Renato Sassola
He studied at the Instituto Superior de Arte of the Teatro Colón, from which he graduated. His teachers were: Hina Spani, Juan Emilio Martini, Ernesto de la Guardia, Felipe Romito, and Otto Erhart. At 24, he made his professional debut at the Teatro Colón in La bohegrave;me as Rodolfo. In fact, this was his debut in a main role; he had already sung some small parts at the Colón since 1948. From his debut up to 1978, he sang at that theater every season, performing all the main roles for lyrical tenor. He sang under conductors of the stature of Hector Panizza, Tullio Serafin, Ferruccio Calusio, Erich Kleiber, Karl Böhm, Fernando Previtali, Francesco Molinari Pradelli, Juan José Castro, Juan Emilio Martini, Enrique Sivieri, Carlos Felix Cillario, Michelangelo Veltri, Jean Fournet, Federico Moreno Torroba among others. He sang beside artists of the importance of Moffo, Stella, Rigal, Nilsson, Ligabue, Sciutti, Arizmendi, Ganzarolli, Taddei, Evans, Cesari, Mattiello, Rossi Lemeni, Goltz, Reining, Corena, Waechter, Bacquier among many others. His repertoire was made of more than 70 roles including operas, operettas, opere di camera, zarzuelas, oratorio, etc. In opera, he sang: La bohème, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Gianni Schicchi, La rondine, Falstaff, La traviata, Rigoletto, Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale, Rita, L'elisir d'amore, L'amico Fritz, Werther, Manon, Faust, Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina, Evgenij Onegin, Zauberflöte, Skazka o Tsare Saltane, Rosenkavalier, Salome, Volo di notte, Helena Egiziaca, Aaron und Moses, Bodas de sangre (by Castro), La novia del hereje (by de Rogatis), Catulli carmina (by Orff), Barbiere di Siviglia (both by Rossini and by Paisiello) La finta giardiniera (this production was recorded on LP with the Teatro Colón troupe) and La Cecchina by Piccinni, Švanda dudák by Weinberger, l quattro rusteghi by Wolf-Ferrari, among others. Operettas: Die lustige Witwe, Der Graf von Luxemburg, Der Zigeunerbaron, Die Fledermaus, La vie parisienne. Zarzuelas: Luisa Fernanda, La chulapona (by Moreno Torroba) and Doña Francisquita. Concert music: Requiem by Verdi, Missa Solemnis and 9th Symphony by Beethoven, Te Deum by Berlioz, Mass 124 and Requiem by Mozart, Petite messe solennelle by Rossini, Die Schöpfung by Haydn, Stabat mater by Dvořák, Pulcinella and Canticum sacrum by Stravinsky, and Mass in B minor by Bach. In 1957, he was honoured as the best Argentinean singer of that season by the critics. He sang in the USA, Austria, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico etc. After retiring, Sassola was a great teacher of singing, and among his pupils there were some future opera stars such as Marcelo Álvarez and Erwin Schrott. I wish to thank Roberto Falcone for all the information, the picture and the recording.
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