Author and music historian Richie Unterberger celebrates singer, songwriter and pianist, Nina Simone. One of the most eclectic artists of the mid-twentieth century, Simone blended soul, jazz and pop with both romance and biting social commentary. This event will feature uncommon film clips with performances of some of her greatest songs, including “Four Women,” “Mississippi Goddamn,” “I Put a Spell on You,” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.”
Richie Unterberger is the author of numerous rock history books, including volumes on The Beatles, The Who, The Velvet Underground, Bob Marley and 1960s folk-rock. He teaches courses on rock and soul music history at several Bay Area colleges. His newest book, San Francisco: Portrait of a City, was published this year by Taschen.
This virtual program is offered as a one-time event only by agreement with the presenter. THIS PROGRAM WILL NOT BE RECORDED. Presented by the Art, Music & Recreation Center.
Nina Simone Bibliography - SFPL
Nina Simone : the biography / David Brun-Lambert (2009) 780.2 Si56b 2009
Princess Noire : the tumultuous reign of Nina Simone / Nadine Cohodas (2010) 780.2 Si56co
What happened, Miss Simone? : a biography / Alan Light (2016) 780.2 Si56Li
I put a spell on you : the autobiography of Nina Simone / Nina Simone with Stephen Cleary (2003) 780.2 Si56a 2003
* An author search (Simone, Nina) yields over 65 items in the SFPL catalog including vinyl, eMusic, CD’s, music scores, eBooks, DVD/Blu-Rays, eVideos and eAudiobooks.
Returning from Europe and South America in 1940, Josephine Tumminia made brief appearances with the Cincinnati and Chicago companies before her debut with the Metropolitan Opera on February 8, 1941. She starred in the familiar role of Gilda in Rigoletto, replacing Lily Pons in the cast and playing opposite Lawrence Tibbett.
Upon returning to America, she dropped an "m" from her last name and became Josephine Tuminia. This New York Times review of her Metropolitan Opera debut plays up her birthplace, Saint Louis, but makes no mention of her musical training in San Francisco nor that she first appeared onstage with the San Francisco Opera Company.
The review starts out praiseful - "Miss Tuminia's singing was musical, sympathetic and technically secure." The second paragraph is less so - "Despite the fine qualities of her singing, Miss Tuminia's tones proved so tenuous that they often failed to make themselves audible in ensembles." The reviewer finds some consolation in the end:
Miss Tuminia never made the mistake of forcing her tones, and they were invariably firm and clear, if rather white. Her vocalism was so sensitive and expressive that it was a pity she was handicapped by the insufficient volume of voice at her command.
The abbreviation SO denotes that she performed as a soprano. 2s/2w/2r/12p means 2 seasons, 2 works, 2 roles, 12 performances. MOH were performances at the Metropolitan Opera House; E were performances elsewhere. That is followed by the inclusive dates when she performed - February 8, 1941 to March 1, 1941. It was a rather short tenure, but in every performance she was cast in a lead role.
The life of an opera diva is itinerant, and Tumminia's career was no different. During 1942 she was a regular on the Mutual Broadcasting System's "Treasure Hour of Song" with Alfred Antonini's Orchestra broadcast from WGN, Chicago on Saturday nights.
Publicity poster for the Columbia All Star Opera Quartet performing at the Oakland Auditorium Theatre on November 12, 1943
In 1943-1944 she joined mezzo-Soprano Helen Olheim, tenor Nino Martini and baritone Igor Gorin in the touring Columbia All-Star Opera Quartet. Some of their publicity also named them as the Metropolitan Opera Quartet. This vocal ensemble apparently brought opera to all corners of the United States. That included a November 12, 1943 concert in Oakland and a November 14, 1943 concert at San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House.
Josephine Tuminia
Coloratura Soprano
Young American coloratura, and a member of the Metropolitan, scored a sensation at the Chicago Opera this season in three leading roles; "Rigoletto," "Barber of Seville" and "Lucia."
She met her future husband, Charles Wiper, Jr., when they shared a voyage on the Chicago to New York train on December 13, 1942. A year after meeting, they wed in the middle of her tour with the Metropolitan Quartet in Beaumont, Texas on December 1, 1943.
