Pietro Ballo

Ballo came from a working-class family, and was a quarryman himself before studying voice at the operatic school of Palermo's Teatro Massimo (with Gina Cigna, among others). He made his debut as Ernesto in Pavia in 1978.

Before long, in 1980, he was successful at the Glyndebourne Festival (Rodolfo), in 1981 at La Fenice in Venice (Italienischer Sänger, Fernand) and at the Châtelet in Paris, in 1982 in Genova and in Glyndebourne again (Italienischer Sänger), in 1983 at the Vienna Staatsoper (Duca) and in Florence, in 1984 at La Scala (Ernesto), at the Teatro Regio in Torino and in Zürich. He sang at the Salzburg Festival in 1985 and 1987, again at La Scala in 1986 (Elvino), in Hamburg (1984–88), at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Edinburgh Festival, in Oslo, Tokyo, Toulon, Dallas, at the Paris Grand Opéra (Duca, 1988), in Rome, Parma, Palermo, Trieste, Bergamo, Ravenna, Macerata, Liège, Santiago de Chile (Nemorino, 1996) or Monte Carlo (Roberto in Maria Stuarda, 1997).

After his singing career, he continued as a stage director.

Ballo was a great admirer of Luciano Pavarotti, and audibly so – which was quite common in his generation of Italian tenors. Early in his career, he bleated like a goat (cf. the above recording), but by the mid-1980s, his timbre had become smoother, and he delivered some very satisfying performances.

Reference 1; reference 2; reference 3: Kutsch & Riemens