An industrialist paid for Gavarini's vocal studies, first with the choir master of the Teatro Regio, Annibale Pizzarelli,
then at the Conservatorio Cherubini in Florence. As for his debut, his Wikipedia entry states that he sang Alfredo at the
Teatro Arena del Sole in Roccabianca on 15 August 1946, but that's impossible for sure: even the open-air Arena del Sole in
Roccabianca was only inaugurated six weeks later, on 29 September 1946 (and not with La traviata, but rather with Il barbiere
di Siviglia); and there was still no sign of the later conversion into a theater. So either Gavarini sang his 1946 Alfredo
elsewhere, or not at all.
Anyway, he won the singing contest of the Italian state radio RAI in 1948, and sang a lot for that radio until 1962. His
(proven and tested) stage career began in 1949, as Andrea Chénier in Reggio Emilia. The same year, he was already
Samson at La Fenice in Venice. In 1950, he sang abroad for the first time (Samson in Cairo). In 1951, he sang in Como, in
Modena (Lohengrin), at the Regio in Parma (Lohengrin, as well), and at the Massimo in Palermo (Pollione). In 1952, he
appeared at the San Carlo in Naples in the title role of Felice Lattuada's Don Giovanni, and at the Rome opera theater
as Sisera in Pizzetti's Debora e Jaële.
In 1953, he arrived at La Scala, as Nerone in L'incoronazione di
Poppea. In 1954, he partnered Maria Callas in two productions: as Giasone in Cherubini's Medea at La Fenice, and
as Admète in Gluck's Alceste at La Scala; plus he returned to the Massimo in Palermo that year, as Tebaldo in
I Capuleti e i Montecchi. 1954 was also the year of his debut at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, where he sang a lot until
1959 (Don José, Lohengrin, Kuterma and Imar in Monte Ivnor by Lodovico Rocca). In 1955, he sang Old Siegfried
at the Teatro Nuovo in Torino, and Macduff at the Regio in Parma; at both those theaters, he was Samson in 1956. 1957: Samson
in Genova and Imar at the Teatro Nuovo; 1958: Tristan in Reggio Emilia. In 1960, he was back at the San Carlo in Naples for
the world premiere of Mayerling by Barbara Giuranna.
The 1960s found him abroad more often than before: as Pollione in
Marseille in 1963 and in Toulouse in 1964; as Nerone in Wiesbaden in 1964; in Händel's Giulio Cesare in Madrid in
1966. In 1967, he appeared in Pizzetti's L'assassinio nella cattedrale at the Regio in Parma, in 1968 as Aeneas in
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at the Teatro Massimo, then in Parma again, as Stiffelio and Canio in 1969 and as Aeneas in
1970; Aeneas in 1970, he was also in Modena.
After his career, he ran a record store in Parma.
Reference 1: Kutsch & Riemens, reference
2 and picture source
