Gabriella Tucci, Italian soprano who was expert in the work of Verdi and Puccini – obituary
Gabriella Tucci, who has died aged 90, was an Italian soprano with a smooth, velvety voice; audiences at Covent Garden enjoyed her appearances in 1960 when she sang the title roles in Tosca and Aida, her singing in the latter being delivered, according to one critic, “with noble phrasing and voluptuous tone”.
Elsewhere, she made her debut at Spoleto in 1951 opposite Beniamino Gigli in Verdi’s La forza del destino, took part in a famous revival with Maria Callas of Cherubini’s Medea at Florence in 1953, and dazzled as Cio-Cio San with Carlo Bergonzi’s Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly in 1960 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Her association with the Met lasted until 1973 and included some 260 appearances – including a return to the stage only a month after the birth of her second child, a feat she attributed to a daily routine of muscle-toning.
Despite her many stage appearances Gabriella Tucci, who had reddish-brown hair and wide-set eyes, is thought to have made only two commercial studio recordings: Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci in 1959 with Mario Del Monaco, in which as Nedda she let fly some thrilling high notes; and Verdi’s Il trovatore in 1964 with Franco Corelli.
In Aida she was required to wear dark make-up, which afterwards would be removed using copious quantities of hot water. On one occasion in 1969 she discovered that only cold water was available in her dressing room at the Municipal Theatre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and threatened either to walk out or to sing without make-up if the problem was not resolved.
Gabriella Tucci was born in Rome on August 4 1929. She set out to be a concert pianist but began taking voice lessons at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia with Leonardo Filoni, whom she later married. In 1950 she won a national competition, the result of which was the opportunity to sing Violetta in La traviata at the Rome Opera House.
Within four years she was appearing across Italy and around the world, sailing from Naples to Australia on the Oronsay in 1955 on a deferred honeymoon to perform in Melbourne.
Her first appearance in London was as a confident and warm-toned Mimi in La bohème at the Adelphi Theatre in December 1959, only months after her American debut as Maddalena in Andrea Chénier at San Francisco Opera. However, after her Covent Garden debut the following year she made only one return visit, reprising her Tosca under Charles Mackerras in 1970.
In 1965 she was singing Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust for an afternoon performance at the Met when she was asked if she could return two hours later to sing Mimi because Teresa Stratas had been taken ill and no understudy was available; she accepted, changed her identity and the evening was saved.
On another occasion she was singing Aida at the open-air Baths of Caracalla in Rome when her performance was disturbed at two crucial points by a low-flying aircraft.
As a member of the La Scala company she travelled extensively, including to Moscow and Tokyo, yet faced tough competition throughout her career from the many great Italian sopranos of the era. By the mid-1970s her star was fading and she retired to her homeland.
In one interview in 1964 Gabriella Tucci, who kept her hand in with the piano, revealed the beauty secrets she had inherited: home-prepared almond milk for facial cleansing; fresh vegetables and fruit rubbed into the skin; and at the end of each season an egg yolk massaged into her scalp and left for 15 minutes before being washed off. During the summer she relaxed at the family villa in Puglia.
Filoni, a quiet, smiling presence, predeceased her. They had two children.
Gabriella Tucci, born August 4 1929, died July 9 2020
