Italo Campanini - London Beginnings

London Beginnings

Early in his 1872 Drury Lane season J. H. Mapleson, the London opera impresario, recruited Campanini from Rome, where he was in competition with the agents of Frederick Gye, the Covent Garden theatre impresario. On May 4, 1872 the tenor made his London debut as Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia, with Thérèse Tietjens in the title role, Zelia Trebelli as Orsini and Agnesi as Duke Alfonso, under the baton of Michael Costa. He was an immediate success, being hailed by some as the tenor successor to Mario or Antonio Giuglini on what the critic Herman Klein (who attended) called a night of triumphs. It was at Drury Lane that he first sang with lyric soprano Christine Nilsson, to whom he became a celebrated stage partner. An agent from London attempted to lure him away at a rate of a thousand pounds sterling a month. He remained with Mapleson (at one-fifth of that sum) but became difficult to manage. However, he was to remain a stalwart and mainstay of Mapleson's company for the next ten years. In autumn 1872, he visited Dublin with the company (which included Maria Marimon, Ilma de Murska, Sofia Scalchi and Signor Foli ), and toured the main cities of England and Scotland. During the spring of 1873, they undertook a back-up tour of British provincial towns.