Giuseppe Di Stefano was born (24.7.1921) in Motta Sant'Anastasia, a village near Catania, Sicily. He was the only son of a carabiniere turned cobbler and his dressmaker wife. Di Stefano was educated at a Jesuit seminary and briefly contemplated entering the priesthood.
Di Stefano made his operatic debut in 1946 in Reggio Emilia as Des Grieux in Massenet's Manon, the role with which he made his La Scala debut the following year. He made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1948 as the Duke in Rigoletto, and he went to perform regularly in New York for many years. In 1957, Di Stefano made his British debut at the Edinburgh Festival as Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore and his Royal Opera House, Covent Garden debut in 1961 as Cavaradossi in Tosca.
As a singer, Di Stefano was admired for his excellent diction, unique timbre, and passionate delivery, and particularly for his sweet soft tones. In his Metropolitan radio debut in Faust, he attacked the high C forte and then softened to a pianissimo. Sir Rudolf Bing said this was the most beautiful sound he had heard come out of a human throat during his years as General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera. But the heavier roles that he began to take on were not really suited for a lyric tenor, and by the mid 1960s he had all but ended his operatic career. During his international career he won a gold Orfeo, an Italian musical award similar to America's Oscar.
In 1973, he accompanied Callas on her final recital tour, an undertaking that was eventually aborted in 1974 due to the vocal shortcomings of both singers. His final operatic role was as the aged Emperor in Turandot, in July 1992.
Tenor Luciano Pavarotti modeled himself after Di Stefano, a fact that gained much attention after Pavarotti’s death in September 2007. However, on the 1992 PBS television program "Pavarotti and the Italian Tenor," a vocal coach explained that Di Stefano's technique was faulty because he did not use the passaggio in his voice as he should have.)
Recordings with Maria Callas
In spite of the fact that his career was relatively brief, Di Stefano sang the tenor leads in several of the most famous recordings of Maria Callas, all of which were for EMI. Together they recorded the following complete operas:
* Lucia Di Lammermoor - 1953
* I Puritani - 1953
* Cavalleria Rusticana - 1953
* Tosca - 1953
* Pagliacci - 1954
* Rigoletto - 1955
* Il Trovatore - 1956
* La Boheme - 1956
* Un Ballo in Maschera - 1956
* Manon Lescaut - 1957
A series of duets with Giuseppe di Stefano and Maria Callas were recorded by the Philips label in the period November-December 1973 with Antonio de Almeida conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. These recordings were not published officially but a 'pirate' version did appear.
Other recordings
Besides his recordings with Callas, he also made complete sets of Madama Butterfly (opposite Victoria de los Ángeles, 1954), La traviata (with Antonietta Stella and Tito Gobbi, 1955), L'elisir d'amore (1955), La Gioconda (with Zinka Milanov and Leonard Warren, 1957), La forza del destino (1958) and a second Tosca (with Leontyne Price, 1962). In 1995, VAI issued an approved version of La bohème, from a 1959 performance in New Orleans, with the tenor starring opposite Licia Albanese, Audrey Schuh, Giuseppe Valdengo and Norman Treigle. Additionally, in 1962 the tenor recorded excerpts from Manon, with Anna Moffo, conducted by René Leibowitz.
In 1951, the tenor sang in a performance of the Verdi Requiem, at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, with his fellow soloists being Herva Nelli, Fedora Barbieri and Cesare Siepi. It was released as a recording by RCA.
Diani Beach incident and following death
In November 2004, Di Stefano was critically injured in his home in Diani Beach, Kenya, after a brutal beating by unknown assailants.[1] Di Stefano was ambushed in his car with his wife as they prepared to drive from their villa in Diani, a coastal resort near Mombasa on the Indian Ocean. The singer was still unconscious a week after the attack and was fed intravenously, and underwent several operations. He was then flown to the San-Raffaele-clinic at Milan, where he died on March 3, 2008.
