Photo Courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera Archives
One of the finest basses of the 20th century, Cesare Siepi, died on July 5 in Atlanta of respiratory failure, days after having suffered a stroke at age 87.
During his hallowed career, Siepi became one of the singers most closely associated with both the Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden. His authoritative performances in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Verdi’s Don Carlo, among other roles, matched with his meltingly rich voice and an irresistible stage presence, made him one of the real stars of the opera stage.
Born in 1923 in Milan to an accountant and a homemaker, Siepi lost both his father and his half brother early on; his father died when Siepi was sixteen, and his sibling was killed on the Russian front during World War II.
His first career intention was to become a boxer; however, the cuts and scrapes he earned during amateur bouts concerned his mother so much that he gave up that dream. He had started singing as a teenager; after making his local concert debut at age seventeen, he won a scholarship to study music in his home city. In 1941, he made his operatic debut in Verdi’s Rigoletto as Sparafucile—quite a feat for an 18-year-old.
His career was diverted when he fled to Switzerland to escape the Mussolini regime. By war’s end, however, Siepi was soon winning return invitations to sing at La Scala, including in performances of Boito’s Mefistofele led by Arturo Toscanini and in Verdi’s Nabucco.
Siepi made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1950 in a very high-profile production of Don Carlo, the first opera to be given during Rudolf Bing’s first season as the house’s new general manager. (It was also the first time that Don Carlo had been performed at the Met in three decades.) In all, he gave more than 400 performances at the Met, including an English-language version of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Don Giovanni.
While Siepi is by far best remembered for his operatic roles, the bass did not restrict himself to opera; in the 1960s and 1970s, he also starred in Broadway shows like Bravo, Giovanni and the very short-lived Carmelina.
He is survived by his wife, Louellen Sibley, a former dancer at the Met Opera; two children; and two grandchildren.
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by Anastasia Tsioulcas
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