Nicola Filacuridi
Encyclopedia
Nicola Filacuridi (Alexandria
1920 – Sydney
Feb. 12th 2009) was an Egypt
ian-born operatic tenor
of Greek
origin, who had an illustrious career in Italy in the 1950s.
Filacuridi was born in Alexandria
, Egypt
into a family of Greek origin. He first studied in his native city with Ettore Cordone and made his debut at the Cairo Opera in 1945, as Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana
. Shortly after this, he left for Italy to continue his studies with Federico Del Cupolo
.
He made his Italian stage debut in Savona
, as Alfredo
, in 1949. The following year, he appeared at the Rome Opera as Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur
. He then sang at all the major opera houses of Italy, Trieste, Venice, Parma, Turin, Florence, Naples, etc. He made his La Scala
debut in 1953, in a contemporary work Leonore 40/45 by Rolf Liebermann
, and took part in the premiere of the Dialogues of the Carmelites
in 1957. He also sang in Paul Hindemith
's Mathis der Maler in 1958. Throughout the 1950s he was very active singing on Italian radio and television (RAI
) appearing notably in productions of Lucia di Lammermoor
, opposite Anna Moffo
, La traviata
, opposite Rosanna Carteri
and Carlo Tagliabue
, Adriana Lecouvreur
, opposite Marcella Pobbé
and Fedora Barbieri
, and Un ballo in maschera
, again with Pobbé.
In 1954 he starred in the role of Pinkerton in the film adaptation of Madama Butterfly directed by Carmine Gallone
and shot on location in Japan
.
He also began making guest appearances outside Italy, notably at the Monte Carlo Opera, at La Monnaie
in Brussels, the Vienna State Opera
, the Royal Opera House
in London, and the festivals of Aix-en-Provence
and Glyndebourne. He also appeared in Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, the Dallas Opera
and the Sydney Opera House
.
In 1964 Filacuridi decided to retire from the stage and move with his family in Australia. His last appearances on that year were at a production of Carmen
of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera Company
and later in New Zealand
where he interpreted again the character of Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly
.
After quitting the stage, Filacuridi embarked in a new and very succesful career as a real estate agent in Australia.
Filacuridi sang a wide range of roles in operas such as; Rigoletto
, Un ballo in maschera
, La bohème
, Tosca
, Les contes d'Hoffmann
, Louise
, Werther
, Idomeneo
, and Lohengrin
. He also created roles in contemporary works such as Il Capelli di Paglia di Firenze by Nino Rota
and La Guerra by Renzo Rossellini. He sang some 65 roles throughout his career.
He also appeared in the screen adaptation of Puccini
's "Madame Butterfly
", directed by Carmine Gallone
in 1955, in the role of Pinkerton.
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
1920 – Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
Feb. 12th 2009) was an Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian-born operatic tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
of Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
origin, who had an illustrious career in Italy in the 1950s.
Filacuridi was born in Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
into a family of Greek origin. He first studied in his native city with Ettore Cordone and made his debut at the Cairo Opera in 1945, as Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
. Shortly after this, he left for Italy to continue his studies with Federico Del Cupolo
Federico Del Cupolo
Federico Del Cupolo was an Italian orchestra conductor whose activity mainly focussed on Italian opera. His career developed in Italy and abroad spanning 60 years and including some recordings from the early 50s which have been recently resumed for their historical and artistic significance.-...
.
He made his Italian stage debut in Savona
Savona
Savona is a seaport and comune in the northern Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea....
, as Alfredo
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
, in 1949. The following year, he appeared at the Rome Opera as Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the play by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé...
. He then sang at all the major opera houses of Italy, Trieste, Venice, Parma, Turin, Florence, Naples, etc. He made his La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
debut in 1953, in a contemporary work Leonore 40/45 by Rolf Liebermann
Rolf Liebermann
Rolf Liebermann , was a Swiss composer and music administrator born in Zurich, and associated with several different musical genres. His output included chansons, classical, and light music. His classical music often combines myriad styles and techniques, including those drawn from baroque,...
