Vendittelli's bitterly poor parents emigrated to Canada in search of a better life, when he was
a child. He trained his voice primarily at the Montreal conservatory, however with Italian
teachers who advised him to return to Italy for further studies, and so he entered the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in
Milano for role studies with Renato Pastorino.
Vendittelli made his debut in 1976 in Genova as Turiddu. Conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni discovered him in 1978, and hired him
for the season opening of the Rome opera theater as Ugo d'Este in Mascagni's Parisina. Gavazzeni and Vendittelli worked together
again for La donna serpente by Alfredo Casella at the Massimo in Palermo in 1982, and for Il tabarro at La Scala in
1983/84; Gavazzeni thought very highly of Vendittelli, and said that he was way not famous enough for his quality.
However, Vendittelli had a good career in many major Italian opera theaters (other than those already mentioned, Venice, Torino
or Bologna) and abroad: Madrid, Barcelona (Liceu), Marseille, Toulon, Nice, Orange, Avignon, Berlin (Deutsche Oper),
Ciudad de Mexico, Caracas... His repertory also included Aida, Otello, La Gioconda, La forza del destino, Cavalleria rusticana,
Pagliacci, Manon Lescaut, La fanciulla del West, Tosca, Andrea Chénier, Il piccolo Marat, Il trovatore, Attila,
Norma and Samson et Dalila.
He quit the stage in 1995, relatively early, given his late debut. The operatic business had never grown on him, and he had
always refused to be represented by an agent; by 1995, the times when a career could still work that way were definitely over.
Reference 1, reference 2
