Verona Arena Festival Honors Singer Gottardo Aldegheri’s Legacy

The portrayals of the 78th Verona Arena Festival provide an opportunity to reflect on one of the most celebrated baritones of the last century and to clarify, nearly a hundred years after his death, his true personal identity. The figure in question is Gottardo Aldegheri (correct spelling, not Aldighieri as often misspelled in texts and encyclopedias), a character of adventurous youth, an intelligent singer who repeatedly premiered very new operas. He was the husband of the renowned soprano Maria Spezia, who passed away on May 12, 1906, in his city apartment at Via San Nicolò 10. His ashes, along with those of his wife, are housed in the monumental cemetery in Verona. Not only has his surname been a puzzle for scholars and researchers, but his date of birth has also long been enigmatic. Thorough investigation and careful examination of the birth registry documents preserved by the parish of S. Martino in Lazise unequivocally demonstrate that Gottardo Aldegheri was born on January 6, 1831, registered as the legitimate son of Maria Brighenti and Giuseppe Aldegheri, both of the Catholic faith, landowners who married on September 18, 1828, in Cisano. The confirmation that his surname is indeed Aldegheri—and not Aldighieri, as one might mistakenly interpret from the cursive handwriting in the manuscript—comes from the birth register listing the birth of his second daughter Redegonda Aldegheri (September 1832) and his third child Giulio Giuseppe (October 1834). If this isn’t sufficient to clarify the true surname of a Lazise native who spent his adolescence “between the nursery and the lake” and who sang in all the theaters of the world “with a great voice in a great soul of an artist, gifted, moreover, with great intelligence and culture,” there is also a resolution from the City Council of 1956. When modifying the names of certain streets in the town center, a proposal was approved to dedicate the final stretch of what was then Via Chiesa (today between Piazza Don Agostini and Corso Ospedale) to the “summit of lyrical art”: “Via Gottardo Aldegheri.” Once all this is clarified, the remaining question is how and why, after leaving his birthplace Lazise and emigrating to Piedmont to enlist in the Savoyard army, his surname was changed to Aldighieri and how he subsequently became known by that name. Already at age seventeen, the future renowned artist, after participating alongside fellow Lazise native Carlo Rossetti with Lombard legionaries in the conquest of the Belvedere powder magazine in Colà and at Castelnuovo (April 11, 1848), emigrated to Piedmont and fought in the tragic Battle of Novara. He resumed his studies in 1850, enrolling in the Law Faculty at the University of Padova, but due to his family’s financial difficulties, he had to abandon his studies and returned to Verona to work. Convinced he was born for the theater, he dedicated himself to serious and thoughtful vocal studies. His debut took place in Novara in 1855 in *La Traviata*, and in 1858 he met Maria Spezia; they married in Verona on August 6, 1860. In February of the following year, Gottardo performed with his wife at La Scala in *Nabucco*, in a production considered memorable. This marked the beginning of a magnificent career, during which he triumphed in theaters across Italy and abroad. In 1882, he returned to La Scala for Smareglia’s *Bianca da Cervia*, and also performed in Verona for a charity performance of *Faust*, directed at the Filarmonico theater by Maestro Emanuele Fiorinotto. Before passing away after a long and painful illness, his thoughts returned to his homeland, where he had spent his childhood and a glimpse of his youth. He left 500 lire to the Lazise nursery. “The musical ambassador who had honored Verona’s name around the world with his voice and his art,” emphasized critic Carlo Bologna in 1965, closing a lengthy article about Aldegheri, “after a long journey around the world, he returned to his native town, which he had never forget.”