32 Facts About Ezio Pinza

Ezio Fortunato Pinza was an Italian opera singer.

Ezio Pinza spent 22 seasons at New York's Metropolitan Opera, appearing in more than 750 performances of 50 operas.

At the San Francisco Opera, Ezio Pinza sang 26 roles during 20 seasons from 1927 to 1948.

Ezio Pinza sang to great acclaim at La Scala, Milan, and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London.

Ezio Pinza was less successful in his appearances in Hollywood films.

Ezio Fortunato Pinza was born in modest circumstances in Rome in 1892.

Ezio Pinza grew up on Italy's east coast, in the ancient city of Ravenna.

Ezio Pinza studied singing at Bologna's Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini, making his operatic debut at age 22 in 1914, as Oroveso in Norma at Cremona.

Ezio Pinza was then invited to sing at Italy's foremost opera house, La Scala, Milan, making his debut there in February 1922.

At La Scala, under the direction of the brilliant and exacting principal conductor Arturo Toscanini, Ezio Pinza's career blossomed during the course of the next few seasons.

Ezio Pinza became a popular favourite of critics and audiences due to the high quality of his singing and the attractiveness of his stage presence.

Ezio Pinza would listen to his part played on the piano and then sing it accurately.

Ezio Pinza succeeded the great Italian basses Francesco Navarini and Vittorio Arimondi, both of whom enjoyed international opera careers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Nazzareno De Angelis, who arrived on the scene in the early 1900s.

Tancredi Pasero, whose vibrant voice sounded remarkably similar to Ezio Pinza's, was his chief contemporary rival among Italian-born basses.

Ezio Pinza subsequently added the Mozart roles Figaro and Sarastro to his repertoire, a vast number of Italian operatic roles of Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi, and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.

Ezio Pinza sang under the baton of Toscanini in 1935, this time with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, as the bass soloist in performances of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis.

Ezio Pinza sang in Toscanini's February 6,1938, NBC Symphony Orchestra's broadcast performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Ezio Pinza had sung opposite many celebrated singers at the Met during his heyday, including, among others, such international stars as Rosa Ponselle, Amelita Galli-Curci, Elisabeth Rethberg, Maria Jeritza, Giovanni Martinelli, Beniamino Gigli, Lawrence Tibbett, and Giuseppe De Luca.

The Metropolitan Opera honored Ezio Pinza by dedicating all the water fountains at the new Metropolitan Opera House to him.

Ezio Pinza spent nearly three months in custody at Ellis Island.

Norman Cordon, a fellow basso at the Metropolitan Opera who was considered one of Ezio Pinza's rivals, boasted privately that he had informed the FBI that Ezio Pinza was a fascist sympathizer.

Ezio Pinza became a member of Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, and lived in a house adjacent to the fifth golf hole of the South Course.

Ezio Pinza's health began to decline during the mid-1950s; a series of heart attacks precipitated a stroke on May 1,1957.

Ezio Pinza's funeral was held at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York City.

Ezio Pinza is interred at Putnam Cemetery, in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Ezio Pinza appeared in several films, beginning with 1947's Carnegie Hall, which featured a number of famous classical singers, musicians, conductors, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ezio Pinza received a film contract from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and appeared in Mr Imperium with Lana Turner and Strictly Dishonorable with Janet Leigh, both released in 1951; MGM cancelled his contract after both films turned out to be major box office failures.

Ezio Pinza continued to make appearances on American television until 1955.

Ezio Pinza was still making operatic recordings in the 1950s, although his voice was now in obvious decline.

Ezio Pinza occasionally recorded popular songs, and was featured on Columbia's best-selling original cast recording of South Pacific with Mary Martin.

Ezio Pinza returned to RCA Victor in the early 1950s and recorded several operatic arias and popular songs.

Ezio Pinza can be heard on the RCA Victor original cast album of Fanny, recorded in 1954.