public eye, the constant scrutiny proved too painful for Luigi, who resented the constant holding pattern of his own artistic life. His drinking and dissipation increased, especially as he became aware of Amelita’s romance with her handsome, young rehearsal accompanist, Homer Samuels.
After the Armistice in 1918, Luigi begged Amelita to return to Italy to save their marriage, but Amelita refused to give up stardom and her affair with Homer. Luigi demanded a divorce, and a public scandal ensued, appearing in the society pages of Chicago papers for almost a year.
Precious little information about Homer Samuels’ early life is available, but it is known that he had found work as an accompanist at the Chicago Opera by 1912. An early hint of his attraction to glamour and scandal is indicated in several newspaper articles of the period, claiming Samuels wanted to marry his most successful client, soprano Emmy Destinn, to help her avoid visa problems.
Samuels’ detractors painted him as an opportunist, seeking to enhance his career, and add to his already substantial wealth. Samuels and Destinn never married, and in 1916, Galli-Curci hired the strikingly handsome, gentle-natured Homer as her accompanist. They became inseparable, claimed to be soul mates and made no secret of their alliance.
The scandal continued, following the Chicago Opera’s successful performances at the old Oscar Hammerstein Opera House in Manhattan on Jan. 28, 1918. Galli-Curci’s local debut as Dinorah created an even greater stir than at her Chicago debut. As a result of this triumph, Galli-Curci would become the first singer to grace the roster of both the Met and Chicago operas.
Amelita and Homer were determined to marry, and Amelita hoped to attain an annulment from Luigi. It is unclear why an annulment was so important, since Homer was a Protestant. The New York Times carried details of the story daily for most of 1918. When it became clear that the Vatican would not cooperate, Amelita divorced Luigi, citing violence and mental cruelty.
1918 was a pivotal year in Galli-Curci’s development as an international star. In addition to being followed by paparazzi (which she adored), Amelita became a celebrity endorser for RCA Victor’s “Talking Machines,” appearing in full-page ads in the New York Times in glamorous outfits throughout 1918 and 1919. She also extolled the virtues of cosmetics, furs, and automobiles.
The premature death of Enrico Caruso in 1920 created a void, an opportunity for Amelita to become the Metropolitan’s star attraction. She became a company member in 1921, making her debut Nov. 21, in La Traviata with Beniamino Gigli and Giuseppe DeLuca.
Although Amelita’s career in New York was blossoming, the Chicago Opera was in decline, and by 1920 was experiencing its worst attendance ever, despite Galli-Curci’s star power. The struggling company was taken over by industrialist Samuel Insull, who fought with the singers, causing defections and further deterioration of the company.2 As her star continued to rise, Amelita was torn between her loyalty to Chicago, and her dislike of the insensitive Insull, whom Amelita considered a vulgarian.
Continued demand for her services at the more prestigious Met prompted her departure from Chicago in 1924. Amelita was also busy with her recording career, developing an extensive discography of arias, whole operas, art songs, Spanish songs and American popular music, all of which brought in huge profits.
Amelita Galli-Curci and Homer Samuels were married in Homer’s parents’ home in Minneapolis on Jan. 15, 1921, and Amelita became an American citizen. She never returned to Italy.
The couple bought a country home in the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York. They called their getaway “Sul Monte” and escaped the stress of Galli-Curci’s career whenever possible.1
Galli-Curci sang more frequently at the Met than was vocally healthy, despite the warning of doctors and friends. She triumphed in The Barber of Seville, Lucia di Lammermoor, and La Traviata, and continued to record prodigiously. During this period, she began suffering vocal discomfort, but ignored her pain, since it was not affecting her vocal quality. Reviews from the mid and late 1920s indicate that Galli-Curci, who had always struggled with a tendency towards flatness, was singing flatter than usual. However, recordings from the period do not reveal any obvious flatness, and recordings such as her Leonora in Il Trovatore, actually show greater range, darkness and flexibility as she approached her late 40s. If she was indeed suffering with flatness, she obviously took great care in the studio to compensate, and a group of recordings from 1930 reveal an amazing freshness for a mature singer who was singing so frequently.
Despite the fastidious recordings of the period, her live singing began to falter in 1928, and in 1929, she announced her retirement from opera, citing a desire to concertize and spend more time with Homer. Her last appearance with the Metropolitan was in The Barber of Seville in Brooklyn on Jan. 24, 1930. But she was not ready to retire. The Samuels’ had lost a great deal of money in the stock market and needed to keep working.
Short of funds and not ready to leave the spotlight, Amelita and Homer embarked on a national tour in 1930, still refusing to acknowledge Amelita’s pain, and vocal problems. When Amelita began wearing scarves to disguise a swollen neck, rumors began to circulate.3 Amelita continued to tour for the next two years, concentrating on smaller cities, where she had never performed. Her problems were caused by a goiter, which had grown very large, causing vocal flatness and a great deal of pain. Because of the size of the goiter, no doctor would take the risk of removing it, possibly jeopardizing such a famous instrument.
