Bonaldo Giaiotti Interview with Bruce Duffie . . . . . . . . . .

Bass Bonaldo Giaiotti

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

Bonaldo Giaiotti (25 December 1932 – 12 June 2018) was an Italian operatic bass, particularly associated with the Italian repertory.

Born in Udine, he studied in his native city and later in Milan with Alfredo Starno, where he made his debut at the Teatro Nuovo in 1957. After singing with success in various opera houses in Italy, he made his American debut in Cincinnati, as Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, in 1959.

The following year he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and remained with the company for 25 years, singing some 30 roles in over 300 performances, most often as Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Ramfis in Aida, and Timur in Turandot. Other roles included Padre Guardiano in La forza del destino, Phillip II in Don Carlo, Ferrando in Il trovatore, Count Walter in Luisa Miller, Zaccaria in Nabucco, Giorgio in I puritani, Commendatore in Don Giovanni, Alvise in La Gioconda, and King Heinrich in Lohengrin. He was heard in Donizetti's La Favorita at the Met in 2015 at the age of 81.

Giaiotti also made several guest appearances in other major opera houses, including the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Palais Garnier in Paris, the Vienna State Opera, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Zurich Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. From 1963 until 1995, he was a regular guest at the Arena di Verona Festival, notably as Verdi's Attila in 1985. His first appearance at La Scala was in 1986, as Count Rodolfo in La sonnambula.

While best known for performing the Italian repertoire, Giaiotti did sing a number of non-Italian roles, notably the High Priest in Karl Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba (in 1991 at the Teatro Regio in Turin), Cléomer in Massenet's Esclarmonde (January 1993, at the Teatro Massimo), Cardinal Brogni in Halevy's La Juive, and the Anabaptist in Meyerbeer's Le Prophète, and, as noted above, King Heinrich in Wagner's Lohengrin (in 1976 and 1980, at the Metropolitan Opera).

His evenly produced, beautiful and sonorous voice made him one of the leading bassi cantanti of his generation.

In Mid-November of 1986, bass Bonaldo Giaiotti returned to Lyric Opera of Chicago for Raimondo in Lucia. He sang four of the ten performances, and there were two different casts. Edita Gruberova and June Anderson sang the title role, Neil Shicoff and Plácido Domingo shared Edgardo, J. Patrick Raftery was Ashton throughout the run, as was Gregory Kunde as Arturo. Charles Mackerras and Joseph Rescigno conducted. Previously and subsequently, Giaiotti sang Ramfis in Aïda. In 1983, the cast included Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Fiorenza Cossotto, Luciano Pavarotti/Giuseppe Giacomini, Ingvar Wixell, Dmitri Kavrakos, Gualtiero Negrini and Robynne Redmon. Bruno Bartoletti conducted. Then in 1988-89, the cast featured Susan Dunn/Makvala Kasrashvili/Alessandra Marc, Dolora Zajick, Giuseppe Giacomini/Giorgio Lamberti/Lando Bartolini, Siegmund Nimsgern, Jan Galla, Donn Cook, and Rosa Vento. Richard Buckley was the conductor. [Names which are links refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website.]

It was during the run of Lucia that Giaiotti graciously agreed to sit down with me for a conversation. His English was pretty good, and his wife gave him a few words that he was searching for. Portions of the chat were used several times on WNIB, Classical 97 when we played his recordings, and now [2025] I am pleased to present the entire encounter.

Bruce Duffie:   Do you like playing fathers, and kings, and priests?

Bonaldo Giaiotti: Yes, I’ve done that all my life. [Vis-à-vis the video shown at right, see my interviews with James Levine, and David Stivender.]

BD:   [With a wink] You don’t have any latent desires to be a tenor?

Giaiotti:   [Smiles] No. At the beginning of my study I was a tenor for the first week, the second week a baritone, and the third one I am a bass. I didn’t want to study because I wanted to be a baritone. I love the baritone voice.

BD:   Have you tried to push the voice upwards?

Giaiotti:   No, no, no, because my natural voice is as bass, and I remain a bass. I have a great career with the bass voice.

BD:   How do you decide which roles you will sing and which roles you will not sing?

Giaiotti:   [Sighs] This is difficult to answer. In my career, I have just wanted to do this for myself. Some artists decide what they want to do, and go to theaters saying they want to sing this, this, and this. I don’t have that privilege, but I do decide what I won’t sing. This is very dangerous today because they want me to sing everything! That’s impossible.

