Nino Martini
I would like to thank Thomas Silverbörg for the recordings.
Many thanks to Anton Bieber for the recording and label scan.
I would like to thank Vladimir Efimenko for the recording and picture.
Nino Martini was a student of Giovanni Zenatello and his wife Maria Gay. He made his
debut as Duca in a concert performance in Milano in 1925. Then he went on a concert tour all over Europe. While in Paris, he met US
film producer Jesse L. Lasky.
Martini returned to Italy and made his stage debut in Treviglio in 1927, again as Duca. In 1929, Lasky offered him a contract for
Italian-language short films – spoken films, no music involved here. Martini accepted, and moved to America, where his many
short films made him quite popular. In 1930, he had one apparition in a long film, but then decided to sidetrack his film career and
return to opera instead.
He sang in Philadelphia and on the radio, and in 1933 was hired to the Met by Giulio Gatti-Casazza. Martini stayed at the Met until
1946, singing a total of 110 performances: Duca, Edgardo, Rinuccio, Rodolfo, Alfredo, Carlo (Linda di Chamounix), Ruggero (La
rondine), Almaviva, Ernesto. Guest appearances during his Met tenure: Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, Montréal,
Puerto Rico.
He did return to the film, too, and made three more of them in the US in 1935, 1936 and 1937, plus one in the UK in 1947. His 1946
farewell from the Met was also his stage farewell, but he sang for another few years on the radio. He moved back to Verona in 1952.
Reference 1: Kutsch & Riemens; reference 2
Rigoletto – Treviglio, Sociale, 8 October 1927 I puritani – Milano, Lirico Sperimentale, 30 March 1928 Les pêcheurs de perles – Philadelphia, Opera, 4 February 1932 Lucia di Lammermoor – New York, Met, 4 January 1934 La traviata – Philadelphia, La Scala Opera, 16 January 1934 Gianni Schicchi – New York, Met, 19 January 1934 La bohème – New York, Met, 26 January 1934 Linda di Chamounix – New York, Met, 25 March 1935 La rondine – New York, Met, 17 January 1936 Il barbiere di Siviglia – New York, Met, 17 January 1939 Madama Butterfly – San Juan (Puerto Rico), University Auditorium, 27 September 1940 Don Pasquale – New York, Met, 21 December 1940 Faust – Philadelphia, La Scala Opera, 24 January 1945 Reference: The Record Collector, March 2001, volume 46, no. 1 |
