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Home , Bruno Prevedi, Carlo Bergonzi, Di quella pira, Fedora (opera), Gino Penno, Magda Olivero

Pavarotti’s forgotten predecessor: Bruno Prevedi

Jan Neckers

26 September 2004

The line of Decca- seems to run straight from Del Monaco to Bergonzi to Pavarotti. Granted there are some intrusions by , and but their names are not widely associated with this label. Granted too that Bergonzi never felt himself to be very welcome by Rosengarten, Decca’s big boss who preferred the better-selling Del Monaco and who tried to supplant Bergonzi by Jussi Bj¨orling (who died after one failed recording) and Franco Corelli (who was too unreliable). So after his initial five-years exclusivity-contract lapsed, Bergonzi looked to other labels as well. Not until arrived did Decca once more have a with Del Monaco-fidelity. That was initially more Pavarotti’s clamping on than Decca’s wish. Indeed the tenor from Modena had to start out with an insulting 45T- record in a time when no classical artist recorded on this format anymore. And the label had no problems in lending him out to EMI to record L’Amico Fritz. One of the reasons behind this policy was that Rosengarten thought the label had more than its fill of Italian tenors in the sixties. Anyway making sure that competition wouldn’t pick up the best ones sometimes was an aim too, and then throwing them in the dustbin was a regular feature. Gino Penno only got an MP but retired before he could complain. Flaviano Labo was signed at the same time as ; he got an LP (in the US) and a reduced version of that recording on MP in Europe. And that was it. And then came along a possible successor to Del Monaco and Bergonzi (still only 40 years of age): Bruno Prevedi and for a short time it looked as he would get to wear the robe of the elder tenors. But then his recording career didn’t take flight and his theatre career slowed down and petered out. Bruno Prevedi was born on the December the 21st 1928 in Revere, in the vicinity of Mantua. His grandparents and his parents were not too well-off farmers but the tenor would always relish fond memories of his youth in the valley of the Po. Like many peasants his father migrated to to look for a better life. Largely unschooled he nevertheless found a job and had his wife and his two sons, Bruno and Giorgio, came over. Prevedi lived the life of all street urchins in a crowded popular quarter. He went to elementary school where he met Iride Brasca, two years younger and slightly better-off. They would never set their eyes elsewhere, though they would marry rather late.

1 After elementary school Prevedi immediately went to work. He never had the oppor- tunity to study one single foreign language. He proved to be very skillful and with the aid of all parts imaginable he succeeded in producing his own bycicles. At night he went to evening courses in all kinds of mechanics. When he was seventeen he found the job for the rest of his life or so he thought: mechanic at Fiat. With the war over and the economy slowly improving, there was a secure future in it. Outside the job, pleasures were simple, mostly going to the movies and sometimes evenings of song as was still much the custom with Italians. They hadn’t the money to go to concerts or the very expensive Scala. Most didn’t even have a radio or a record player ( Gigli-records didn’t sell more than 10000 copies in the whole of Italy) so they made music themselves. Prevedi contributed his part in those singalongs: his favorite song was “Fenesta che lucive”, very adapt for his young voice. He didn’t think one moment of a dangerous musical career. Still he wanted to learn to sing properly and he applied to study at the Scala School for Choristers in evening courses. He duly went and got a proper vocal and musical training. At the end of this two-year run legendary Scala Chorus Master Vittorio Veneziani took him aside and told him that he had promise, that he even could make a living as a soloist. He continued to take singing lessons as a hobby but with his feet firmly on earth. In 1955, already 27 years of age he at last had enough money to marry his sweetheart. Ten months later his only son Rinaldo (himself a father of seven Prevedi’s) was born. He still studied, trying to get some experience. Some of his colleagues replaced him when there were engagements while he on his turn took over on Sundays or Holidays. In August 1958 he would finally get his chance to make a d´ebut in an experimental season at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan. Nobody remembers Giuseppe Bertinazzo (Canio) and Bianca Maria Partesi (Nedda) but the roles of Tonio and Silvio were given to two promising : Bruno Prevedi and Ottavio Garaventa, both destined to make quite a career though not as a baritone. One prescient critic was duly impressed and wrote that Prevedi had the potency of a spinto tenor. Prevedi thought that himself too and in a follow-up concert he sang “O monumento” and “Pari siamo”, but in the unofficial part he tried “Amor ti vieta” and “Ch’ella mi creda”. He then went to a former tenor Wladimiro Badiali and asked him to retrain as a tenor. Six months later he made his successful d´ebut in a Monza-concert and then prepared his first role: Turiddu. That took him six months as he still kept on his regular job. The d´ebut, once more at the Teatro Nuovo in his home city went well. He then decided to take part in a few competitions. In the first one he finished second after Luigi Ottolini; the second he won, together with the promise of other engagements. He soon was Pinkerton in Rome (Teatro Eliseo), Loris in Milan (Teatro Nuovo with Orianna Santunione) and Alfredo in Montichiari. He had given all his holidays, all his free moments to his hobby and he felt that he couldn’t continue in that way. He asked for a leave of absence at Fiat, which was denied. His wife bitterly remembers that such leaves were never denied when the Fiat employee was a promising soccer player or cyclist. Still it was clear that offers were coming his way and on Christmas 1960 he decided to go all the way and he resigned. In those days casting decisions were made only six months in advance in Italy. There