BD:   [With mock horror] You don’t want to sing everything???

Giaiotti:   [Laughs] No. There are the things that pertain in my voice, in my nature, and in my personality, and I’m lucky in this way.

BD:   Then what is the deciding factor? How do you decide you’ll say no to a role?

Giaiotti:   I have a good sense in understanding of what is good for me or not. If it’s not for me, I don’t sing it. I’m sorry!

BD:   Are there some characters that do not lie in your voice that you wish you could sing?

Giaiotti:   I would love to sing as a baritone [much laughter] but it’s not my natural voice.

BD:   It seems that many basses are moving upwards just a little to sing some baritone roles.

Giaiotti:   Yes, because for the past twenty years there have been recordings by those who are going up. There are fewer artists chosen to have a great career, and when you are in this position, you can’t refuse. You have to sing everything today. These people sing baritone one day and bass another day. Verdi is really a very distinguished voice style. He created the baritone voice, but this is confusing today as to which is the original voice for this and for that.

BD:   How can we get basses to stop trying to move up to baritone?

Giaiotti:   You can only do that if you can find out if he studied and is really a bass or a baritone, because all these people have big ambitions to have a big career. They can’t go up, so they sing in between the baritone and bass voices. [Both laughs] I don’t understand today what has happened to voices! There is great confusion.

BD:   Are we losing the tradition of great singing?

Giaiotti:   The tradition has gone.

BD:   Is there any way of getting it back, or to recapture it?

Giaiotti:   I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. They need to go back for tradition to serve the operatic world, because the new composers don’t come in with a revelation. So, the theaters need to do the old repertoire. They’ve dug up old operas, and for the old operas you need the old style of the voices. I hope they come with this idea soon to serve the theaters.

BD:   Are you afraid of the future of the theater?

Giaiotti:   As time passes I worry, and I am preoccupied about the future always.

BD:   Can we blame the teachers, or the singers, or the managers?

Giaiotti:   Everything. For example, in the United States, the college institution and universities bring the most important artists from Europe to teach the young generation, and this is very good. But it is afterwards when the problems start.

BD:   When they start their careers?

Giaiotti:   Yes. In this way, they are not sufficiently developed in the United States. This is also the problem in Europe, too.

BD:   Are the voices themselves, the instruments in the throats, better today, or worse, or about the same?

Giaiotti:   They’re the same, but today the problem is about everything going far too fast. They don’t have the time to develop the voices. For example, for me, the most beautiful age to sing was when I was between forty and fifty. [He was nearly fifty-four when this interview took place.] Today, the young singers have a great ambition to go up, and in my opinion, the young singer needs ten years for practice in the theaters for repertoire (and for everything else) in order to become a good singer. After fifteen years of preparation, the theaters need those kinds of artists. But today they become big stars in two or three years, and I don’t know how or what happens. You can’t develop the voice in that short a time. They are good musicians, and intelligent people that have everything except the nature which has developed the voice. You can’t force it.
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BD: Have recordings played a part in making things go too fast?

Giaiotti: Everything! They played the recording before they sing in the theater, and it is creating great confusion today.

* * * * *

BD:   You’ve made some recordings.

Giaiotti:   Yes, a few...

BD:   Are you pleased with them?

Giaiotti:   Yes and no. I fought with them because I think they just used me. I was fighting to make the best, but they weren’t interested.

BD:   Does the recording become a fraud when there is a lot of cut-and-splice?

Giaiotti:   No, the quality of the voices has broken up. It is not so much the cutting and pasting.

BD:   In general, are recordings a good thing?

Giaiotti:   Yes, a recording is a good thing for promotion, and to develop the career. It’s good publicity, but I have my own views about this. My feeling is that by playing the recording you cannot sing everything, and the promotion is about the best one in this repertoire to make the recording. For example, I sing the most beautiful Padre Quardiano from La Forza del Destino and made the recording [shown at left. Vis-à-vis the recording, see my interviews with Sherrill Milnes, Kurt Moll, and Gillian Knight.]

BD:   So, then the recording is promotion of the individual?

Giaiotti:   Yes.

BD:   Is recording at all the promotion of opera in general?

Giaiotti:   Yes, also! But only when it’s in the right direction.

BD:   Are there are too many recordings being made?

Giaiotti:   [Sighs] It’s important to see how many remain at the best level.