, and took part in the premiere of the Dialogues of the Carmelites
Dialogues of the Carmelites
Dialogues of the Carmelites , is an opera in three acts by Francis Poulenc. In 1953, M. Valcarenghi approached Poulenc to commission a ballet for La Scala in Milan; when Poulenc found the proposed subject uninspiring, Valcarenghi suggested instead a screenplay by Georges Bernanos, based on the...
in 1957. He also sang in Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
's Mathis der Maler in 1958. Throughout the 1950s he was very active singing on Italian radio and television (RAI
RAI
RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...
) appearing notably in productions of Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
, opposite Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...
, La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
, opposite Rosanna Carteri
Rosanna Carteri
Rosanna Carteri was an Italian soprano primarily active in the 1950s through the mid-1960s.Rosanna Carteri was born in Verona but was raised in Padua. She studied with Cusinati and started singing in concert at the age of twelve...
and Carlo Tagliabue
Carlo Tagliabue
Carlo Tagliabue was an Italian baritone.After studies with Leopoldo Gennai and Annibale Guidotti he made his debut in Lodi, Lombardy, in Loreley and Aida. His debuts in Genoa , Torino, La Scala , Rome , and Naples were all in Tristan und Isolde...
, Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the play by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé...
, opposite Marcella Pobbé
Marcella Pobbé
Marcella Pobbé , was an Italian operatic soprano who sang a wide range of roles in both the lyric and spinto repertory....
and Fedora Barbieri
Fedora Barbieri
Fedora Barbieri was an Italian mezzo-soprano.Barbieri was born in Trieste. She made her official debut in Florence in 1940, but retired in 1943 because of her marriage. She re-emerged in 1945. She was one of the first performers to investigate and perform in early operas by Monteverdi and Pergolesi...
, and Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
, again with Pobbé.
In 1954 he starred in the role of Pinkerton in the film adaptation of Madama Butterfly directed by Carmine Gallone
Carmine Gallone
Carmine Gallone was an early acclaimed Italian film director, screenwriter, and film producer. Considered one of Italian cinema's top early directors, he directed over 120 films in his fifty year career between 1913 and 1963.-Filmography:*Il bacio di Cirano *La donna nuda *Senza colpa! *Fior di...
and shot on location in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
He also began making guest appearances outside Italy, notably at the Monte Carlo Opera, at La Monnaie
La Monnaie
Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie , or the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg is a theatre in Brussels, Belgium....
in Brussels, the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
, the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in London, and the festivals of Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence Festival
The festival international d'art lyrique is an annual international music festival which takes place each summer in Aix-en-Provence, principally in the month of July. Devoted mainly to opera, it also includes concerts of orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo instrumental music.-Establishment:The...
and Glyndebourne. He also appeared in Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, the Dallas Opera
Dallas Opera
The Dallas Opera is an opera company located in Dallas, Texas . The company was founded in 1957 as the Dallas Civic Opera by Laurence Kelly and Nicolà Rescigno, both of whom had been active with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the first as administrator, the second as artistic director.-The company's...
and the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
.
In 1964 Filacuridi decided to retire from the stage and move with his family in Australia. His last appearances on that year were at a production of Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera Company
Opera Australia
Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the The Arts Centre in Melbourne...
and later in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
where he interpreted again the character of Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
.
After quitting the stage, Filacuridi embarked in a new and very succesful career as a real estate agent in Australia.
Filacuridi sang a wide range of roles in operas such as; Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
, Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
, La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, Les contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann is an opéra by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on short stories by E. T. A...
, Louise
Louise (opera)
Louise is an opera in four acts by Gustave Charpentier to an original French libretto by the composer, with some contributions by Saint-Pol-Roux, a symbolist poet and inspiration of the surrealists....
, Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
, Idomeneo
Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...
, and Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
. He also created roles in contemporary works such as Il Capelli di Paglia di Firenze by Nino Rota
Nino Rota
Nino Rota was an Italian composer and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti...
and La Guerra by Renzo Rossellini. He sang some 65 roles throughout his career.
He also appeared in the screen adaptation of Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's "Madame Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
", directed by Carmine Gallone
Carmine Gallone
Carmine Gallone was an early acclaimed Italian film director, screenwriter, and film producer. Considered one of Italian cinema's top early directors, he directed over 120 films in his fifty year career between 1913 and 1963.-Filmography:*Il bacio di Cirano *La donna nuda *Senza colpa! *Fior di...
in 1955, in the role of Pinkerton.