The wedding of Lieutenant Charles Wiper and Josephine Tumminia (source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection)
In 1944 she joined the National Grand Opera Company in Los Angeles led by Georgio D'Andria and made a strong impression in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor. There was even talk of her being offered a contract by MGM to perform in short operatic films.
After the war they settled down in San Mateo where she became a mother and they opened a children’s clothing store. On October 17, 1947 she was suddenly called upon by Gaetano Merola to fill in for an ailing Lily Pons in the title role in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. The “housewife” reprised the role when the San Francisco Opera repeated the performing Los Angeles.
Mrs. Wiper had been up since before dawn with her little girl Clarene [Charlene], also home with the flu. Then just before noon yesterday [Gaetano] Merola phoned.
"He said to drop everything and come right up to San Francisco. He wanted to see if I could still sing 'Lucia'."
She and her husband, an ex-army major, drove to San Francisco in "nothing flat."
She had no chance to rehearse with the cast. A two-hour workout with piano accompaniment was her only rush-hp for the role, famed as one of the most gruelling and difficult in all opera. ("S.M. Wife Win Ovation in Opera")
Josephine Tumminia's name hand-written and tipped into the program for Lucia di Lammermoor
POSTSCRIPT
Herb Caen's column often printed notices of San Franciscans of past celebrity.
WHERE THEY are now dept.: Josephine Tumminia, the S.F. barber's daughter who was discovered by Gaetano Merola and went on to stardom at the Met (she was a coloratura), is now working as a salesgirl at Dixson's, a ladies' shop in Hillsdale Mall. She is divorced, has a grown daughter, and sounds not at all unhappy to be far from the spotlight... Josephine's biggest hit, oddly enough, was a recording of a coloratura tour de force called "The Wren," with the late Jimmy Dorsey's band wailing in the background--one of the first jazz-classical efforts and a million-seller. A collector's item, as is Josephine, selling dresses down there in Hillsdale. (San Francisco Examiner February 1, 1970)
CAENICLE WANT ADS get results: A few months ago, while doodling around in one of those "Where Are They Now?" space-fillers, I noted that Josephine Tumminia, the S.F. barber's daughter who rose to stardom as a Metropolitan Opera coloratura, is now working as a saleslady in a Hillsdale women's store. Well! This column may be crummy but it gets around--and the afore-mentioned item came to the attention of Jack Sharpe of Hollywood, who wrote (with Jerry Herst) the 1937 hit song, "So Rare." Flash: It turns out that Jack wrote that song for Josephine, who first love he was! Superflash: "It Happened in Monterey" a short time ago that Jack married Josephine, and they are now living in San Mateo. "So rare" murmurs Josephine happily. (San Francisco Chronicle January 13, 1971)
Josephine Tumminia passed away on January 19, 1997 in La Selva Beach, California.
Four years ago a little girl from North Beach, who had never set foot on a stage or a concert platform sang an audition for Maestro Gaetano Merola of the San Francisco Opera Company. This week that same little girl, whose name is Josephine Tumminia, will make her debut in New York as the latest star to be added to the roster of the Metropolitan Opera Company. (San Francisco Chronicle 1940)
Opera to Symphony: Josephine Tumminia, colorature soprano of the San Francisco Opera, who will be soloist with the San Francisco Symphony at the Civic Auditorium Tuesday night (source: San Francisco Chronicle February 2, 1936
After her San Francisco Opera debut, Josephine Tumminia became a local celebrity. On February 6, 1936 she sang as a soloist at Municipal Concert of the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Pierre Monteux. She was soon thrust further into the limelight appearing on operetta composer Sigmund Romberg's nationally syndicated radio program on the NBC's Red Network on March 16, 1936 along side the famed star of the stage and screen, Lionel Barrymore. This led to rumors that Paramount film studios was considering her for a long term contract.
