Alberto Amadi (1876-1943) was a lyric tenor, whose career was mainly confined to American touring companies. Born in Trieste, Amadi studied voice with Giuseppe Rota at the Milan Conservatory before making his debut at Turin’s Teatro Regio in late 1898 or early 1899. The young tenor spent the next few years singing in the smaller theaters of Florence, Milan, Bologna, Naples, Livorno, and Trieste. His first international engagement occurred in 1903, when he took part in the Teatro Renacimiento’s summer opera season in Mexico City. After returning to Europe later that year, Amadi continued to build his repertoire, singing such operas as Rigoletto, Cavalleria Rusticana, Tosca, La Bohème, and Carmen. There were appearances in Bilbao, Madrid, Bucharest, Moscow and Istanbul, but Amadi’s career was essentially a provincial Italian affair.
Frustrated with his failure to launch a major European career, Amadi accepted a contract to appear with National Grand Opera’s 1909-1910 North American tour. His debut with the company took place in Ottawa on November 17, 1909 as Alfredo in La Traviata. The barnstorming tour took the tenor to Cleveland, Chicago, Buffalo, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville, Oklahoma City, Washington D.C., and Seattle, in a variety of operas. The following season found Amadi touring with both the Bessie Abbott Grand Opera and the Aborn English Grand Opera, singing in Carmen, Martha, Faust, Rigoletto, and La Bohème.
During one of his tours, Amadi met…and fell in love with…soprano Maria de Zorzi. The couple married in New York in the fall of 1911 and enjoyed more than thirty years together. In the meantime, Amadi continued crisscrossing North America with a series of cut-rate touring companies. The cheaply produced tours were not the career boost the tenor had hoped for, but they did give him a certain degree of celebrity with regional audiences. Local newspapers praised his performances; “a pleasing voice, sweet in tone and used with admirable discretion” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 4/30/1912), “a voice as silvery as his shining armor” (Washington D.C. Evening Star, 5/18/1912, “[Amadi] proved again that he is a singing actor of merit, and not only were his solos sung with unusual beauty of tone, but his performance seemed to stand out, because of its surety and splendid poise” (Buffalo Enquirer, 5/22/1914). It was frequently mentioned that he sang at La Scala (he didn’t), the Metropolitan Opera (he didn’t), as well as the major opera houses of Europe (that didn’t happen, either). It made for a good story, however, and helped to sell tickets.
Amadi enjoyed a bit of a break from the monotony of touring the U.S. when he travelled to Havana for a series of performances in early 1911. The following year found him in Mexico and there were appearances in Buenos Aires and San Juan, Puerto Rico, as well. Touring companies were the tenor’s bread and butter, however, and Amadi resigned himself to this way of life. Despite the whirlwind nature of these tours, Amadi enjoyed singing with Tampa’s Iris Grand Opera, which allowed him to winter in Florida. The tenor’s final operatic performance was with this company as Don José in Carmen on March 5, 1922.
Amadi’s fortunes gradually diminished during the 1920s. In 1924, the tenor began touring vaudeville with the Paramount Quintet (“Classiest Vocal Offering on the American Stage”), remaining with the group until 1928. In 1930, Amadi formed the Rossini Choral Club and opened a voice studio in Scranton. Sadly, neither venture was terribly successful. Amadi’s wife Maria, still living in New York, was compelled to work as a coat check girl at the Metropolitan Opera to help the family make ends meet. After relocating to Wilkes-Barre, PA in 1932, Amadi opened another voice studio, this one more of a success. He continued singing at local functions until the end of 1937, devoting himself to teaching in the years thereafter. Although still married, the Amadis maintained separate homes, Maria in New York and Alberto in Wilkes-Barre. In 1943, the aged tenor was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Following a brief struggle with the disease, Alberto Amadi passed away on July 23, 1943 at the age of 66.
Alberto Amadi is a difficult tenor to assess. He never found a niche in the mainstream opera world, his career relegated to such budget bin companies as San Carlo Opera, Century Opera Company, Creatore Grand Opera and the New York Grand Opera Corporation. His repertoire of over 40 roles included leads in such operas as Barbiere di Siviglia, Elisir d’Amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Pagliacci, La Gioconda, Mignon, Il Trovatore, Forza del Destino, Aïda, Norma, Madama Butterfly, and Lohengrin. As a Victor Records “studio tenor”, he made over 40 discs between 1911 and 1913. These records display a full lyric instrument and very individual phrasing. Here, Amadi sings “Amor ti vieta” from Giordano’s Fedora. This was recorded for the Victor label in Camden, NJ on January 24, 1911.
11 сен 2024
