Santa Biondo
Encyclopedia
Santa Biondo was an American opera
star whose career spanned from 1927 to 1938.
, Sicily. She immigrated to 106 Wallace Street, New Haven, Connecticut with her father Mauro, her mother Giuseppa, her sister Angela, and her brother Mauro Jr. on October 2, 1907 They were received by Santa's older brother, Domenico Biondo, who was already living at Wallace Street at that time.
Three years later, in 1910, the United States Census
shows the family living in New Haven at the same address. The census indicates that Biondo was 18 years old and working in a tailor's shop. By 1920, the family had moved to Saint John Street in New Haven, and Santa Biondo was married to her first husband, Salvatore Mazullo. Mazullo was the proprietor of a tailor shop, perhaps the same one where Santa Biondo worked before.
However, Biondo's destiny was in music. Encouraged by her brother in-law, Biondo was tutored by professional opera teachers in New Haven and New York, including Enrico Rosati, whose other famous students include Beniamino Gigli
and Mario Lanza
. Biondo began her professional career in 1927, when she went on tour with the San Carlo Opera Company
and the American Opera Company
.
, where she is stated to have been preparing for her debut with the Metropolitan Opera
Company ("Met") in New York City after separate auditions with Arturo Toscanini
and the Met staff. A copy of her Met employment contract indicates that her starting pay was $75 a week with a year-by-year renewal provision through 1933.
The author of The Hartford Courant article described Biondo's voice as a "lyric-dramatic soprano, lyric for its 'facility of emission' and dramatic for its power and fullness of expression. It is a rare and much sought after combination." Biondo sang in Italian, French and English.
Biondo sang for the Met from November 23, 1929 to March 26, 1932 in 31 different performances. After her debut as Nedda in Pagliacci
, Biondo sang in a number of other operas for the Met, including Cavalleria Rusticana
, La Bohème
, Iris
, Peter Ibbetson
, and La Notte di Zoraima, in which she performed in the role of Manuela with Rosa Ponselle
.
, opera companies were hit financially, and both Biondo and the Met fell on hard times. In December 1931, Santa Biondo lost $19,000 in the stock market, and she disappeared from New York, leaving three suicide notes behind. Biondo went missing for only three days, from December 11 to December 14, but detectives launched a manhunt, and the search for Biondo was reported in newspapers all across the United States. One article, published in The Coshocton Tribune
, claimed that the New York Police Department dredged the lake in Central Park
, looking for her body. Contrary to her notes, however, she did not in fact attempt suicide but instead went into seclusion outside of the City.
With the aid of friends and family, Santa Biondo snapped out of it and went back to work. When newspapers asked her why she left, she offered conflicting explanations, but it was clear that she was depressed about her financial situation. And although she didn't say it, she may have been aware that her career at the Metropolitan Opera Company was drawing to a close. She performed her last engagement at the Met just three months later, in March 1932.
At that point in time, Santa Biondo was still married to Salvatore Mazullo, but they had been apart for three years. Biondo lived at the Plaza Hotel Annex, in New York City, while Salvatore Mazullo continued to live in New Haven.
at Bryant Park
for the Puccini Grand Opera Company. And the very next month, she sang in the role of Musetta in "La Bohème" at the New Amsterdam Theatre for the San Carlo Opera Company. Biondo continued to sing for the San Carlo Opera Company, Hippodrome National Opera Company, and the Franz Philipp Opera Company from 1932 through 1937. Her retinue included La Traviata
, Faust
, Manon
(title role), Pagliacci
, and Tosca
(title role, 1937).
These were no small concerts. The New York Times states that, in 1934, she sang in the role of Mimi in "La Bohème" for a throng of 5,000 at a Hippodrome National Opera Company event. And in 1934, she sang for 5,200 as Tosca, again for the Hippodrome National Opera Company.
The June 14, 1936 issue of The New York Times
states that she also performed with the Cincinnati Opera
at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden
with other opera singers such as Rosemarie Brancato, Anna Leskaya, Jean Pengelly, Norma Richter, and others.
Biondo continued to perform until February 1938, but there isn't any mention of her career thereafter. She apparently retired from singing at the professional level around that time.
in the broadcast of the Atwater Kent concert on the N.B.C. coast-to-coast system tonight at 7:15 o'clock."
In January 1930, she sang at a duet with Beniamino Gigli in an "Artistic Morning" recital at the Plaza Hotel in New York.