JOSEPHINE TUMMINIA, San Francisco girl, who was at Galileo High School not so long ago, has since found fame via radio and now sings as famed Sigmund Romberg wields the baton. They will be on KPO tonight, with the child film star, Cora Sue Collins, acting as master of ceremonies. The times is 5:30 (San Francisco Chronicle May 25, 1936)
She continued with Romberg through the early summer when she appear on Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hour broadcast from Los Angeles on August 13, 1936, sharing the program with Louis Armstrong. In the fall of 1936 she returned to the San Francisco Opera Company where she shined in the role of Gilda in Rigoletto. The Chronicle's music critic, Alfred Frankenstein, singled her out for praise:
Miss Tumminia made the big hit of her brief career as Gilda. This for a lovely and fragile impersonation, and for a "Caro Nome" of unique and special quality... Miss Tumminia was Gilda. As she sang, the florid song took on such warmth of dramatic meaning as it is possible for it take on and, without losing any of its brilliance, remained and essential link in a lyric tragedy. The purity of her small, light voice has been remarked before. Likewise he unfailing musicianship. Her lyric Gilda is in its own way no less and achievement than her comic Rosina.
Josephine Tumminia and Bing Crosby (image source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection)
The following summer she was back on the airwaves, singing on Bing Crosby's program. She remained an occasional guest on Crosby's Kraft Music Hall even as she reprised her role of Gilda in San Francisco in the Fall.
Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra were the house band on Crosby's show which lead to a unique crossover recording. On February 27, 1937 she went into Decca Records Los Angeles recording studio with Dorsey's orchestra to record a swing arrangement of "La capinera" (The Wren), a late 19th century light-classical showpiece for soprano voice composed by Julius Benedict. Robert L. Stockdale remarked that this was "one of the most unusual recordings ever produced by Jimmy [Dorsey]."
On March 17, 1937 she rejoined the orchestra to sing her unique version of the "Blue Danube Waltz" by Johann Strauss. One interesting sidelight - Tumminia shared her recording session with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra's recording of songs from the Fred Astaire / Ginger Roger movie Shall We Dance where they appeared on the soundtrack. Her recordings were released as both sides of the 12" double-faced 78 rpm recording Decca 29009.
Reviewers of that time were not sure what to make of this recording. Irving Kolodin found no fault with the "straight job" that Tumminia achieved in her performance but found fault with the arrangement. "What results is some of the aptest satire on coloratura that has yet to appear." Richard Gilbert also faulted the "screwy arrangement." The New Yorker noted that "Miss Tumminia retains her intonation and her bright, somewhat determined vocalizing through the goings-on," but goes on to dismissed the result as "a slick stunt and goes on the list of the best curios." Only Billboard magazine put in the good word: "a collector's classic for those who take their conservatory music toasted with jam... prima donna pipes according to Hoyle while the gang goes bucketing."
In 1947, John Ball, Jr. published this appreciation:
This unique record is strictly a novelty, but an exceptionally good one. Miss Tumminia, who has been heard at the Metropolitan Opera, sings the Blue Danube, not too well, but acceptably. Jimmy Dorsey and his lively crew provide the accompaniment. Strangely enough it all fits together. What comes out of the loudspeaker is a little hard to define, but we find it quite entertaining listening just the same.
Corinne Koshland (Mrs. Marcus Koshland) presented Josephine Tumminia in a recital on February 3, 1938 at her Presidio Heights mansion to help raise money support her studies in Europe. For many years Mr. and Mrs. Koshland were important patrons of the arts in San Francisco who also helped fund Yehudi Menuhin's studies abroad. Gary Gidden's biography of Bing Crosby also notes the crooner's "investment" in Josephine Tumminia.
She travelled to Milan to study with Mario Cordona. During these two and a half years she performed in Bologna, Lugano and in Palermo, her father's hometown. A 1938 article in the Examiner rumored that she was being filmed in her role of Gilda at Cinema City in Rome. She also sang at the Royal Opera in Belgrade where she was awarded Yugoslavia's Order of San Caba. Leaving Italy in 1940 she continued performing in Caracas and then Puerto Rico before returning the United States.