2 were still a lot of stagiones and moreover there are never too many excellent spinto tenors. Prevedi never had to do the rounds of the obscure province theatres; he didn’t have to join one of those travelling groups which tried to live on the land during their tours of Western Europe. He almost immediately got decent engagements and was invited to Switzerland for and to Belgium for his -d´ebut in Lige. Less than one year after his real career started he was already singing in Bologna with Ferrario, Cossotto and Mazzoli in , conducted by Serafin. Success came quickly, maybe even too quickly. During his second year as a pro he did the rounds of the second-best theatres like the San Carlo, the in Barcelona and already the arena of Verona, be it in the small role of Ismaele. His big-break through came in the first months of 1963. He started out by his -d´ebut in Pizzetti’s Deborah and Jaele and then went to London for a series of Calaf. During rehearsals over there he carefully husbanded his voice till during the last one he opened up and the voice shook the rafters. Immediately the news spread and the Decca bosses were quick to offer him a recording contract that would result in his first (and last) solo album. With Corelli and Bergonzi going for the big money in the States and elsewhere and Del Monaco convalescing after a car accident and singing coarser by the month, he became the new star tenor of La Scala. He opened the season as at the end of 1964 and during the same season returned as Macduff, Ramerrez and once more Don Carlos. He accompanied the company to Moscow where he sang in Trovatore and . Apart from that he made d´ebuts in Buenos Aires and in Berlin with Karajan. And he got a lot of publicity in the new Covent Garden production by of Trovatore ( bowed out and was replaced by the young ). In March 1965 he made his d´ebut as Cavaradossi at the old Met. For a few years his career would resemble that of any first class Italian tenor. A lot of performances at the Met and being new to the ranks pressed into service for the tour. Apart from the Met he would sing at La Scala, the Vienna and the big Italian theatres. The only thing lacking would be a real recording career as Decca employed him sparingly in roles other tenor stars wouldn’t or couldn’t do like Ismaele, Macduff and Licinio. In 1968 he sang for the last time at the Met. His wife still tells that he had enough of travelling and wanted to spend more time with his son and family. This is probably only one side of the coin as at La Scala he sang his last performances only a few months later. From 1970 on it was definitely downhill. Budapest, Miami, Belgrado are not places where careers are made or broken. No recording projects would materialize any more though he would unwillingly record more than in his heydays. He accepted tenor roles for RAI- broadcasts, often of less popular works and most of these broadcasts nowadays can be found on CD. In the next years his name was still sufficient to get a lot of engagements in the best German and Austrian theatres together with a few Italian ones like La Fenice. From 1975 on he started to do the rounds of the more exotic theatres like the ones in Venezuela and South Africa, when he was not employed in the German language theatres. The engagements became less and less, with sometimes months lapsing between two engagements. The definitive end came in 1982 in Johannesburg as Pollione, part of a big publicity tour of Montserrat Caball´e.All in all his big career lasted less than ten years.

