Gabriella Besanzoni
Italian postcard. Photo by Bettini, Roma, No. 132.
As far as known, acclaimed opera singer Gabriella Besanzoni (1888-1962) only acted in one silent film: Stefania (Armando Brunero, Brunestelli Film, 1916). her co-actor in this film was the more active actor Ciro Galvani, who already started at Cines in 1909, was most active in the 1920s and played major parts in Nemesis (1920), La mirabile visione (1921), La nave (1921), La cavalcata ardente (1925), and Scipione l'Africano (1937). Scriptwriter of Stefania was Fausto Maria Martini, known for his work on Rapsodia satanica (1917) with Lyda Borelli. Yet, the Roman critic 'Fandor' considered the performance of the interpreters insufficient for the filmic medium.
Gabriella Besanzoni was attracted to music from a young age and decided to study opera singing in Rome, at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, where she was a pupil of Alessandro Maggi and Ibilda Brizzi. During this period she initially set her voice as a light soprano, later forced to modify her training path, realizing that she was more suitable for supporting parts for dramatic soprano and mezzo-soprano and finally obtaining a vocal register which by extension, although capable of reaching shrill high notes, managed to have a robust low register. Her debut took place in Viterbo in 1911, where as a soprano she gave voice to the character of Adalgisa in Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, but it was at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma that two years later interpreting Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's A Masked Ball. a mezzo-soprano career.
Between the twenties and the early thirties Besanzoni was mainly active in South America, singing in numerous opera houses including the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires where she enjoyed considerable success and was praised by the Argentine public. During this period she alternated the South American stages with the European ones, in Berlin as well as in Italy, at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan where she played Orfeo and Amneris, in Havana, Cuba, and in the United States, several times guest of the opera houses in Chicago and at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York where she joined, albeit without much success, Enrico Caruso in the 1919-20 season. In 1920, when Caruso and she were performing AIda for the last time in Havana, a bomb exploded in the audience. Back in Italy, again at La Scala, in 1932 she successfully interpreted Carmen and Mignon, before returning to Argentina where she sang at the Colón until 1935.
Besanzoni played numerous roles during her career: in addition to those already mentioned, Dalila, Santuzza (by the will of Mascagni himself), La Cieca, Preziosilla, Azucena, Mrs. Quickly, Marina, Leonora in La Favorita by Gaetano Donizetti as well as several Rossinian characters, funny like Isabella, Cenerentola and Rosina, but also the serious one in Arsace's travesti. He took part in several world premieres, including Melenis and Francesca da Rimini by Riccardo Zandonai, respectively on 13 November 1912 at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan, and on 19 February 1914 at the Teatro Regio in Turin, in the smaller parts of Calpurnia and a slave, and Jacquerie by Gino Marinuzzi senior, in the role of Glorianda di Chivry.
After having had a romantic relationship with the pianist Arthur Rubinstein in 1918 while the two worked together in Madrid, Buenos Aires and New York, Besanzoni married the Brazilian industrialist Henrique Lage in 1924, thus settling with him in Latin America. where, in Rio de Janeiro, she opened a free singing school for young beginners. After having thinned out her public appearances, limited above all to charity shows, Besanzoni wanted to bid farewell to her stage career by resuming her greatest workhorse, Carmen, in Rome, at the Baths of Caracalla, in 1939. Returned almost immediately in Brazil, she was widowed two years later, in 1941, and therefore had to face serious difficulties with the Brazilian authorities in relation to the enormous inheritance of her late husband. In 1951, she definitely returned to Italy, settling back in her hometown and resuming her free activity as a singing teacher.
Married a second time in 1956, Gabriella Besanzoni died in Rome in 1962, and was buried in her costume of the fourth act of Carmen.
Source: Italian Wikipedia, Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano, 1916, II.
Gabriella Besanzoni
Italian postcard. Photo by Bettini, Roma, No. 132.
As far as known, acclaimed opera singer Gabriella Besanzoni (1888-1962) only acted in one silent film: Stefania (Armando Brunero, Brunestelli Film, 1916). her co-actor in this film was the more active actor Ciro Galvani, who already started at Cines in 1909, was most active in the 1920s and played major parts in Nemesis (1920), La mirabile visione (1921), La nave (1921), La cavalcata ardente (1925), and Scipione l'Africano (1937). Scriptwriter of Stefania was Fausto Maria Martini, known for his work on Rapsodia satanica (1917) with Lyda Borelli. Yet, the Roman critic 'Fandor' considered the performance of the interpreters insufficient for the filmic medium.
Gabriella Besanzoni was attracted to music from a young age and decided to study opera singing in Rome, at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, where she was a pupil of Alessandro Maggi and Ibilda Brizzi. During this period she initially set her voice as a light soprano, later forced to modify her training path, realizing that she was more suitable for supporting parts for dramatic soprano and mezzo-soprano and finally obtaining a vocal register which by extension, although capable of reaching shrill high notes, managed to have a robust low register. Her debut took place in Viterbo in 1911, where as a soprano she gave voice to the character of Adalgisa in Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, but it was at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma that two years later interpreting Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's A Masked Ball. a mezzo-soprano career.
Between the twenties and the early thirties Besanzoni was mainly active in South America, singing in numerous opera houses including the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires where she enjoyed considerable success and was praised by the Argentine public. During this period she alternated the South American stages with the European ones, in Berlin as well as in Italy, at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan where she played Orfeo and Amneris, in Havana, Cuba, and in the United States, several times guest of the opera houses in Chicago and at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York where she joined, albeit without much success, Enrico Caruso in the 1919-20 season. In 1920, when Caruso and she were performing AIda for the last time in Havana, a bomb exploded in the audience. Back in Italy, again at La Scala, in 1932 she successfully interpreted Carmen and Mignon, before returning to Argentina where she sang at the Colón until 1935.
Besanzoni played numerous roles during her career: in addition to those already mentioned, Dalila, Santuzza (by the will of Mascagni himself), La Cieca, Preziosilla, Azucena, Mrs. Quickly, Marina, Leonora in La Favorita by Gaetano Donizetti as well as several Rossinian characters, funny like Isabella, Cenerentola and Rosina, but also the serious one in Arsace's travesti. He took part in several world premieres, including Melenis and Francesca da Rimini by Riccardo Zandonai, respectively on 13 November 1912 at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan, and on 19 February 1914 at the Teatro Regio in Turin, in the smaller parts of Calpurnia and a slave, and Jacquerie by Gino Marinuzzi senior, in the role of Glorianda di Chivry.
After having had a romantic relationship with the pianist Arthur Rubinstein in 1918 while the two worked together in Madrid, Buenos Aires and New York, Besanzoni married the Brazilian industrialist Henrique Lage in 1924, thus settling with him in Latin America. where, in Rio de Janeiro, she opened a free singing school for young beginners. After having thinned out her public appearances, limited above all to charity shows, Besanzoni wanted to bid farewell to her stage career by resuming her greatest workhorse, Carmen, in Rome, at the Baths of Caracalla, in 1939. Returned almost immediately in Brazil, she was widowed two years later, in 1941, and therefore had to face serious difficulties with the Brazilian authorities in relation to the enormous inheritance of her late husband. In 1951, she definitely returned to Italy, settling back in her hometown and resuming her free activity as a singing teacher.
Married a second time in 1956, Gabriella Besanzoni died in Rome in 1962, and was buried in her costume of the fourth act of Carmen.
Source: Italian Wikipedia, Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano, 1916, II.