Autographed portrait inscribed "To Jessica Fredricks, in sincere appreciation of your interest in my career, Josephine Tumminia." Fredricks was head of the Music Department at the San Francisco Public Library (image source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection)
Each season General Director Gaetano Merola found places for resident artists in important roles. Several have come up from the chorus. Others have been drawn from the ranks of professional singers. A few have reached the rank of principal artist without previous experience. Some have gone on to stardom.
This season will find one among the few who have reached principal place without operatic or other professional experience. She is Josephine Tumminia youthful coloratura soprano, for whom Merola predicts quick and brilliant ascension to operatic heights (San Francisco Chronicle 1935).
Josephine Tumminia was a San Francisco Cinderella story. Her father Salvatore Tumminia had immigrated from Palermo, Sicily in 1906 and moved to Saint Louis, Missouri where she was born on July 9, 1913. Her family moved to San Francisco in 1923 where he worked as a barber and she attended Yerba Buena School. Always longing to be singer, she dropped out of Galileo High School to study opera during very hard economic times. In a 1935 interview she recounted:
Father was out of work and this depression—well, you know,” said Miss Tumminia, rolling her enormous eyes in a gesture of dismay. “But my teachers insisted that I study with them for nothing at all. We had no money. Now I sing before Maestro Merola every day.
Josephine Tumminia as Rosina in the Barber of Seville (image source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection)
The road to the top was more difficult than she would tell. Josephine Tumminia was listed in the City Directories of 1930 and 1935 as being employed as a clerk. In 1931 and 1932 she was listed as a musician. At this time she began studying with Alberto Terrasi, a well-travelled baritone who took up residence in the Bay Area from 1929-1931 and who sang locally with the California Opera Company. She joined him in recitals and opera performances.
Her operatic debut came at age 18 in the role of Gilda in a production of Rigoletto staged by the California Opera Company at the Scottish Rite Hall. A review in the San Francisco Examiner described her performance as a "great success." She also performed for San Francisco's Italian-American community with organizations like the Vittoria Colonna Club and Il Cenacolo.
Her financial relationship with Terrasi was rather severe. It required her to give half of her salary to her teacher in exchange for three lessons a week for six years. Since Terrasi left San Francisco by 1932, well short of six years, perhaps this agreement was rendered moot. Tumminia benefitted from further instruction from Nino Cormel and Elsie Bachrach.
Josephine Tumminia debuted with the San Francisco Opera Company on November 25, 1935 playing the lead role of Rosina in The Barber of Seville opposite Tito Schipa. The aptness of a Sicilian barber’s daughter ascending into this role brought her into the national spotlight with an article in Time Magazine.
Alfred Frankenstein in the San Francisco Chronicle described her as "a part, pretty, youthful Rosina with a pert, agile coloratura." He was impressed with her stage poise and mastery of the difficulties of Rossini's music. He only lamented "a certain nasal twang from her tone" that he predicted would disappear with more training.
In his San Francisco Examiner review, Alexander Fried remarked:
A debutante, Josephine Tumminia, deserves first comment, both because she is news and because she is an exception talent.
He went on to note how well cast she was for the role; she brought a youthfulness to a youthful character. While he also had reservations about her tone he was impressed with the "agility" of her voice and predicted great success.
For her, a successful début; for her father, a business pickup.
(source: Time)
She repeated this role in 1936 and later played Micaëla in their 1936 production of Carmen. She also reprised her role of Gilda in the 1936 and 1937 San Francisco Opera productions of Rigoletto.
Her auspicious start with the San Francisco Opera propelled her into even greater adventures that will be recounted in a later entry.
Bibliography
"Alberto Terrasi," San Francisco Examiner May 25, 1930.
"Barber of San Francisco," Time December 9, 1935.
"Barber of Seville Sings for Fun; Daughter Sings the Barber of Seville," Newsweek February 14, 1938.
"California Company to Stage 'Rigoletto'," San Francisco Chronicle June 14, 1931.
"California Opera Group Will Repeat Rigoletto," San Francisco Chronicle October 11, 1931.
Frankenstein, Alfred, "Ezio Pinza 'Barber of Seville' Star," San Francisco Chronicle November 26, 1935
Fried, Alexander, "Local 'Rosina' Win Applause in Opera Debut," San Francisco Examiner November 26, 1935
"Girl Singer to Sign Away Half of Salary," San Francisco Chronicle May 6, 1930.
