Beniamino Gigli (Recanati 1890 - Roma 1957)

The youngest of six children of Dominic, shoemaker and ...

Beniamino Gigli (Recanati 1890 - Roma 1957)

The youngest of six children of Dominic, shoemaker and the cathedral bell-ringer, and Esther Magnaterra, showed very young he great aptitude for singing, he is brought to seven years in Pueri Cantores Choir of the Cathedral of Recanati. The family poverty forced him to hard sacrifices, but between employment and the other, managed to take singing lessons from the master Quirino Lazzarini, organist and choir director at Holy House of Loreto. At fifteen, showing contralto voice, she was chosen as the protagonist in Macerata, in women's clothes, operetta La Angelica drain Alessandro Billi, which followed other good evidence of this kind, that convinced the family to facilitate the transfer to Rome in the fall of 1907. After a brief period of a few months of military service during the 1912 war in Libya, he won a scholarship and was able to finally enroll at the Conservatory Santa Cecilia, studying under the guidance of Enrico Rosati. Commemorative plaque professional onset of Beniamino Gigli in Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli at the Teatro Sociale of Rovigo. Although the students were officially forbidden to perform, he appeared under the name of Mino Rosa in many Roman salons, managing to gain the respectable sum of three hundred pounds. On 24 April 1914 he sang with his name to the hall of the Academy of Santa Cecilia in the musical fairy tale The Princess with golden hair of Alexander bustiers and on 10 June he was admitted to the final concert of the conservatory. The theatrical debut, having won another singing competition in Parma, took place at the Teatro Sociale di Rovigo on the evening of 14 October the same year as Enzo in La Gioconda. Photography with signature of the famous tenor dated 1945Excellent condition