Amelita and Homer decided on a “farewell” tour to Southeast Asia, with an itinerary that included Rawalpindi, Kuala Lumpur, Lahore, and other British colonial outposts. They endured intense heat and dust, traveling in prop planes, and living in conditions that aggravated Homer’s asthma and Amelita’s throat pain. Finally, after being examined by a variety of provincial doctors—who found the trachea to be dangerously compressed, and the larynx displaced an inch and a half to the left—Amelita agreed to have the goiter removed.
A Dr. Kegel, whom Amelita had met in Rawalpindi, performed the operation at the Henrotin Hospital in Chicago on Aug. 10, 1935. Kegel appears to have been a competent surgeon, but was a blatant self-promoter, constantly giving interviews to Chicago papers. Kegel discussed his own surgical prowess endlessly, seemingly more concerned with advancing his career than Amelita’s recovery.4
The singer submitted to numerous photo ops, and publicity stunts. The Chicago Tribune published a photo of her taken in the hospital after surgery, showing a bandaged Amelita heavily made-up and glamorously coifed. In early 1936, Amelita and Homer relocated to Southern California, hoping to help relieve Homer’s asthma. Kegel had led Amelita to believe that after the surgery, her voice would become larger and fuller, and she looked forward to appearing in dramatic soprano roles. After a successful series of radio programs, she was urged to make a comeback. These triumphs may have been due more to Amelita’s skill in manipulating electronic media, than the return of her voice to its former beauty.
Chicago was chosen as the venue, and Amelita signed a contract to sing one performance, as Mimi in La Bohème, on Nov. 24, 1936. It was obvious that the management of the new Civic Opera was capitalizing on the novelty of a faded, but still popular superstar, rather than presenting a credible production. The company was in financial difficulty again, and Time Magazine referred to the 1935 season as “undoubtedly, the worst season of opera that a resident Chicago company has ever presented.”
Tragically, Amelita allowed herself to be part of this travesty. To save money, no rehearsals were allowed, and Galli-Curci, who had not sung in an opera house in seven years, was terrified. The result was, surprisingly, not a total disaster, but Amelita was damned with faint praise. Critic Claudia Cassidy remarked that her Mimi was an “unsteady little lyric soprano quavering like a sad ghost pleading for reincarnation.” This review also appeared in Amelita’s obituary in the Chicago Tribune 27 years later.
After this disappointment, Amelita and Homer returned to California, and Amelita continued to concertize throughout the country in smaller venues. Her fans were delighted to see and hear her again, but it was obvious that her voice, at age 55, would never regain its former opulence. Homer’s asthma had also begun to worsen, and the couple was forced into retirement.
Not much is written about this period of the couple’s life, since they gave few interviews and did very little socializing. Certainly, the end of her career was devastating, but the couple found solace in mysticism, the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg and the Swami Yogananda. Amelita wrote the preface of a book published by the Yogananda society in 1939. The Yogananda society had an active chapter near Minneapolis, and the Samuels were regular visitors.
The couple coached a few students in the 1940s and 50s, but did never became master teachers, possibly because of Homer’s ongoing struggles with asthma. He died in 1956, at the age of 65.
One promising young singer made a point of visiting Galli-Curci during the early 1960s. Joan Sutherland had always admired Galli-Curci, and the two became friends. In a rare interview in 1963, the diva discussed their visits, and the similarities in their voices.
Amelita Galli-Curci died of pulmonary emphysema at her home in La Jolla, Calif. on Nov. 26, 1963; eight days after her 81st birthday. History has not been as kind to Galli-Curci as it has to many of her colleagues—perhaps due to her disappearance from public life. But it is appropriate that the diva who pioneered the recording medium to attain stardom, has been rediscovered, thanks to the remastering of her recordings on compact disc. Hundreds of recordings survive—more than any of her contemporaries, most of whom could not be bothered by what they considered a fad that wouldn’t last. Thanks to Galli-Curci’s foresight, her music can be enjoyed today; the vitality of her spirit coming through loud and clear.
1 The estate still exists. Happily, the various owners have respected the original design and have made very few changes to the home. Photographs and other personal effects of the couple are lovingly displayed in their music room.
2 Amelita claims to have remained on the Chicago roster, in deference to her colleague and friend Mary Garden(1874-1967), who served a brief tenure as the company’s director. When Garden returned to performing full-time, Amelita left the company.
3 Soprano Lina Pagliughi(1907-1980) discusses Amelita’s grotesquely swollen neck, after attending a 1932 concert in Sydney.
4 Amelita claims that Kegel performed numerous, torturous “experiments” on her larynx before and after the surgery. It can only be assumed that Amelita was so desperate by this time, that she was willing to submit to anyone who offered any hope of restoring her voice.
Suggested reading:
Seeing Stars, by Charles Wagner, G.P. Putnam’s Son, New York, 1940.
Forty Years of Opera in Chicago, by Edward C. Moore, Horace Liveright, New York, 1930.
The Last Prima Donnas, by Lanfranco Rasponi, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1982
Mary Garden, by Michael T.R.B. Turnbull, Amadeus Press, 1997
