She had acquired great international fame for her interpretations of the Verdean heroines, from Aida to La Traviata, but she had allowed herself hooks in a much wider repertoire, with more than 80 roles to her credit. Gabriella Tucci died Saturday in Rome, her hometown, at 90 years old.
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Born on August 4, 1929, Gabriella Tucci studied music and singing at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia with Leonardo Filoni, who later became her husband. After a competition, she made her debut in 1951 on the stage of Spoleto in L a Force du destin and thus crossed paths with the tenor Beniamino Gigli. Two years later, she was on the adventure of Medea by Cherubini to May Music in Florence. For the recreation of this masterpiece which had not been given for nearly fifty years, Vittorio Gui called on the Romaine to complete its distribution, where she replied to Maria Callas, Carlos Guichandut and Fedora Barbieri . A recording retains the memory of this landmark evening.
Throughout the 1950s, Gabriella Tucci gradually established herself on the Italian stages and made her debut at La Scala in Milan in La Bohème . The following year she was Covent Garden for Aïda and in New York in Madame Butterfly . The beginning of a great love story with the American public: the Met Opera will hire Gabriella Tucci thirteen seasons in a row and for 250 evenings with all the major roles of Verdi (Violetta, Aida, Desdemona ...). According to La Stampa , she is the Italian artist who has performed the most on the New York scene after Enrico Caruso. What will not prevent it from happening in Vienna, Berlin, Moscow or Buenos Aires with the big stars of the time, Mario Del Monaco, Carlo Bergonzi, Luciano Pavarotti or Franco Corelli, under the sticks of Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Leonard Bernstein , Georges Prêtre, Thomas Schippers, George Szell and Georg Solti.
Among the rare recordings which preserve trace of her art, one can hear it with the disc in the role of Elvira in The Puritans, at the side of Luciano Pavarotti and Ruggero Raimondi in 1968 or in Un Trouvère directed by Gianandrea Gavazzeni where she shines next to Carlo Bergonzi. Among the films, there is a recording of Turandot where Gabriella Tucci plays Liù in front of the freezing princess by Birgit Nilsson.
NHK has also recorded a public performance of Pagliacci by Leoncavallo Mario Del Monaco where Gabriella Tucci faces Mario del Monaco in the sky in 1961.