BD:   Are there not enough recordings which are of high quality?

Giaiotti:   No.

BD:   Does opera work on television?

Giaiotti:   Yes, but live from the stage.

BD:   Not film?

Giaiotti:   No, none of them. When it’s a live transmission on television, the audience is also live.

BD:   So you feed off their energy?

Giaiotti:   Yes, yes. Something good happens. I prefer to have an audience when I sing. For example, at some of the rehearsals, especially a general rehearsal, they don’t want people sitting in, but I personally like it. I like to have an audience. I like people there.

BD:   Is the audience different from, say, Milan, to New York to Chicago?

Giaiotti:   No, I don’t think so. If people love opera, then it’s the same.

BD:   How do we get more people to love opera?

Giaiotti:   [Thinks a moment] It’s important that every night is the best performance with the best singers. This does not mean the most important or celebrity singers, but the best quality of voice for a distinguished role. This is a good help, and important for the opera. Quality and value are needed. Not just one star singer, but the whole thing together. It’s important that they are all good together.

BD:   You prefer to be in the ensemble?

Giaiotti:   In an ensemble, yes.

BD:   Is it possible for an opera, such as the Lyric or the Met, to maintain that standard every night?

Giaiotti:   I don’t think it’s possible but with Rudolf Bing’s administration at the Met [1950-72], he made the public believe that every evening they were getting the best. It wasn’t true, but he tried to put the best inside the Met.

BD: Are the opera houses not doing that today?

Giaiotti: No, it’s impossible to do that.

* * * * *

BD:   Let’s talk about some of your roles. You’re here in Chicago singing Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor.

Giaiotti:   Yes. It is twenty years since I last sang Raimondo, and after that I said I’m not singing that role anymore! [Laughs]

BD:   So how did we get you to sing it again?

Giaiotti:   To come and sing at the Lyric Opera in Chicago, because I like this theater. [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my Interview with George Shirley.]

BD:   What role have you sung the most?

Giaiotti:   I don’t remember now exactly... I think Zaccaria in Nabucco, or Padre Quardiano in La Forza del Destino. I have a large repertoire. I sing a lot around the world, including many operas at the Metropolitan, and some which are not sung in the United States very frequently.

BD:   Tell me a bit about Padre Quardiano. What kind of a man is he?

Giaiotti:   It is the music that describes what kind of man he is. It is Verdi that describes the character, the personality and everything. I can’t create the personality, because it’s in the music.

BD:   Is that what makes a great opera, that the music describes the character very well?

Giaiotti:   Yes.

BD:   Are there some operas where the music doesn’t describe the character properly?

Giaiotti:   In general they are described. Some singers, some artists, have created a great personality of themselves, so they believe they created the personage as well. The personage is all there in the music. For example, you can’t do the opera Macbeth as if it were the play in the theater. It is different.

BD:   Is the opera better?

Giaiotti:   I don’t know, but in the opera it’s all about the music. The music is the most important thing.

BD:   When you’re on stage, do you become the character, or are you portraying a character?

Giaiotti:   It’s inside in the music. The moment you’re in the costume and you’ve got your make-up done, everything is there, and the music gives you what is happening in the moment.

BD:   [Checking with his wife] Does he understand the difference between ‘portraying’ and ‘being’ the character? [She then renders it into Italian for him.]

Giaiotti:   [Smiling] I play the character with a few other ideas. I don’t believe that people enter into the role two days before and remain there two days later! [Much laughter]

BD:   So when you go back to the dressing room at the end, the character has gone?

Giaiotti:   Yes.

BD:   Is the stage director getting too much power today?

Giaiotti:   Yes. On the one hand, the stage director is important to coordinate everything, and it is good direction when they have respect for the music and for what the composer wanted. They then can repeat many times the same production from one theater to another theater. However, sometimes the director puts something of himself on the stage, and changes many things. For example, I sang in Norma in Bonn, Germany, and they moved the period to 1930. Oroveso is in a big factory, and the intellectuals and working people decide on a revolution. They gave my character, Oroveso, a machine gun. [Much laughter] This was unbelievable.
giaotti

BD:   Did this destroy the opera?

Giaiotti:   Yes, this destroyed the opera.

BD:   [Playing Devil’s Advocate] Some people say that leaving everything in the old style would stifle or suffocate opera. So, where is the balance between breathing new life into opera, and yet not destroying it?