"Italian Groups Lists Saturday Musical," San Francisco Chronicle December 7, 1930.
"Musicale Held by Italian Club" San Francisco Chronicle October 1, 1933
"A New Gilda Rises from The West," Opera News February 3, 1941.
"Public Recital Given by Alberto Terrasi," Berkeley Daily Gazette October 29, 1930.
"Rigoletto," San Francisco Examiner October 18, 1931.
"S.F. Girl Will Make Debut in Opera Here," San Francisco Chronicle September 30, 1935.
"San Franciscans to Be Heard in Operas," San Francisco Examiner October 6, 1935.
"Seeks Operatic Fame," Colusa Herald May 27, 1930.
Weick, Louise, "San Francisco Girl Reaches Opera Stardom Without Spending Cent on Music Education," San Francisco News August 28, 1935.
Scenery and décor are essential elements for staging grand opera and the San Francisco Opera benefited greatly from Merola’s recruiting of his nephew, Armando Agnini, to fill that role here. Agnini, who also worked with the Metropolitan Opera, was the first stage and technical director for the San Francisco Opera Company. He designed most of the productions from 1922-1953 and the Opera continued to draw upon his stage designs for many years afterward. He trained performers and technical staff and also played a role in the acoustic design of the War Memorial Opera House that opened in 1933.
Armando Agnini at the Lighting Controls in the new San Francisco War Memorial Opera House (source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection).
Born in Naples, Italy in 1884, he came to the United States aboard the at the age of 18. (Ancestry.com notes his arrival aboard the SS Augusta Victory on April 5, 1902). He had studied the cello and electrical engineering in Italy. In America he first worked in a piano factory, then his uncle Gaetano Merola employed him as a baggage master with a touring opera company. One day the stage manager disappeared on tour and Merola pressed him into duty as the stage manager. His first appointments as an operatic stage director were in Montreal (1911-1913) and Boston (1913-1917). While in Boston he joined a group of artists who travelled to Paris in 1914. Parisian newspapers note his participation in a performance of Manon Lescaut at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, but this adventure ended with the outbreak of the First World War.
He went to work at the Metropolitan Opera in 1917 where he was stage manager, but also occasionally appeared in as an actor or in the dance ensemble. He later served as a guest director in Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, London, Paris, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Chicago.
Armando Agnini with a Wagnerian dragon (source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection)
A 1927 San Francisco Chronicle review of Turandot described Armando Agnini’s labors in staging grand opera in the San Francisco Civic Auditorium:
Not only was Agnini responsible for the training of the principals and chorus and the preparation of the mass action but he spent part of his leisure this summer designing the scenery
The audience at the opera sees only the outcome of infinite labor and may not realize the immense detail to be taken care of in production, especially under Auditorium conditions.
Sets have to be designed and prepared and made ready on the day of each performance for their quick arrangement on the stage. It doesn't help Mr. Agnini a bit to have to work in a theater practically without facilities for storing props...
The company is as yet too young to own all the materials it has need of in its elaborate seasons. These must be built, begged and borrowed each summer and fall. Meantime the amateur chorus is being trained in its entrances and stage business, and ensembles of the individual singers have to be hammered into shape.
And then there are lights, which have to be chosen and mixed for best effect and regulated and changed throughout intricate performance. And there are the ballet, the choice of individual choristers for special small group actions and the supervision of costuming and makeup of the entire ensemble.
All these problems are tackled by Armando Agnini. His work begins the moment he arrives in San Francisco, long before the season opens, and it continues day and night until the packing of the props and the demolition of the improvised theater at the end.
Although Agnini was often on the move working on opera sets and direction all over North America, he was listed San Francisco City Directories between 1937 and 1943, residing first on Nob Hill and later in the Marina. The 1943 directory shows him employed as the director of the Opera Academy of San Francisco. Agnini also did a little work in Hollywood working as the opera technical director in the Bing Crosby film Going My Way 1944, and the Ray Milland, Jane Wyman film The Lost Weekend in 1945. He finished his career as the Stage Director for the New Orleans Opera Association where he worked from 1954 until his death in 1960.
