Ferruccio Tagliavini; Brought Bel Canto Opera to U.S.

Ferruccio Tagliavini, a lyric tenor who brought to postwar America the florid mantle of bel canto opera, where single notes are drawn out into sustained, glittering threads, has died of respiratory complications.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that Tagliavini was 81 when he died at his home in Reggio Emilia, Italy, on Saturday.

Like Tito Schipa, a favorite of the 1920s and ‘30s, Tagliavini was credited with scholarship and accuracy in the difficult passages of Bellini, Donizetti and Mascagni, but critics said he lacked Schipa’s purity in the intermediate range of the lyric tenor repertoire.

He was the first Italian tenor heard in the United States after Benito Mussolini banned overseas appearances by Italians in 1940, shortly after the beginning of World War II. He was greeted with enthusiasm and acclaim when he finally was able to make his American debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on Jan. 10, 1947, as Rodolfo in “La Boheme.” A two-record, 78-r.p.m. set recorded earlier was released in the United States about the same time and sold well.

Tagliavini had unwittingly prearranged his enthusiastic American reception by performing for U.S. troops during the liberation of Italy, literally singing for his supper.

“I had been waiting for the Americans,” he remembered with a smile during a 1987 interview with The Times.

Additionally, classical music was well-served in the United States in those days through two radio programs, both on Monday evenings: “Voice of Firestone” was followed by the prestigious “Telephone Hour.” Through them he gained additional favor.

Although in opera he was known for his refined and expressive tones, he also was considered an adept comic actor. The rotund tenor made several films in Italy, playing a multitude of characters who, to no one’s amazement, had one thing in common--they all had outstanding singing voices.

As a boy, Tagliavini lived in the countryside outside Bologna, moving to Reggio Emilia at 12. Early on he was nourished by the immensely popular gramophone releases of Enrico Caruso and Nellie Melba.

But he resisted his father’s efforts to push him toward a singing career and instead studied engineering. In 1935, he went off as a volunteer to fight in Fascist Italy’s ill-fated conquests in Africa. He spent a year there.

At 24 he finally bowed to his father’s wishes and on a dare, entered a conservatory in Parma. In 1938 he won a major national singing competition and debuted to acclaim that year as Rodolfo at Florence’s Teatro Comunale.

Tagliavini’s other well-known roles included parts in “Werther,” “Manon” and “La Sonnambula.” Nemorino in “L’Elisir d’Amore” became one of his best-known roles. He also recorded frequently.

The tenor retired from the opera stage in 1970 after one last “L’Elisir” in Benevento, in southern Italy, but made annual recital appearances in Carnegie Hall for another the decade.

His last public appearance was in 1981, in an unstaged version of Mascagni’s “L’Amico Fritz” in Carnegie Hall. Tagliavini and the composer had been friends, and Mascagni credited him with much of the opera’s success.