Martinelli, Giovanni (1885 - 1969)

Italian tenor, naturalized American

Martinelli in La Fanciulla del West in 1912 (Motisi collection)

Martinelli made his debut at Milan's Teatro Dal Verme in 1910 in Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani. Such was his success that Giacomo Puccini and Arturo Toscanini invited her the following year to Rome's Teatro Costanzi to play Johnson di Sacramento in the Italian performances of La Fanciulla del West.

In 1912, he made his debuts at Covent Garden and La Scala in Milan, again in Puccini's masterpiece. A year later, with La Bohème, he began a long collaboration with New York's Metropolitan Opera that lasted over three decades, with 926 performances, until 1946.

Martinelli then moved to the United States (becoming an American citizen). He retired from the stage in 1950, appearing only at galas, and for one last performance in 1967, singing the role of Emperor Altoum in Turandot, in Seattle.

During his long career Martinelli has excelled in a very wide repertoire of more than 50 roles, from Donizetti to Gounod and from Puccini to Wagner, via Verdi, Delibes, Bizet or Halévy.

Discover the artist's world through various documents: each image opens the door to one of his interpretations, his portraits in civilian clothes, his autographs or press articles about him from the period