Giaiotti:   New life in opera? That’s the job of the new composer!

BD:   Do the new composers write well for the voice?

Giaiotti:   I don’t know. I don’t think so. The human voice has limits. It is possible to make a new instrument for an orchestra, but you can’t do that with a voice. In the opera, modern composers today have not become a revelation yet for the human voice.

BD:   At what point did we lose it?

Giaiotti:   I think we lost it from Alban Berg and Schoenberg. All these are modern contemporary composers, and after that it is not possible for others to follow. That is where the end would start.

BD:   Are we not coming back to a good style with Menotti or Pasatieri or Samuel Barber or Ned Rorem? Are those composers not coming back to the lyric tradition?

Giaiotti:   The tradition is the moment that you live.

BD:   I’m looking further ahead and hoping that we will recapture the tradition.

Giaiotti:   The old tradition is for the old opera and the old repertoire. This is important.

BD:   Let’s go back a little bit. Do you also sing early opera, baroque opera, Monteverdi, Handel etc.?

Giaiotti:   No, I don’t have a chance to sing that. [Vis-à-vis the video shown at left, see my interviews with Renata Scotto, Jean Kraft, James Morris, and Nathaniel Merrill.]

BD:   Would you like to?

Giaiotti:   Yes, why not? I am lucky that I don’t have to sing the modern operas. [Laughs] I’m really lucky, because I know many artists who suffer much just because they need to work, and need this kind of offer, so they sing these new works. It’s terrible.

BD:   Should opera ever be done in translation?

Giaiotti:   Yes, but it’s important as to who makes the translation. It has to be both an intellectual and a musician who makes the translation, not just one or the other.

BD:   Is this new gimmick of the supertitles a good compromise?

Giaiotti:   No, I don’t think so. There are just too many things to do. You have to watch, to listen, and to read! 80% of the people in the theater are old people, and they can’t see. I am not old, but I can’t see them. You see the translation, you see the stage, you hear the music... There are too many things, and people give up and fall asleep! [Much laughter]

* * * * *

BD:   Tell me about playing the Devil!

Giaiotti:   Who is the Devil? There’s a big discussion about that in the Vatican today! [All laugh]

BD:   Where do you get your inspiration to play the Devil?

Giaiotti:   As I said before, it’s the music!

BD:   On stage, would you rather kill or be killed?

Giaiotti:   Neither one nor the other! I want everyone to remain alive! [More laughter]

BD:   But in opera there are lots of corpses lying around.

Giaiotti:   I don’t think there are so many killed... maybe in the Sicilian Vespers. [Again, more laughter] [His wife suggests La Gioconda, and Bonaldo nods. She then notes that in Luisa Miller, he doesn’t kill, but watches, and that means staying until the end of the opera.]

BD:   Is it hard staying until the end of the opera?

Giaiotti:   Yes.

BD:   You’d rather go home after the second act?

Giaiotti:   No! Sometimes I stay there even when I don’t sing, but I don’t like this. I want to sing.

BD:   Is there enough work for the bass? It seems like the soprano sings a lot, the tenor sings a lot, the baritone sings a lot but then the bass sings just a little.

Giaiotti:   It depends on what kind of roles you sing.

BD:   [Coming back to my earlier question] You get more to sing as the Devil...

Giaiotti:   Yes, in the Gounod opera. Also in the other one, Boito’s Mefistofele.

BD:   Are they different Devils, the Gounod and the Boito?

Giaiotti:   Yes. The Boito Devil is much more aggressive in the voice projection and in everything. Physically it’s more so.

BD:   The Gounod is a milder Devil?

Giaiotti:   Yes, he is elegant. The Boito Devil has much more authority.

BD:   Do you like playing evil characters?

Giaiotti:   Yes, sometimes. Why not?

BD:   [Aside, to the wife] You should be glad he leaves it at the theater! She laughs and says she just can’t picture him evil.

BD:   You have sung one Wagner, King Henry in Lohengrin. Is that a good role to sing?

Giaiotti:   No, it’s an ungrateful role because it’s very, very difficult to sing, and when you sing you say nothing. I prefer to sing Timur in Turandot. I just sing a few phrases but it reaches the audience. You get empathy from the audience. With King Henry, you sing your heart out and they say so what?

BD:   Tell me about Timur. He was a king... [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Birgit Nilsson, and Piero De Palma.]

