Dino Dondi

Dino Dondi (10 July 1925 – 3 March 2007) was an Italian operatic baritone.

Life Like many Bolognese, Dondi had a passion for opera and after studying singing as an autodidact, he met a master who recognised his vocal talent.

At the beginning of the 1950s, after singing in theatres in Emilia, including Bologna, Dondi moved to Milan and in 1954 made his debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Verdis' Rigoletto.

Shortly afterwards, he was called by La Scala, where he sang, among other operas, in Iphigénie en Tauride by Christoph Willibald Gluck under the direction of Luchino Visconti, with Maria Callas and the direction of Nino Sanzogno (1957), and in Verdi's Macbeth, conducted by Thomas Schippers (1958).

He married Irène Companeez, contralto.

Dondi died in Basse-Terre, prefecture of the French department of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, at the age of 81.

Recordings

1955: Don Sebastiano (Gaetano Donizetti), Carlo Maria Giulini conducting, role: Abaialdo 1957: Iphigénie en Tauride (Christoph Willibald Gluck), Nino Sanzogno conducting, role: Oreste 1958: Assassinio nella cattedrale (Ildebrando Pizzetti), Gianandrea Gavazzeni conducting, role: Terzo Sacerdote 1959: Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti, RAI TV Milano, Fernando Previtali conducting, role: Lord Enrico Ashton 1960: La Wally (Alfredo Catalani), Arturo Basile conducting, role: Vincenzo Gellner dell'Hochstoff 1960: Nabucco (Giuseppe Verdi), conducting, role: Nabucodonosor 1961: Beatrice di Tenda by Vincenzo Bellini, Antonino Votto conducting, role: Filippo Maria Visconti 1966: I puritani by Vincenzo Bellini, Arturo Basile conducting, role: Sir Riccardo Forth 1969: Andrea Chénier (Umberto Giordano), Anton Guadagno conducting, role: Carlo Gérard