On April 29, 1934, she sang in the role of the Angel in the premier performance of Pietro Yon
's "Triumph of Saint Patrick" at Carnegie Hall
in New York City. Biondo continued to perform in this role at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York
for his Eminence Patrick Cardinal Hayes.
In December 1934, she sang for the Italian Ambassador, Augusto Rosso, in Newark, New Jersey, at the Shubert Theater, with other Italian-American performers.
newspaper and editor of Bolletino della Sera.
Santa Biondo died on February 15, 1989, in Stamford, Connecticut. She is buried in the Biondo family plot in Saint Lawrence Cemetery located adjacent to the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
star whose career spanned from 1927 to 1938.
Early life and career
Santa Biondo was born on December 3, 1892 on Via Serra, San Mauro CastelverdeSan Mauro Castelverde
San Mauro Castelverde is a comune in the province of Palermo in Sicily. As of 2011 San Mauro Castelverde had an estimated population of 1,896....
, Sicily. She immigrated to 106 Wallace Street, New Haven, Connecticut with her father Mauro, her mother Giuseppa, her sister Angela, and her brother Mauro Jr. on October 2, 1907 They were received by Santa's older brother, Domenico Biondo, who was already living at Wallace Street at that time.
Three years later, in 1910, the United States Census
United States Census
The United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution. The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats , electoral votes, and government program funding. The United States Census Bureau The United States Census...
shows the family living in New Haven at the same address. The census indicates that Biondo was 18 years old and working in a tailor's shop. By 1920, the family had moved to Saint John Street in New Haven, and Santa Biondo was married to her first husband, Salvatore Mazullo. Mazullo was the proprietor of a tailor shop, perhaps the same one where Santa Biondo worked before.
However, Biondo's destiny was in music. Encouraged by her brother in-law, Biondo was tutored by professional opera teachers in New Haven and New York, including Enrico Rosati, whose other famous students include Beniamino Gigli
Beniamino Gigli
Beniamino Gigli was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism...
and Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza
right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....
. Biondo began her professional career in 1927, when she went on tour with the San Carlo Opera Company
San Carlo Opera Company
The San Carlo Opera Company was the name of two different opera companies active in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century.-History:...
and the American Opera Company
American Opera Company
The American Opera Company was the name of four different opera companies active in the United States. The first company was a short-lived opera company founded in New York City in February, 1886 that lasted only one season...
.
Metropolitan Opera Company
Santa Biondo appears in a newspaper story printed in the May 12, 1929 edition of the The Hartford CourantThe Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is a morning newspaper for most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury...
, where she is stated to have been preparing for her debut with the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
Company ("Met") in New York City after separate auditions with Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
and the Met staff. A copy of her Met employment contract indicates that her starting pay was $75 a week with a year-by-year renewal provision through 1933.
The author of The Hartford Courant article described Biondo's voice as a "lyric-dramatic soprano, lyric for its 'facility of emission' and dramatic for its power and fullness of expression. It is a rare and much sought after combination." Biondo sang in Italian, French and English.
Biondo sang for the Met from November 23, 1929 to March 26, 1932 in 31 different performances. After her debut as Nedda in Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
, Biondo sang in a number of other operas for the Met, including 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...
, 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...
, Iris
Iris (opera)
Iris is an opera in three acts by Pietro Mascagni to an original Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. Its first performance was at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 22 November 1898.The opera is through-composed and set in Japan during legendary times...
, Peter Ibbetson
Peter Ibbetson (opera)
Note: This article is about the opera. For the 1935 film of the same name, see Peter Ibbetson.Peter Ibbetson is an opera in three acts by American composer Deems Taylor from a libretto by Constance Collier and Deems Taylor based on the 1891 novel by George du Maurier. Taylor's music is attractive,...
, and La Notte di Zoraima, in which she performed in the role of Manuela with Rosa Ponselle
Rosa Ponselle
Rosa Ponselle , was an American operatic soprano with a large, opulent voice. She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered by music critics to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the past 100 years.-Early life:She was born Rosa Ponzillo on January 22, 1897,...
.
Disappearance
During the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, opera companies were hit financially, and both Biondo and the Met fell on hard times. In December 1931, Santa Biondo lost $19,000 in the stock market, and she disappeared from New York, leaving three suicide notes behind. Biondo went missing for only three days, from December 11 to December 14, but detectives launched a manhunt, and the search for Biondo was reported in newspapers all across the United States. One article, published in The Coshocton Tribune
Coshocton Tribune
Coshocton Tribune is a daily newspaper that serves the community of Coshocton, Ohio and the surrounding county of Coshocton.-History:The Coshocton Tribune was founded in 1909 by William J. Bahmer. He was a former teacher. The paper was independently owned until 1960, when it was sold to Thompson...