Giaiotti:   There, he has nothing! There is this poor old man who implores, as he has nothing. He asks for help. He’s blind.

BD:   Yet that creates sympathy with the audience.

Giaiotti:   When you have the power, then that is regal. When you don’t have the power, they have nothing. He does create pity and compassion from the audience. This poor old man with this little girl... sometimes it’s a big girl! [Much laughter]

BD:   This brings up a tricky subject. Is it more difficult to play off of someone who doesn’t look the part?

Giaiotti:   I think so.

BD:   How do you then overcome that?

Giaiotti:   I try to play the best I can. It’s important for the part, and whoever does this role [Liù] has to be a good balance for the character.

* * * * *

BD:   How do you divide your career between opera and concert?

Giaiotti:   I don’t sing so many concerts.

BD:   Would you like to sing more concerts?

Giaiotti:   Yes and no. I like singing opera.

BD:   You seem like a very easy-going fellow, so you’ll take what comes?

Giaiotti:   No, because the concept in Italy is another way of doing things. You can’t really use the voice and sing twenty or twenty-seven pieces in a row. In opera, you sing in between other people singing, and when you sing in between for ten years, your voice develops that way. [His wife interjects] Also, for concerts you can’t wear make-up. You have to be yourself.

BD:   Does opera work in concert? Eve Queler has been doing a lot of them with her Opera Orchestra of New York.

Giaiotti:   Yes. This is good for the audience to understand the music, and then a few years later, see the opera on stage. But for audiences to learn the music, having it in concert form is a good idea. They can find out if the audience will like certain operas, and then they will venture into doing a large production. I did Le Cid in Hamburg.

BD:   Oh, the Massenet! What was your character?
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Giaiotti:   I was the Father of Le Cid [Don Diègue. Also in the cast were Grace Bumbry, Placido Domingo, and Franz Grundheber. Jacques Delacôte conducted.]

BD:   [Keeping in mind that I did interviews for the Massenet Society] Do you sing any other Massenet?

Giaiotti:   I sing Manon and Hérodiade. [Later he would also sing Cléomer in Esclarmonde.]

BD:   Did Massenet write well for the voice?

Giaiotti:   Yes, beautifully! It’s beautiful romantic music. [Musing] Naturally, my favorite composer is Verdi. It is a spontaneous feeling when I sing his music. [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Robert Merrill, Roberta Peters, Mignon Dunn, and John Macurdy (who sing Monterone). This is the Saturday afternoon broadcast of February 22, 1964.]

BD:   Is there any character that is very close to real Bonaldo Giaiotti?

Giaiotti:   No! I don’t think so. [Again, his wife interjects] I would think it would be a mixture of some different parts. There’re all complex.

Giaiotti:   When I accept a role, I love it immediately, but I don’t have one favorite role.

BD:   Is being a singer very much like being an athlete?

Giaiotti:   No, I don’t think so. The average athlete has ten years, and a good singer should have thirty or forty years.

BD:   Do you feel the opera performance at all is like a contest?

Giaiotti:   It should be like this, but a friendly contest with respect on both sides.

BD:   Do you always get that?

Giaiotti:   Sometimes! We’ve been lucky! Of course, if you come out with a machine gun, the audience will be agitated rather than friendly! [Much laughter]

BD:   How are the conductors today? Are they pulling their weight?

Giaiotti:   This is a difficult question because it was the conductors who broke the old tradition. In this last twenty years, everybody thinks they’re a revelation. Everybody thinks they’re a Toscanini or Furtwängler, and this is a big problem. They don’t come up slowly with a great big bag of knowledge, even on a humanity level.

BD:   We need to slow everything down?

Giaiotti:   Yes, but it’s the publicity that urges them on. You pay for the publicity, so to go slower doesn’t make good financial sense!

BD: Thank you for returning to Chicago, and for speaking with me today. Mille grazie.

Giaiotti: Grazie a te.

See my interviews with Ivo Vinco, and Piero Cappuccilli

See my interviews with Martina Arroyo, Anna Moffo, Richard van Allan, Anna Reynolds, and Peter Maag

See my interviews with Ryland Davies, and Zubin Mehta

This conversation was recorded in Chicago on November 13, 1986. Portions were broadcast on WNIB the following year, and again in 1991, 1993 and 1997. This transcription was made in 2025, and posted on this website at that time. My thanks to British soprano Una Barry for her help in preparing this website presentation.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here. To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

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Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.