parterre box

34 comments

• La Cieca says:

  Please don’t hold La Cieca to this, but she is almost sure that the “Tosca” selection is from the live Mexico City performance with Callas from May 1952. (This run of performances was di Stefano’s first Cavaradossi, and even back then there were not that many theaters where encores were permitted — even when so richly deserved as here!)

  on March 3, 2008 at 7:38 PM
• Melot's Younger Brother says:

  The Reuters wire story went as follows, and refers to his “many recordings with Pavarotti.” WTF?

  “Italian tenor Di Stefano dies aged 86

  03/03/2008 1:08 PM, Reuters

  Italian tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano, to whom Luciano Pavarotti owed his launch to stardom, died in Milan on Monday. He was 86.

  Di Stefano died after a long coma caused by an attack during a robbery at his Kenyan holiday home in late 2004.

  Fellow Italian tenor Pavarotti, who died last year, had his big break when Di Stefano dropped out of a performance of “La Boheme” at London’s Covent Garden in 1963. Pavarotti performed as the stand-in and a star was born.

  Local media said Di Stefano had never fully recovered from the savage beating he received from unknown assailants at his villa near the eastern Kenyan resort of Mombasa.

  Treated for serious head injuries, he was moved to a hospital in Milan where he slipped into a coma last December.

  Born in Sicily, Di Stefano made his operatic debut in 1946 and his debut at La Scala in Milan the following year. He made many recordings with Maria Callas and Pavarotti.”

  on March 3, 2008 at 8:28 PM
• amneris says:

  r.i.p. maestro, you are much loved…

  on March 3, 2008 at 8:58 PM
• Barak says:

  Dear La Cieca!

  Is there a way to download your “Giuseppe di Stefano” Tribute?

  I thought the selections were absolutely wonderful!

  BARAK

  on March 4, 2008 at 2:45 AM
• Annetta says:

  Giuseppe was a great artist. He will always be loved and remembered. May he rest in peace. I have created a tribute for this great Tenor. Please feel free to share your tributes and memories for him at

  http://www.respectance.com/GiuseppeDiStefano/

  on March 4, 2008 at 3:59 PM
• Patrick Byrne says:

  I saw Giuseppe at the end of the career, in the mid 70′s. He forced the top, crooned, and fudged a lot of the notes, but he absolutely made you believe the text of whatever he was singing. His voice was infused with passion and ardor, and he could melt your socks with a look.

  on March 4, 2008 at 7:03 PM
• Ian Brooks says:

  I was blessed to hear Pippo in 1973 in a London recital and later in 1984 in Stamford, CT.

  Such thrilling events – not least for his wonderful presence and magnificently beautiful singing. Sublime and simuultaneously so masculine.

  He took my breath away over 40 years ago when I played a 45 rpm record of him singing Puccini arias.

  RIP.

  on March 7, 2008 at 7:47 AM
• Pippofan says:

  Di Stefano was the grandest tenor of the 20th. century. No one sang with such passion and feeling. The Tosca with Callas, Gobbi, De Sabata (La Scala 1953) is, in many reviews, the greatest opera recording ever made. He sang as though Puccini wrote the opera specifically for him – easily the greatest “E lucevan…” ever!

  God bless you Pippo, you now sing only for him.

  on March 7, 2008 at 8:20 PM
• Carl says:

  The young Di Stefano was wonderful, but the grandest tenor of the century was Caruso.

  on March 7, 2008 at 9:05 PM
• Abel says:

  Sorry, but it is SO difficult to hear Caruso in any decent accoustics.

  on March 12, 2008 at 5:37 AM