Per me ora fatale

Benvenuto Franci - Il Trovatore - Per me ora fatale - His Master's Voice DB 1262 enregistré le 13 décembre 1928

Benvenuto Franci (Baritone) (Pienza 1891 – Roma 1985)

As a youngster, he was fascinated by the musical instruments of the town band: large and small instruments, woodwinds and brass - he played them all but preferred the euphonium. He studied the viola and performed in a trio with the band-master on the violin and the town barber on the cello. As he grew up, people noticed that he not only had great talent with musical instruments but that he also sang with an easy and sonorous voice.

In 1910 his parents decided to send him to study voice in Rome at the Academy of Santa Cecilia where he attended the famous school of the great Maestro Antonio Cotogni. Fellow students, Beniamino Gigli and Giacomo Lauri Volpi, shared with him all their anxieties, hopes and fears.

In 1917, he brazenly requested an audition with Emma Carelli, who was then running the Teatro Costanzi. After hearing the baritone, Carelli said: "A beautiful voice, a great voice. I would like to discipline and release it. This season the new opera Lodoletta by Mascagni will be performed. I will prepare you myself and will put you on the stage.”

The day after Christmas of 1917 he debuted in Rome to great acclaim. This success at the Costanzi immediately earned him a contract with the San Carlo in Naples, where, working with Maestro Franco Capuana, he expanded his repertoire: Un Ballo in Maschera, Aida, Rigoletto, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Gioconda, Andrea Chenier, Cavalleria, Pagliacci, La Bohème, La Traviata, Don Pasquale, all operas that he would continue to sing throughout his career.

His great success opened the doors to La Scala. Toscanini wanted him for Aida, Tristan, Carmen, Traviata, affirming his faith and esteem for Franci over a ten year period. He premiered a number of important works: Boito’s posthumous work Nerone, Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini and I Cavalieri di Ekebù, directed by the composer himself, Umberto Giordano's La Cena delle beffe, Il piccolo Marat by Mascagni, and Marinuzzi's Palla dé Mozzi, directed by the composer.

For twenty years he sang in the most important Italian and foreign theatres, all the while expanding his repertoire: I Puritani, Tosca, La Fanciulla del West, Guglielmo Tell, Gianni Schicchi, La forza del destino, Fidelio, Otello, Nabucco, Die Meistersinger, and Lohengrin (Franci is one of the few Italian singers to embrace the Wagnerian repertoire). In Bologna, on the occasion of the premiere of Il Tabarro, he met Puccini who advised him to study Gianni Schicchi, a role he subsequently performed many times. The list of theatres in which Benvenuto Franci performed is long and glorious including, among many, Rome, Naples and Milan, Bologna, Genoa, Verona, Torino, Parma, Palermo, Trieste, Florence, etc.

Abroad, he was regularly invited to perform at Covent Garden in London, at the Paris Opéra, in Madrid, Barcelona, Vienna, Berlin, and Lisbon.

In the summer of 1924 he set sail for South America with the Company of Ottavio Scotto and Claudia Muzio, and the director Marinuzzi. The sixteen performances he was scheduled to sing became forty. He returned regularly to Brazil, Chile, and Argentina for ten years.

In 1956, he retired from the stage where he had performed for forty years. "At the end of the opera, Toscanini called me into his dressing room, hugged me and spoke to me in a way that filled me with emotion and joy. Never will I forget that hug – I consider it the ultimate prize of my career.”
(Benvenuto Franci)
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