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With nothing like Tito Gobbi's incisive voice and cunning histrionic ability, Giuseppe Taddei's sumptuous sound and witty personality, or Ettore Bastianini's bronzed vocal instrument, Aldo Protti nonetheless managed a significant career in the Italy of the 1950s and 1960s. Essentially a house baritone for London/Decca Records before the company acquired Bastianini, Protti performed leading roles in Aida, Rigoletto, La Traviata, I Pagliacci, Cavalleria Rusticana, and Otello. While lacking a glamorous presence and sound, Protti was reliable, often more than that.

At the end of WWII, Protti entered the Conservatorio Musicale di Parma and, in 1948, won first prize in Bologna's Concorso Nazionale di Canto. His debut took place on October 9, 1948, at the Teatro Pergolesi di Jesi as Rossini's Figaro. Less than two years later, Protti was at La Scala singing Amonasro in Aida. From that point forward, Protti sang in many of Italy's leading theaters as well as making guest appearances in Vienna. Beginning in 1955, Protti participated in broadcasts on Televisione Italiana, also becoming a frequent guest in productions broadcast on Italian radio. For the latter, he reached beyond Verdi to include such rarities as La Morte di Danton (Danton's Tod) and Genoveva. He also appeared in a broadcast of Lorenzo Perosi's La passione di Cristo. In 1957, Protti appeared with the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Barnaba and Marcello, but, with Gobbi, MacNeil, and Bastianini already on the roster, the company had no further need of his services.

When Herbert von Karajan recorded Otello in 1961, Bastianini was the Iago of choice. When it became clear that Bastianini had failed to learn the part, however, Karajan insisted on Protti (by then, Vienna's resident Iago) for the role. While Decca officials had serious reservations, Protti rose to create a performance leagues ahead of his 1954 recording for the company.

Much decorated, Protti was the recipient of such honors as the Viotti d'Oro in 1961, the Gazzotti d'Oro in 1963, and, in 1969, a nomination as a Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana. Among his roles, Rigoletto was the one he performed most often, a remarkable 425 times in all; Scarpia, di Luna, Don Carlo, and Iago each figured more than 100 times on Protti's performance roster.

Richard Tucker is today primarily associated with the history of opera in America -- a highly gifted tenor, he is compared to Franco Corelli in influence and appeal, and classed with people like Alfredo Kraus and Nicolai Gedda. But Tucker, as a Jewish American who came to music from a religious background, had an output different from all of those others, and, ironically, was just as well known in the United States -- and perhaps even more beloved -- for that other side of his work. When he sang the part of Radames in Verdi's Aida as conducted by Toscanini on the NBC television network, it was because he was arguably the supreme Verdi tenor of his generation, and this broadcast was a piece of operatic, musical, and television history in the making; but Jewish audiences took a special pride in his selection for the role in the concert performance (for which he would have been utterly unsuited physically, in an actual production of the opera) because of whence he came.

