Giuseppe Giacomini
Giuseppe Giacomini (September 7, 1940; Veggiano near Padua, Italy) is an Italian dramatic tenor. An impressive tenor voice thanks to its richness and power, Giacomini, known as “Bepi” among his fans, recently celebrated his 40th anniversary of singing.
Giacomini began his vocal career studying with Elena Ceriati, Marcello del Monaco and Vladimiro Badiali. After some success with song competitions around Italy, he made his professional debut in 1966 in Vercelli, as Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly. In 1969 he performed as Turiddu (Cavalleria rusticana) and Des Grieux (Manon Lescaut) in Parma and Modena.
His first engagement outside Italy was in 1970 in Berlin, where he portrayed the lead tenor role of Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut. He went on to star in Il tabarro in Lisbon (1971), Tosca in Barcelona (1972) and Vienna (1973), and then at the Staatsoper in München in 1973.
In 1974 made his American debut in Buenos Aires at the Teatro Colón as Pinkerton and Il tabarro. Giacomini returned to Italy to tremendous acclaim at the top houses – La Scala (Forza del Destino, 1974; La Bohème, 1975), Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Teatro Regio in Turin , Opera di Roma.
Giacomini made his North American debut as Ramerrez in La fanciulla del West in Connecticut, 1975, making his Metropolitan Opera debut the year afterwards in La forza del destino. He sang in Paris (Palais Garnier), in May 1976, as Alvaro in Forza del Destino.This performance earned him several more contracts with the house in the big Italian repertory: Macbeth, Don Carlo, Il trovatore, Pagliacci and Tosca in the next few years. It was only after this success that he made his first Covent Garden appearance in 1980 (Fanciulla del West).