Voice: | Baritone |
Nationality: | Italian |
Year of Birth: | Not entered yet. |
Year of Death: | 1963 |
Giuseppe Danise (11 January 1882 – 9 January 1963) was an Italian operatic baritone. He sang to great acclaim throughout Italy and the Americas, appearing in lyric and dramatic roles from the Italian, French, Wagnerian, and Russian repertoire.
Danise was born in Salerno, near Naples, to Pasqualina Capaldo, an amateur musician, and Enrico Danise, an official in the Italian government. Though he began studies in law, he was urged to take up a career in singing, as he had a natural singing voice. He attended the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, where he was trained first by Luigi Colonnese, a baritone of the previous generation whose own pedagogical lineage included Alessandro Busti and the castrato Girolamo Crescentini. According to Danise, for the first year he was only allowed to sing tones—no scales and no songs. Studies with Abramo Petillo followed. Danise's first daughter, Floria, was born in 1905. A son, Enrico, was to follow in 1907.
In 1906, he made his debut at the Teatro Bellini in Naples as Alfio in Cavalleria rusticana. Shortly thereafter he was hired as the leading baritone of a touring company that traveled through the Balkans and throughout Russia and Siberia. In the course of two and a half years, Danise sang 630 performances. He returned to Italy in May 1912. Two weeks later he sang a concert in Trieste and was engaged there for the fall season. After that, he was engaged to sing at the Teatro Regio di Torino. During that engagement he was asked to go to La Scala for the centennial of Verdi's birth. Danise refused this request over differences about the repertoire.