Around the Music Festival

Umberto Borso who was a big success in the 1960s passed away in Rome on 26th November. He was 95 years old. He passed the audition of Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and made his opera debut in 1953. He appeared in “Andrea Chenier” as a substitute for Mario Del Monaco in 1956, played a great success with Renata Tebaldi, joined as a star singer. That same year, “Aida” at the Liceu Theater in Barcelona also co-starred in Tabaldi. José Carreras, a tenor singer who was watching the stage, was touched by its wonderful stage and said he wanted to be a singer.

In 1956, he came to Japan as a member of the first “Lyrica Italiana” and sang Radames with “Aida”. In 1962 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and debuted in Teatro alla Scala in 1963. Continuing singer life until the 1980s, “Aida” 153 times, “Il Trovatore” 135 times, “Andrea Chénier” 78 times, “Tosca” 66 times, “La forza del destino” 44 times, “Otello” 39 It says singing times. He spent long time in Castelfiorentino near Florence and got honorary citizenship in 2015.

Photo：F. Fontanelli