Agnini At Work At a Preparatory Diorama (source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection)
Merola's advertisement in the Pacific Coast Musical Review, April 1, 1922
Once he received financial backing and the space to present outdoor opera in 1922, Gaetano Merola had to marshal the a variety of forces to stage his festival. Opera is far more than the great artists singing and acting on the stage -- it requires an army of supporting participants. Transporting the forces necessary for this undertaking required a charter train to carry 500 people including a chorus consisted of 150 members, the orchestra numbering 110 musicians. There was an additional ballet corps of 50 dancers. These numbers do not account for the necessary stage hands and ticket takers. Additional trains were also added to bring the audience to Palo Alto from San Francisco and back again.
Merola was assisted by the Baker & Taylor engineering firm who had helped construct Stanford Stadium. Contractors from the University built the stage, 80 feet wide, 40 feet deep and elevated four feet off of the ground that gave every seat a clear view of the performance. Experts also worked out acoustical issues of performing outdoors constructing a sounding board at the back of the stage to assist the voices and instruments in projecting toward the audience. Ramps were placed at the rear to bring horses on stage during some scenes in Carmen.
Ray Coyle was one of the earliest of the first participants in Merola's project. Well known locally as a muralist, illustrator and interior decorator, he also had experience created scenery for the Bohemian Club's "Lo-Jinks" performed in their redwood grove. Marjory Fisher noted "The scenery in all of the productions was of necessity simple but highly artistic and adequate ... lighting, setting and orchestral effects helped to make the performance conspicuously outstanding."
Illustration of the open-air setting for Merola's 1922 performance of Pagliacci (source: Musical America June 17, 1922)
Jeanne Lane, writing for the Chicago-based Musical Leader, gives a vivid description of the scene:
The night panorama of opera in the stadium is pure magic. The stage built at one end of the great bowl is more than 80 feet in width. The drapery of midnight blue which masks the outer circle melted into the blue of the night where the moon and the stars completed the picture. The stage sets were built especially for this outdoor need and the furniture as well. There has been no makeshift. By a clever arrangement of lights the audience was illuminated and shut out while changes of the sets were being made.
Merola boasted of "the largest picked chorus of local singers ever assembled on the Pacific coast." He recruited the 75 member Stanford University Chorus, the A Capella Choir of the College of the Pacific (then located in San Jose) and a third chorus that he trained in San Francisco. The chorus of 150 voices rehearsed at Frank Carroll Giffen's house (also called the Humphrey-Giffen house) at the corner of Chestnut and Hyde.
Arthur Bloomfield tells of a gripman hearing these rehearsals from the passing Hyde Street cable car line calling out the Chestnut Street stop as the "Rue de l'Opera." An editorial in the Chronicle noted with civic pride the appreciation of the opera stars who marveled at the assembled chorus.
"Where could you find such a chorus?" asked [Giovanni] Martinelli, amazed.
"Even the Metropolitan cannot excel in this," exclaimed [Vicente] Ballester.
Walter Oesterreicher, the orchestral manager of the San Francisco Symphony, assembled an instrumental ensemble of 100 musicians. Armando Agnini of the Metropolitan Opera, who would collaborate with Merola for many years, directed stage action. Luigi Raybaut was also a stage manager. The ballet was directed and choreographed by Natale Carossio.
The Chronicle's music critic, Ray Brown, summed up the effect of the first evening:
The setting in the great bowl of the stadium was one of beauty, under the blue-black canopy of night. The sky was cloudless, save for a few filmy veils floating slowly beneath a half-moon in the zenith. A silvery wave of fog reared its crest on the summit of the far western hills and stayed its motion there. The winds were still, and there was no intrusion of the out world upon the fairy land of make-believe, except an interrupting whistle or two from a passing locomotive.
