João Gibin

Gibin studied voice in Brazil, and began his career there as a baritone. After winning two singing competitions in 1954, he received a grant for further studies in Italy. At the voice school of La Scala, he was turned into a tenor. After first successes in Italy, his breakthrough came in 1958: he sang in the Netherlands and at the Vienna Staatsoper (where he would return several times until 1965); in 1959, he arrived at Covent Garden (Lucia di Lammermoor with Joan Sutherland) and at La Scala (Calaf, Grigorij, and Herzog von Parma in Ferruccio Busoni's Doktor Faust).

Into the mid-1970s, he made a very good international career: Paris Opéra (Radames, 1968), New York City Opera (Cavaradossi, 1965), Nice, Rouen, Bordeaux, Strasbourg (Alvaro, 1972), Rio de Janeiro (Dick Johnson and Pery in Il Guarany, 1964), Lisbon, Madrid, Dublin, Johannesburg, one single Radames at the New York Met (1972) – but above all, he sang in Italy (hence you'll often read "Giovanni" Gibin): Teatro San Carlo in Naples, both Teatro Comunale and Maggio Musicale in Florence, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Teatro Regio in Torino (Lady Macbeth Mtsenkogo uezda, 1971), Teatro Verdi in Trieste, Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Rovigo, Mantova, Como, Piacenza, Bergamo...

Beyond his heroic vocality, he was praised as an excellent actor.

Reference: Kutsch & Riemens

I wish to thank Daniele Godor for the recording.