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Mario Del Monaco (Florence July 27, 1915 - October 16, 1982 in Mestre) was an Italian tenor and is regarded by his admirers as being one of the greatest dramatic tenors of the 20th Century.
Del Monaco was born to a musical upper-class Florentine family. As a young boy he studied the violin but had a passion for singing. He graduated from the Rossini Conservatory at Pesaro, where he first met and sang with Renata Tebaldi, with whom he would form something of an operatic dream team of the 1950s. His early mentors as a singer included Milocchi, his teacher at Pesaro, and Maestro Raffaelli, who recognized his talent and helped launch his career.
That career began in earnest with Del Monaco's debut on December 31, 1940, as Pinkerton at the Puccini Theater in Milan. (His initial appearance in an opera had occurred the previous year, however, in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana at Pasero.) He sang in Italy during the Second World War and married, in 1941, Rina Filipini. In 1946, he appeared at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, for the first time. During the ensuing years he became famous not only in London but also across the operatic world for Recommend this article... |
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