, claimed that the New York Police Department dredged the lake in Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
, looking for her body. Contrary to her notes, however, she did not in fact attempt suicide but instead went into seclusion outside of the City.
With the aid of friends and family, Santa Biondo snapped out of it and went back to work. When newspapers asked her why she left, she offered conflicting explanations, but it was clear that she was depressed about her financial situation. And although she didn't say it, she may have been aware that her career at the Metropolitan Opera Company was drawing to a close. She performed her last engagement at the Met just three months later, in March 1932.
At that point in time, Santa Biondo was still married to Salvatore Mazullo, but they had been apart for three years. Biondo lived at the Plaza Hotel Annex, in New York City, while Salvatore Mazullo continued to live in New Haven.
Performances with other opera companies
By September 1932, Santa Biondo was back on stage, singing in the title role in AïdaAida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
at Bryant Park
Bryant Park
Bryant Park is a 9.603 acre privately managed public park located in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and between 40th and 42nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan...
for the Puccini Grand Opera Company. And the very next month, she sang in the role of Musetta in "La Bohème" at the New Amsterdam Theatre for the San Carlo Opera Company. Biondo continued to sing for the San Carlo Opera Company, Hippodrome National Opera Company, and the Franz Philipp Opera Company from 1932 through 1937. Her retinue included 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...
, Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
, Manon
Manon
Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
(title role), Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
, and 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...
(title role, 1937).
These were no small concerts. The New York Times states that, in 1934, she sang in the role of Mimi in "La Bohème" for a throng of 5,000 at a Hippodrome National Opera Company event. And in 1934, she sang for 5,200 as Tosca, again for the Hippodrome National Opera Company.
The June 14, 1936 issue of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
states that she also performed with the Cincinnati Opera
Cincinnati Opera
Cincinnati Opera is an American opera company based in Cincinnati, Ohio and the second oldest opera company in the United States .-History:...
at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden
Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden
The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is the second-oldest zoo in the United States and is located in Cincinnati, Ohio. It opened in 1875, just 14 months after the Philadelphia Zoo on July 1, 1874. The Reptile House is the oldest zoo building in the United States, dating from 1875.The Cincinnati...
with other opera singers such as Rosemarie Brancato, Anna Leskaya, Jean Pengelly, Norma Richter, and others.
Biondo continued to perform until February 1938, but there isn't any mention of her career thereafter. She apparently retired from singing at the professional level around that time.
Radio performances, recitals
At the height of her career, Santa Biondo performed at least one radio broadcast. The September 22, 1929 edition of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper announced, "Santa Biondo, soprano with the Metropolitan Opera Company, will be the featured artist with an orchestra under the direction of Josef PasternackJosef Pasternack
Josef Alexander Pasternack was a well-known conductor and composer in the first half of the 20th century.-Biography:...
in the broadcast of the Atwater Kent concert on the N.B.C. coast-to-coast system tonight at 7:15 o'clock."
In January 1930, she sang at a duet with Beniamino Gigli in an "Artistic Morning" recital at the Plaza Hotel in New York.
On April 29, 1934, she sang in the role of the Angel in the premier performance of Pietro Yon
Pietro Yon
Pietro Alessandro Yon was an Italian-born organist who made his career in the United States.Yon was born in Settimo Vittone, , and studied at the conservatories of both Milan and Turin, also attending the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome...
's "Triumph of Saint Patrick" at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
in New York City. Biondo continued to perform in this role at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York
St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York
The Cathedral of St. Patrick is a decorated Neo-Gothic-style Roman Catholic cathedral church in the United States...
for his Eminence Patrick Cardinal Hayes.
In December 1934, she sang for the Italian Ambassador, Augusto Rosso, in Newark, New Jersey, at the Shubert Theater, with other Italian-American performers.
Retirement
After retiring from her career, Santa Biondo married Dr. Philip Giordano, advertising director of Il Progresso Italo-AmericanoIl Progresso Italo-Americano
Il Progresso Italo-Americano was an Italian-language daily newspaper in the United States, published from 1880 to 1988, when it was shut down due to a union dispute. In 1989, most journalists of Il Progresso reunited to create a new daily, America Oggi...
newspaper and editor of Bolletino della Sera.
Santa Biondo died on February 15, 1989, in Stamford, Connecticut. She is buried in the Biondo family plot in Saint Lawrence Cemetery located adjacent to the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.