Giovanni Mario

I wish to thank Thomas Silverbörg for the picture (bottom).

He was born into a noble family (his real name was Giovanni Matteo De Candia), and like his father, a general, he became an officer in the Piedmontese army. When deployed to Genova, he associated himself with revolutionary, republican circles, which led to the break with his family – and he made it irreversible by deserting in 1836, and after meeting his mother a last time – he was disguised as a fisherman, she gave him money –, he eloped to Paris with a ballet dancer.

In Paris, he lived in bohemian conditions. He gave fencing and horseriding lessons, he made clay statuettes, and he soon became an appreciated amateur singer of romances in private salons. Even Meyerbeer heard him, and strongly advised to study voice. And so the young nobleman did, at the conservatory; among his teachers were Meyerbeer himself, Ponchard and Bordogni.

He hesitated when the Paris Opéra offered him a contract, but eventually accepted, changing his name into Giovanni Mario. He made his debut as Robert le diable in late 1838 (the exact date is unclear); Meyerbeer even added a new aria for him on that occasion. Although he had studied but briefly, and his training was not quite complete yet, his success was so great that he was immediately hired by Her Majesty's Theatre in London; he appeared in Lucrezia Borgia there in June 1839, together with the famous soprano Giulia Grisi, who became his wife five years later. The British press chided him for his less than perfect vocal technique, but appreciated his fascinating stage presence and his musical taste and style.

Back to Paris, Grisi had him engaged at "her" theater, the Théâtre des Italiens. He stayed there for many years; his definitive breakthrough was the world premiere of Rossini's Stabat mater on 7 January 1842. One year later, on 3 January 1843 and still at the Théâtre des Italiens, he took part in his one and only really important operatic world premiere, Don Pasquale, where he sang of course Ernesto (Giulia Grisi was Norina). Before long, Mario made guest appearances throughout Europe, except in Italy, both because he didn't dare to travel there for his political convictions, and because he had promised his father to spare him the humiliation of seeing his son exercising a profession as humble as that of an opera singer. In 1846, 1847, 1849 and 1850, he sang entire Italian opera seasons at Covent Garden. He was London's first Ernesto, Jean de Leyde, Duca and Roméo, and Paris' first Alfredo, Duca, Manrico and Lyonel. He and Grisi, by the way, sang and traveled very frequently together up to Grisi's 1869 death.

In all those years, Giovanni Mario was a strong and important supporter of radical democratic Italian exiles, the followers of Giuseppe Mazzini, whom Mario had known personally in his Genova period; he supported them both financially and by acting as a messenger for them between Paris and London. He also harbored several of them at his respective residences, and collected money for the unification of a democratic Italy at some London concerts. Only after the failed revolutions of 1848/49 (and of 1853 in Milano), he turned away from Mazzini, and accepted that the Italian unification would be monarchic under the king of Piedmont and Sardinia.

In 1849, he was in St. Petersburg for the first time, so successfully that he returned every year until 1853. In 1854, he sang at the Teatro Real in Madrid, and sang Pollione in the inauguration performance of the Brooklyn Academy of Music; the following year, he also appeared in Washington D. C. and Boston.

Then he went back to dividing his time between Paris and London. In 1859/60, when he was in Madrid again, vocal decline began to show. Also in Paris, the press (who had never been as fond of him as the public) expressed some rather unfavorable opinions on his singing. His success was, however, undiminished in London, and so he primarily lived there from 1862. Only in 1868, he sang again in Paris, and in 1870 in St. Petersburg. In 1871, he took his London farewell in La favorite; after a six-month US tour with Adelina Patti, he retired in February 1873.

He returned to Italy, at long last, and spent the rest of his life in Rome, in surprisingly impoverished conditions: he worked as a museum guard and a prompter, and his London friends organized a charity concert for him in 1878 or 1880, depending on sources.

Reference 1: Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 33, Rome 1987; reference 2; reference 3; reference 4: Kutsch & Riemens

I thank Tom Kaufman for putting a copy of his unpublished chronology on Mario at my disposal.