Matteuzzi's first teacher was Paride Venturi, but it was Rodolfo Celletti who
formed young Matteuzzi into the high, "white" tenor that he was to be. His debut took place in 1979 as Massenet's des Grieux at the
Teatro dell'Arte in Milano.
After winning the Enrico Caruso Competition the following year, he was accepted into a young singers program at La Scala, where he
thus sang comprimario parts until 1987. Elsewhere in Italy, he occasionally appeared in bigger roles, particularly so in Trieste. But
it was his 1986 Comte Ory at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro (he had already sung small parts there the two summers before) that got
his career really started: La Fenice, the Salzburg Festival, Monte Carlo, Pesaro and La Scala again, Florence, Liège, Bologna,
Bari, Zürich, Maggio Musicale. From 1987 to 1994, he sang a few times at the Vienna Staatsoper, in 1988 two performances at the
Met. In the 1990s, he came to Marseille, Brussels, Barcelona, Sevilla, Lisbon, the Ravenna, Aix-en-Provence and Innsbruck festivals,
Parma or the Berlin Staatsoper. After his career, he taught voice.
His repertory was almost entirely focused on Rossini: Belfiore, Libenskof and Gelsomino in Il viaggio a Reims, Comte Ory,
Almaviva of course, Rodrigo in Otello, Lindoro, Dorvil (La scala di seta), Cavalier Giocondo (La pietra del
paragone), Conte Alberto (L'occasione fa il ladro), Argirio (Tancredi), Torvaldo (Torvaldo e Dorliska), Don
Ramiro, Giannetto (La gazza ladra), both Carlo and Goffredo in Armida, Condulmiero (Maometto secondo), Pilade
(Ermione), Ricciardo (Ricciardo e Zoraide) and Ilo (Zelmira); he also sang Elvino and Arturo (Puritani),
Beppe (Rita), Tonio (La fille du régiment), Paolino (Il matrimonio segreto), Monteverdi's Orfeo, Ottone
(L'incoronazione di Poppea), Don Ottavio, Ferrando, Fenton, Prunier (La rondine), Flamand (Capriccio) or
Fadinard (Il cappello di paglia di Firenze by Nino Rota).
He was one of the most overrated singers I've ever heard on stage. His voice was tiny to the extent of being almost inexistent, his
much praised top notes were just as thin and underpowered as the rest of it, and he didn't even have the coloratura for the repertory
that he was singing.
Reference 1, reference 2:
www.operaitaliana.com (defunct), reference 3: Kutsch & Riemens
Picture source
