Mario Lanza

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Born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza [kottsa]; January 31, 1921 – October 7, 1959) was an American tenor and actor. [Lattsa] Mario Lanza, an Italian, was born in 1921; born in Australia [kottsa]; born on January 31, 1921; October 7, 1959) was an American tenor and actor. He was a Hollywood film star of the late 1940s and 1950s. Lanza began training to be a professional singer at the age of 16. Lanza won a seven-year film deal with Louis B. Mayer, the manager of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who was blown by his singing after appearing at the Hollywood Bowl in 1947. The adult Lanza appeared in only two performances of an opera before that. Nevertheless, he starred in Puccini's Madama Butterfly in New Orleans for the following year (1948).

Kathryn Grayson and Ethel Barrymore made his MGM debut in That Midnight Kiss (1949) with Kathryn Grayson and Ethel Barrymore. In The Toast of New Orleans, a year later, his most well-selling song "Be My Love" became his first million-selling hit. In 1951, Enrico Caruso, his idol, appeared in the film "The Loveliest Night of the Year" (a song that featured Sobre las Olas' melody). The Great Caruso was the 11th top-grossing film of the year.

Because You're Mine, his upcoming film, was his last million-selling hit song. The song received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. He began a protracted war with studio head Dore Schary owing to artistic differences with director Curtis Bernhardt, which was eventually ended by MGM.

Lanza was known to be "rebellious, tough, and optimistic." He suffered with addictions to overeating and alcohol during the bulk of his film career, which had a major influence on his health and his friendships with directors, producers, and, occasionally, other cast members. "Hi smile, which was as wide as his voice, was matched to a tiger cub's habits, which were impossible to housebreak," Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper writes. "He was the last of the great romantic entertainers," she says. He made three other films before succumbing to a suspected pulmonary embolism at the age of 38. He was still "the world's most popular tenor" at the time of his death in 1959. Lanza "blazed like a meteor whose light lasts a brief moment in time," author Eleonora Kimmel says.

Early years

Born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza in Philadelphia, he was introduced to classical singing by his Abruzzese-Molisan Italian parents at an early age. Maria Lanza was born in Tocco da Casauria, a town in Pescara's province of Abruzzo. Antonio Cocozza, his father, was from Filignano, a town in the province of Isernia, near Molise, Argentina.

His vocal talent had developed by age 16, and it was evident. While still in his teens, he developed an interest in Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitzky. In 1942, Koussevitzky gave young Cocozza a full student scholarship to the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts. "Yours is a voice that hasn't been heard once in a hundred years," Koussevitzky told him later.

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Opera career

After a period of study with conductors Boris Goldovsky and Leonard Bernstein, Fenton made his debut in Otto Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor (in English) at the Berkshire Music Festival in Tanglewood on August 7, 1942. This was when Cocozza adopted Mario Lanza for its equival to his mother's maiden name, Maria Lanza.

His appearances at Tanglewood earned him critical acclaim, with Noel Straus of The New York Times lauding the 21-year-old tenor as having "qualities, warmth, and power" among the day's tenors. "I was a true find of the season,'" Herbert Graf wrote in Opera News (October 5, 1942). "I would have no trouble joining the Metropolitan Opera one day." Lanza performed Nicolai's Fenton twice at Tanglewood, in addition to being on hand for the one-off performance of Puccini's La bohème with noted Mexican soprano Irma González, baritone James Pease, and mezzo-soprano Laura Castellano. "Irma González as Mim and Mario Lanza as Rodolfo were conspicuous by their voices and the vividness of their descriptions," music critic Jay C. Rosenfeld wrote in The New York Times on August 9, 1942. Lanza was "very accurate, likeable, with a strong and beautiful voice" in a brief interview shortly before her own death in 2008.

When he was posted to Special Services in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II, his budding operatic career was interrupted during World War II. He appeared on the wartime shows On the Beam and Winged Victory. He appeared in the latter's film version, although not as an identifiable member of the chorus). Under Peter Herman Adler, who later became his mentor, he revived his singing career with a concert in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in September 1945. He appeared on live CBS radio station Great Moments in Music in January, replacing tenor Jan Peerce on a number of operas and other works for six months.

He studied with Enrico Rosati for 15 months and then embarked on an 86-concert tour of the United States, Canada, and Mexico between July 1947 and May 1948, with bass George London and soprano Frances Yeend. Claudia Cassidy praised Lanza's "most natural tenor" in his second appearance in the Chicago Tribune in July 1947 and said that "though a number of fine points deter him, he has the knowledge that is almost impossible to learn." He knows why opera is a drama because the accent that makes a lyric line a success, and he knows why opera is a drama."