He was born in New York, and at age six joined the choir of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan as a boy alto. Over the next eight years, he sang at weddings and other events and became steeped in Jewish liturgy and the musical traditions of the synagogue -- only the inevitable change to his voice interrupted his vocalizing, and from ages 14 through 18 he abandoned singing. By the time he reached 18, however, his adult voice had settled into a rich tenor, and it was in that capacity that he returned to his old synagogue. He also studied cantorial music with Cantor Weisser, Zavel Zilberts, and Cantor J. Mirsky, all eminent teachers, and at age 22 he was a cantor at a synagogue in New York. He subsequently sang at Temple Emanuel in Passaic, NJ, Temple Adath Israel in the Bronx, and the Brooklyn Jewish Center in Brooklyn, NY. But he overlapped his cantorial work with the study of operatic singing and repertory, principally with Paul Althouse, himself a former tenor with the Metropolitan Opera. It was Althouse who, in 1944, when Tucker was 29 years old, arranged for Edward Johnson, the general director of the Met, to hear Tucker sing at a service at the Brooklyn synagogue, and what he heard impressed him sufficiently to offer Tucker a contract. He relinquished his position with the synagogue in order to accept, although he vowed never to give up that side of his art, regardless of his professional engagements -- and ironically enough, with the Metropolitan Opera as his platform, he became the guest cantor to the world, officiating on the High Holy Days at services across the United States, and recording a then-unique body of cantorial repertory for Columbia Records; many of the early recordings were done in collaboration with conductor Sholom Secunda. His later recordings also included lighter fare, including stage work by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (obviously with Fiddler on the Roof looming large in the selection). His more than 600 performances at the Met were, to at least some of his admirers, only icing on the cake next to his religious and other Jewish repertory, which also came to encompass such little-known works as Abraham Goldfaden's operetta-like work for the Yiddish theater. Meanwhile, Tucker sang around the world, his debut in Italy coming in the same production in which Maria Callas made her debut; he sang at Covent Garden in 1957, and in Vienna in 1958, and at La Scala in Milan in 1969. Tucker remained uniquely popular in America, however, and even more so in New York. Alas, because operatic recording was limited in the United States during his prime years, there are relatively few examples of his work in this area in complete operas during his first 15 years, before he reached his fifties -- the Aida with Toscanini and some other live performances with the Maestro, and an English-language version of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte from the start of the 1950s capture his youthful sound, and otherwise there are some later operatic recordings, and some Mahler with Leonard Bernstein on Columbia, all from the 1960s; mostly, however, he was represented by recitals, and his cantorial and other Jewish-themed recordings, relatively few of which have surfaced on CD. He passed away in 1975 at age 61. His funeral service was held on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, and in his memory the Richard Tucker Foundation awards a prize each year to a promising potential opera star. ~ Bruce Eder

Though he was a composer of some distinction, Fernando Previtali is best remembered as a brilliant conductor of the classic Italian operas, especially those of Verdi, and for his advocacy of contemporary orchestral music, particularly of works by Busoni, Ghedini, and Dallapiccola. But Previtali's tastes extended into the realm of mainstream instrumental music as well, taking in a vast range of works by Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and many others. His own musical compositions are virtually forgotten today, though some had attracted attention in their day, including the 1945 ballet Allucinazioni. Though Previtali has been dead for more than two decades, many of his recordings are still widely available on a range of labels, including RCA, Gala, Opera d'Oro, Fonit, and Urania.

Previtali was born in Adria, Italy, on February 16, 1907. At the Turin Conservatory he studied organ, cello (under Pietro Grossi) and composition (under Franco Alfano). He launched his career as a cellist, playing in the Turin-based Teatro Regio Orchestra.

In 1928 he relocated to Florence where he worked with conductor Vittorio Gui and became instrumental in the founding of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra. He was appointed deputy conductor of that ensemble and served in that capacity until 1936, the year he became resident conductor of the Rome Radio Symphony Orchestra. But for a year-long hiatus in 1944, he held the post at the RRSO until 1953. During his Rome years, Previtali premiered several important operas, including the 1939 Re Hassan by Ghedini and Dallapiccola's one-act masterpiece Volo di notte, from 1940.

Previtali accepted the appointment as conductor at the Academy of Santa Cecilia in 1953 and held the post seven years. During his tenure there, he made many successful European and American tours with the ensemble. From 1960-1967 he was principal conductor of the Buenos Aires Teatro Colon Orchestra.

Previtali served as principal conductor at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples starting in 1972. Throughout much of his career he held master classes in conducting, particularly at the Academy of Santa Cecilia and at La Scala. Most of his available recordings were made in the latter half of his career and include Verdi's Luisa Miller (with Carreras and Ricciarelli) on Opera d'Oro, Verdi's Il Trovatore (from 1957, with del Monaco and Gencer) on a Hardy Classics DVD, and the Mozart Piano Concertos No. 17 and No. 23, with Robert Casadesus on Archipel.