Mario
Lanza
Alfred Arnold Cocozza who is known by his stage name
Mario Lanza. Was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the
late 1940s and the 1950s he was in January 31, 1921, at Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, Mario began studying to be a professional singer at the
age of 15. Orchestral conductor Arturo Toscanini would reputedly later
call him "the greatest voice of the twentieth century." Others referred
to him extravagantly as the "new Caruso", after his "instant success"
in Hollywood films, while MGM hoped that he
would become the movie studio's "singing Clark Gable" due to his good
looks and powerful voice.
His debut in the opera world was as Fenton in Otto Nicolai's The
Merry Wives of Windsor (in English), came at the Berkshire
Music Festival in Tanglewood on August 7, 1942, after a period of study
with conductors Boris Goldovsky and Leonard Bernstein. It was here
that Cocozza adopted the stage name Mario Lanza, for its similarity to
his mother’s maiden name, Maria Lanza. His performances at Tanglewood
won him critical acclaim, with Noel Straus of The New York Times
hailing the 21-year-old tenor as having "few equals among tenors of
the day in terms of quality, warmth, and power."
After becoming the big star as an opera singer it was inevitable that
he would go to discover more and more success regarding his talent and
that was when he become a Hollywood star. It all started at a Hollywood
Bowl in August 1947 when Lanza had the attention of
Louis B. Mayer, who promptly signed Lanza to a seven-year film
contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This proved to be a turning point in
the young singer's career. The contract required him to commit to the
studio for six months, and at first Lanza believed he would be able to
combine his film career with his operatic and concert one. In May 1949,
he made his first commercial recordings with RCA Victor. His rendition
of the aria "Che gelida manina" (from La bohème) from that
session was subsequently awarded the prize of Operatic Recording of the
Year by the (United States) National Record Critics Association.
