Luisa Tetrazzini

Tetrazzini was an Italian opera singer of old and was a coloratura soprano of wide fame. She was born on June 29, 1871, in Florence, Italy. She had a phenomenal voice containing unique talents and was an international star performing in Europe, South America, and the United States.

She was the daughter of a military tailor and the youngest of three siblings. Her sister, Eva, also a successful singer, was fourteen years older, and her voice teacher. Folklore indicates that she began singing at the age of three. The middle sister of the three was Elvira and she too was an opera singer.

Tetrazzini later studied at the Instituto Musicale in Florence. She also made he debut as Inez in Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera L’Africaine, at the Teatro Pagliano in 1890 in her hometown. She was married at the time to Giuseppe Scalaberni who managed the building in that contained the theater. Luisa would attend the rehearsals, listening for hours, and one day fortune smiled on her. The person to sing Inez became ill. Luisa substituted and her stunning career commenced. For the next eight years she sang at various opera houses throughout Italy and Europe. She then went to South America, Mexico, and the United States where she made her debut in San Francisco in 1905. She followed that with a debut in 1908, in New York. However, her appearance was not at the Metropolitan, but at Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera Company. She played the role of Violetta in La Traviata with as great a success as she had at Covent Garden in London the previous year. The Garden appearance was the advent of a star studded career, since at the time she was an unknown. Her performance and talent were so impressive that she became an overnight operatic superstar.  Her career skyrocketed to where her appearances commanded the highest fees, selling out opera houses and concert halls where ever she performed. She also appeared at the Metropolitan for the 1911season giving eight performances. She followed that with a three year stint singing for the Boston Opera and the Chicago Gran Opera Companies.

Ellis Island records show she arrived there six times beginning in 1903. One of her most notable trips was in 1908, when in 1910, in San Francisco on Christmas Eve, she gave a free concert singing in the street at the corner of Market and Kearney near Lotta’s Fountain for a city she said she loved. Her gift to the city many considered an epitaph to the losses from the 1906 earthquake. The literature states something close to 250,000 people attended.  At about this time, many believe Ernest Arbogast, a chef at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco created the dish later named Chicken Tetrazzini. Tetrazzini was a long time resident of the hotel and was an apparent savorer of the dish.  However, Louis Paquet, a chef at the Historic Hotel McAlpin, at Herald Square, in New York many credit with popularizing the dish.  Nevertheless, many New Yorkers argue the point saying it was created in their city.

Tetrazzini was petite and as she grew older she became quite stout; nevertheless, her stage appearances were unaffected by her physique. She was an excellent musician who was a sociable, energetic and passionate person. Other singers, Enrico Caruso, Adelina Patti, Freida Hempel, all talented and highly regarded personalities, admired and applauded her talents.

After World War I, she left the opera stage for the concert platform. She married three times and her last husband was a spender and quickly squandered her fortune. One of her husbands, M. Vernati was twenty-years her junior, she 56 and he 26. During her later years she would often say, “I am old, I am fat, but I am still Tetrazzini.” Consequently, she had to continue concerts despite the deterioration of her voice. She retired in 1932, and died in Milan on April 28, 1940. The state paid for her funeral. The following photographs are from Allmusic.com and Pinterest.