Alessio De Paolis (9 March 1893 – 5 March 1964) was an Italian
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
tic
tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...
who specialized in character roles. He was a prominent member of the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
where he sang from 1938 to 1964. At the Met De Paolis performed 51 different roles, primarily in the Italian and French repertoires, in a remarkable
1555 performances. In 1931, De Paolis created the role of Monsieur Le Beau in
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (born Ermanno Wolf) (January 12, 1876 – January 21, 1948) was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as '' Il segreto di Susanna'' (1909). A number of his works were based on plays ...
's opera ''
La vedova scaltra
''La vedova scaltra'' (English: ''The Cunning Widow'') is an updated opera-buffa in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to a text by Mario Ghisalberti, after Carlo Goldoni's original play (also called ''La vedova scaltra'') first given in 1748.
...
''; in 1933 that of Frulla in
Riccardo Zandonai
Riccardo Zandonai (28 May 1883 – 5 June 1944) was an Italian composer.
Biography
Zandonai was born in Borgo Sacco, Rovereto, then part of Austria-Hungary. As a young man, he showed such an aptitude for music that he entered the Pesaro Conserv ...
's opera ''
La farsa amorosa''; and in 1936 and that of Christian in
Franco Alfano
Franco Alfano (8 March 1875 – 27 October 1954) was an Italian composer and pianist, best known today for his opera '' Risurrezione'' (1904) and for having completed Puccini's opera ''Turandot'' in 1926. He had considerable success with several ...
's ''
Cyrano de Bergerac
Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist.
A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th cen ...
''.
De Paolis also performed in a number of commercial opera recordings. These include a famous 1959
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
recording of Puccini's ''
Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is " Nessun dorma", ...
'' with
Birgit Nilsson and
Jussi Björling
Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling ( , ; 5 February 19119 September 1960) was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th century, Björling appeared for many years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and less frequentl ...
in which he sings the role of the Emperor Altoum.
References
De Paolis, Alessio (Tenor) Archives of the Metropolitan Opera, MetOpera Database.
External links
Photo of De Paolis as Goro (right) in ''Madama Butterfly'' at the Met, 1958.Metropolitan Opera Archives Database.
1893 births
1964 deaths
Italian operatic tenors
20th-century Italian male opera singers
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