Dano Raffanti

Raffanti graduated in law before studying voice in Milano with Rodolfo Celletti, and making his debut in 1976 at La Scala, in the world premiere of Nottetempo by Sylvano Bussotti. The centers of his career were Italy (Verona/Teatro Filarmonico, Bologna, Modena, Torino, Maggio musicale, Naples/San Carlo, Genova/Carlo Felice, and a few more times La Scala) and the USA (Dallas/US debut 1980, Houston, San Francisco, New York City/Metropolitan Opera, where he gave 74 performances from 1981 to 1987). But he sang also at both the Paris Opéra and the Opéra-Comique, the Vienna Staatsoper, Covent Garden, in Hamburg and Santiago de Chile.

Although he sang lots of performances in standard roles like Alfredo, Duca, Rodolfo and so on, his true specialties were baroque and belcanto opera: Nemorino, Edgardo, Almaviva, both Rodrigo and Giacomo (La donna del lago), Ugo (Parisina), Tebaldo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi), Elvino, Goffredo (Händel's Rinaldo), Medoro (Vivaldi's Orlando furioso), Idomeneo, Tito.

His career petered out early, already in the 1990s. He had always been a very inconstant singer: brilliant one day, totally insecure two days later. His extreme nervousness had both worsened that situation, and been worsened by it. And so his contracts became fewer and less important, and his stage fear worse, and his inclination to perform diminished...

Reference 1: Kutsch & Riemens; reference 2