Lanza appeared in two performances as Pinkerton in Puccini's Madama Butterfly directed by Walter Herbert in April 1948, directed by Armando Agnini. Laurence Oden wrote about the opening-night performance in the St. Louis News (April 9, 1948). Lieutenant Pinkerton has a strong demeanor and demeanor. We've never seen a more romantic leading tenor. His amazingly clear voice aids immeasurably." Following the success of these shows, he was invited to New Orleans in 1949 as Alfredo in Verdi's La traviata. Lanza was "deeply embedded" in the Hollywood machinery and consequently never learned [that vital mid-Verdi tenor] function," as biographer Armando Cesari wrote.

Lanza was set to return to the operatic stage at the time of his death. Conductor Peter Herman Adler, with whom Lanza had appeared on stage and on the soundtrack of The Great Caruso, was in Rome during the summer of 1959 and later realized that "Lanza] was working two hours a day with an operatic coach and intended to return to opera, his only true love." Adler promised the tenor "all possible assistance" in his "planning for his operatic future." Lanza intended to return to opera in the role of Canio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci during the Rome Opera's 1960-61 season, according to the October 14, 1959 edition of Variety. Riccardo Vitale, the Rome Opera's artistic director, announced this later. Variety also stated that preparations had been ongoing at the time of Lanza's death, making him the subject of a string of complete operas for RCA Italiana.

Film career

Lanza was attracted by Louis B. Mayer, who immediately signed Lanza to a seven-year film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, following a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in August 1947. Lanza was required to work in the studio for six months, and first Lanza's hope was to marry his film career with his operatic and concert one. He made his first commercial recordings with RCA Victor in May 1949. The (United States) National Record Critics Association awarded him the award of Operatic Recording of the Year in his interpretation of the aria "Che gelida manina" (from La bohème) from that session.

Lanza's first two films, That Midnight Kiss and The Toast of New Orleans, were commercial hits, and his 1951 album "Be My Love" from the singer became the first of three million-selling singles for the young singer, earning him a lot of attention in the process. Lanza spent time with Academy Award-winning conductor, composer, and arranger Johnny Green while at MGM.

In a 1977 interview with Lanza biographer Armando Cesari, Green recalled that the tenor was insecure about the manner in which he had gained fame, and that he was acutely aware of the fact that he had arrived on the operatic stage before first establishing himself on the operatic stage.

Lanza's 1951 film The Great Caruso portrayed Enrico Caruso, MGM's biggest success of the year. Lanza's increasing fame attracted intense criticism from some music critics, even those who had lauded his work years before. Enrico Caruso Jr., the subject's son, a tenor in his own right, has lauded his performance. Enrico Jr. wrote Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family, a short story that was not widely distributed in 1990.

Lanza was dismissed by MGM in 1952 after he had recorded the songs for The Student Prince. The reason for the Prince's costume was most often quoted in the tabloid press at the time, due to his recurring weight problem. Lanza was not overweight at the start of the film, but his biographers Cesari and Mannering confirmed that it was not overweight, and that there was, in fact, a difference with director Curtis Bernhardt over Lanza's singing of one of the songs that led to Lanza's walking off the stage. Bernhardt was forced to leave, and MGM refused to film it with English actor Edmund Purdom, who had been dubbed to Lanza's recorded singing voice.

Lanza became a virtual recluse for more than a year after being depressed by his dismissal and losing his self-confidence severely, primarily seeking refuge in alcoholic binges. Lanza came close to bankruptcy as a result of poor investment decisions made by his former boss's reckless spending habits, leaving him owing to over $250,000 in back taxes to the IRS.

Albanese said of Lanza in 1980:

Lanza went to Rome, Italy, in May 1957, where he appeared on the film Seven Hills of Rome and returned to perform live at the Royal Variety Show at the London Palladium in November of that year. Lanza performed concerts in the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Germany from January to April 1958. On this tour, he appeared in total 22 concerts, with mainly favorable feedback for his singing. Lanza continued to receive invitations for operatic appearances, concerts, and films amid a string of cancellations, which resulted from his poor health during this period.

He made a number of operatic recordings at the Rome Opera House in September 1958 for the soundtrack of what would be his last film, For the First Time. It was then that he came to the attention of Riccardo Vitale, the opera house's artistic director, who immediately gave the tenor carte blanche in his choice of operatic roles. Lanza has also been invited to perform in any opera of his choice from the San Carlo in Naples. However, his health continued to decline at the same time, with the tenor suffering from a variety of conditions, including phlebitis and acute high blood pressure. His old habits of overeating and dieting, as well as binge drinking, exacerbated his health.

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