1. Rolando Panerai was an Italian baritone, particularly associated with the Italian repertoire.
16 Facts About Rolando Panerai
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Rolando Panerai performed at La Scala in Milan, often alongside Maria Callas and Giuseppe Di Stefano.
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Rolando Panerai was known for musical understanding, excellent diction and versatile acting in both drama and comic opera.
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Rolando Panerai appeared on stage first in 1946, as Lord Ashton in Donizettis's Lucia di Lammermoor.
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Rolando Panerai appeared in 1947 in Naples at the Teatro di San Carlo as the pharaon in Rossini's Mose in Egitto.
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Rolando Panerai later sang most of the great Verdi baritone roles, including Rigoletto, Count De Luna in Il trovatore, Giorgio Germont in La traviata, Marquis of Posa in Don Carlos, and Amonasro in Aida.
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Rolando Panerai had more than 150 operas in his repertoire, but became best-known for comic roles: Ford in Verdi's Falstaff, Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Leporello in Don Giovanni, and both Guglielmo and Alfonso in Cosi fan tutte, Figaro in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, both Belcore and Dulcamara in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, and Malatesta and the title role in Don Pasquale.
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Rolando Panerai was an exponent of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi for many years, singing the role in Genoa as late as 2011, at the age of 87.
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Rolando Panerai performed more recent operas, such as the title role of Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, operas by Sergei Prokofiev and Gian Carlo Menotti, and several world premieres.
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Rolando Panerai appeared internationally, including at the Paris Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the Oper Frankfurt, and at the Salzburg Festival and Glyndebourne Festival.
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Rolando Panerai was a regular guest at the Vienna State Opera, where he first appeared in 1956 as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor in a performance from La Scala with Maria Callas in the title role.
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Rolando Panerai often partnered in recordings as on stage with Maria Callas and Giuseppe Di Stefano, as in Il trovatore, Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana with him as Alfio, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Bellini's I puritani and Puccini's La boheme.
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Rolando Panerai recorded a notable Sharpless alongside Renata Scotto and Carlo Bergonzi, and Germont alongside Beverly Sills and Nicolai Gedda.
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Rolando Panerai sang Wagner in Italian translation, as Amfortas in a 1950 recorded performance of Parsifal with Callas as Kundry and Boris Christoff as Gurnemanz.
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Rolando Panerai appeared on video recordings as Ford, Rossini's Figaro, Rigoletto and Silvio, and in concert in a Bolshoi Opera Night.
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Rolando Panerai died on 22 October 2019, five days after his 95th birthday.