Francesco Marconi

Francesco Marconi (14 May 1853 [or 1855] – 5 February 1916) was an operatic tenor from Rome who enjoyed an important international career. In 1924, a reputable biographical dictionary of musicians called him 'one of the most renowned and esteemed singers of the last 50 years'. Along with his great contemporary Francesco Tamagno (1850–1905), he is the earliest Italian tenor to have left a representative legacy of acoustic recordings.

Born of humble origins in Rome, "Cecco" Marconi worked as a carpenter during his youth. The promising quality of his voice came to the attention of a singing teacher, Augusto Macciò, who began his lessons in vocalizing. Later, he studied with a more prominent pedagogue, Ottavio Bartolini, a baritone of the previous generation and teacher of dramatic tenor Francesco Signorini and bass Paolo Wulman—and who later would discover baritone Giuseppe De Luca at age thirteen and encourage him to study at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia under Venceslao Persichini.

Marconi made his operatic debut in the Spanish capital of Madrid in 1878 at the Teatro Real, singing the title role in Faust by Charles Gounod. His debut was a success, and he was soon appearing regularly at Italy's premier opera house, La Scala, Milan, with lucrative summer seasons spent performing in South America, mainly at Buenos Aires. He also sang with distinction at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, for two seasons: 1883 and 1884.

He was engaged to perform the United States, and in New York City in 1888, he appeared as the protagonist in the first American performances of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello. He failed, however, to achieve a real success on this particular occasion because his lyric voice was not equal to the heavyweight dramatic demands of Otello's score, which had been written by Verdi to suit the more powerful tones of his stentorian rival Tamagno.

Thereafter, Marconi built his operatic career increasingly in Eastern Europe, singing often in Poland and Russia to considerable acclaim during the 1890s. While in Russia, he appeared at the imperial opera houses situated in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and added Anton Rubinstein's Nero and Peter Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin to his repertoire.

Marconi's repertoire did not consist entirely of operas, however. He also participated in performances of such significant sacred works as Rossini's Stabat mater and the Verdi Requiem. Indeed, near the end of his career, he toured widely in the Requiem, performing as part of a regular quartet of singers which contained one other top-class artist, Francesco Navarini (1855-1923), who was considered to be the best Italian bass of the era.

The operatic parts that Marconi undertook in Europe and the two American continents included the principal tenor roles in the following works:

Lucrezia Borgia, Lucia di Lammermoor La favorita (all composed by Gaetano Donizetti), I Puritani (by Vincenzo Bellini), Un ballo in maschera, Rigoletto, La traviata and Aida (all by Verdi), La Gioconda (by Amilcare Ponchielli), Mefistofele (by Arrigo Boito), Ruy Blas (by Filippo Marchetti), L'Africaine and Les Huguenots (by Giacomo Meyerbeer) and Lohengrin (by Richard Wagner).