3 There are several reasons for that. Maybe first and foremost is the voice itself. Prevedi was educated as a chorister, not as a soloist. That means one should be able to sing well, to sing a lot and to learn new roles rather quick. But he never followed singing courses completely suited to his individual voice. The only solo courses he did concentrated on changing from baritone to tenor and lasted less than six months. Therefore he never properly learned to wield his voice, he had no proper mezza-voce to speak of and piano was not to be found in his dictionary. It was straight singing throughout. His was a dark, personal, immediately recognizable and exciting sound with always a lingering suspicion of a dramatic baritone. The change from chest to head register was never seamless. There were always some explosives sounds added. The voice was limited to top B and he always transposed ‘di quella pira’. Due to his explosive way of singing his legato was never very perfect. He never shouted or sobbed but stylistically there was less than fluid easy singing. As he already popped up rather late on the scene and immediately had a full workload there were never moments to sit still for a few months and restudy, probably because he always feared to be without work. The other tenors of his generation had a far more difficult start, but slowly and gradually wormed their way up, learned a lot of things and steadily improved their technique. When they finally burst upon the international scene, there were more accomplished artists compared to the rough diamond Prevedi always more or less remained. He had not much luck with his recording career either. During his best years when the voice was bright and full he never got an opportunity to record his best roles. For commercial reasons Decca always preferred the burnt out voice of Del Monaco in Cavalleria (1966) and Norma (1967), roles in Prevedi’s repertoire. He didn’t get the Traviata either (it went to Aragall) and saw another newcomer who wouldn’t make it take (McCracken). He was announced for but once more the better selling Del Monaco (or so Decca hoped) took precedence. Then there was Prevedi’s attitude. He didn’t throw tantrums, he was polite and not offending. He waited for roles that could come his way and didn’t beleaguer the offices of general managers threatening to quit in a few seconds time if he didn’t get this or that plum. In short he was somewhat too nice for the animal pit the opera world is. In 1964 he sang La Fanciulla at La Scala but felt himself somewhat unsure in this difficult role. At the final rehearsal Franco Corelli appeared and rudely took over. Prevedi meekly complied and sang only the last performances of the series. One of the reasons behind this attitude was an incertitude about his own worth and his regular vocal problems. Though he had ample volume reviews often noticed that his first acts often sounded somewhat underpowered as he carefully husbanded his voice, afraid of not having enough stamina to last all evening. By making a profession of his beloved hobby he had lost ‘la gioia di cantare’. Typically was his reaction after his career. “I’m not going to sing for my grandchildren. If they want to hear how their grandfather sounded they have to play my records.” After his retirement he proved himself a doting grandfather and he and his wife pre- pared themselves for a long and fruitful old age now that travelling all over the world was definitely over. Only four years later there were the first signs of stomach trouble. His wife knew what was wrong but never told him. For a year he went into therapy and surgery but there was no hope. On the 8th of January 1988 he fell into a coma and four

4 days later he died, barely a few weeks older than 59. Only his many records still bear testimony to one of the potentially most beautiful Italian tenor voices of the last fifty years. His heritage was treated indifferently by Decca. That formidable solo-album that showed so much promise was only put in part on a compilation CD with other tenors while the transfer of the whole LP with excerpts from , Macbeth and Medea added would have been a worthy tribute. Luckily the pirates save the day and several of his roles during his best years are preserved. There is the Norma of 1965 with Gencer and Simionato, several Medea’s the best being the Dallas one with , there is the Covent Garden Manrico and the Rome 1968 Don Carlos. A RAI 1969 with Caball´eis very alluring while a Fedora from the same year with Olivero compensates for the rated Decca-recording. From his later years there are , Agnese di Hohenstaufen and Boito’s Nerone. Strangely enough none of his Puccini-roles is to be found on record though there are several on cassette still doing the rounds, e.g. a Tosca and his famous London-d´ebut in Turandot with Shuard and Kabaivanska. The most elusive item however is a registration of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fidelio, done in 1970 in Montr´eal“in lingua originale,” says his mediocre Italian biography. That means that he would have sung in German a role no other great Italian tenor ever recorded. I am curious if any of our readers knows of the existence of this recording. It could be possible and maybe it’s a pity that Prevedi never thought of tackling some of the Wagner roles like Siegmund and Tristan for which his dark but noble voice would have been immensely fine.

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