Gaetano Merola conducted with admirable authority and control of the large orchestra and the choral cohort. When he appeared on the stage at the close of the opera, the embrace that he exchanged with Martinelli was a symbol of congratulation to which the audience shouted approval.
source: San Francisco Examiner June 15, 1922
Bibliography:
Brown, Ray C.B., "600 Witness Opera In Open At Stanford," San Francisco Chronicle June 4, 1922
The earliest seeds of the San Francisco Opera Company were planted in two places: the City's North Beach neighborhood and in Palo Alto at the "Big Game" between Stanford and California on November 19, 1921 – the inaugural football match at the newly constructed Stanford Stadium.
Several sources state that Gaetano Merola first visited San Francisco before the earthquake in 1906 as the accompanist for Signora Eugenia Mantelli. The 1906 date given seems unlikely since Signora Mantelli gave her final recitals in San Francisco in June 1903. Merola's presence cannot be verified since no pianist is credited in the advertisements for these performances.
He later returned as a conductor with the International Grand Opera Company while on tour in San Francisco during the summer of 1909. He made a strong impression in his presentation of Mascagni's L'Amico Fritz; the Chronicle noted that "Merola, made the evening not only the most memorable of the present season, but also eloquently expressed the fact that the composer's lyric work has met with unmistakable favor." It was with this troupe that Merola began his long collaboration with stage director Armando Agnini.
Merola as one of the touring conductors with the San Carlo Opera during their annual visits to San Francisco between 1918 and 1921. In the summer of 1921 he decided to remain behind in San Francisco. According to Arthur Bloomfield he earned a living giving lessons. He also began making friends in social circles to further his aim of creating an opera company for the City.
"Opera Stars Raise Their Voices to the Open Sky" shows photographs of opera stars Bianca Saroya and Giovanni Martelli, image source: San Francisco Chronicle June 4, 1922
One of his new opera-loving acquaintances, lawyer Horace Clifton, invited Merola to Palo Alto to experience a college football match. But, as Bloomfield put it, the conductor had "tenors more on his mind than quarterbacks." Clifton's wife, Olga, recalled many years later:
My husband and I took Maestro and his wife, Rosa, to the Big Game in November of 1921," she recalled. "While we were in the grandstand the Stanford Band came out. 'My God,' Merola said, 'I've never heard such acoustics in an open air stadium. This is magnificent I've got to give opera here!
Contemporaneously, the San Francisco Examiner's music critic Redfern Mason remarked: "The artist in him was impressed by the great spectacle. It made him think of the games in the ancient Roman amphitheaters." Merola was also impressed with acoustics. Very aware of the San Francisco fog, Merola also remarked "The nights are wonderful... There is no mist to chill you to the bone. It is as delightful as a night in Naples."
Merola turned to his friends in Italian-American community for support in his venture. A later account in Etude magazine described:
The tall, wiry, gentle-mannered young Italian spoke English very well, but always with the mellifluous accent that is heard in the laughter around the Bay of Naples. This stood him in good stead, because it was to his countrymen he went first with his plan to present a season of outdoor opera, to members of the San Francisco Fisherman's Association with whom he played cards of an evening and ate pizza. These were they who gave him the first $10,000, and on the strength of which he managed to borrow $13,000 more from a bank.
Redfern Mason gave the lion's share of the credit for the stage of Merola's extravaganza at Stanford Stadium to the conductor and to the generosity of his Italian-American friends.
source: San Francisco Examiner June 22, 1922
They have set an example to San Franciscans generally which, if followed up, will make California what by genius and temperament it seems intended to be--the Hellas of the Western world.
So I will set down the names of these gentlemen in enduring type that folks may know to whom they owe a debt of gratitude. They are Gaetano Merola, A. Farina, G. Torchia, G. Napolitano, A. Napolitano, G. Milani, V. Frevola, A. Paoni, G. Brucia and G. Stradi.
Antonio Farina, manager of the Crab and Salmon Fisherman's Association, hosted the card games where Merola and company hatched the idea. Guglielmo Torchia, also known as William Torchia, ran the Agenzia Torchia and was railroad and shipping agent. He was also the publisher of newspapers like Era Democratica and L'Italia. He also organized the Federation of Italian Societies.
Giuseppe Brucia (who sometimes went by Joseph Brucia), who was an olive grower and purveyor of dried fruit, secured the loan from Amadeo Giannini and the Bank of Italy. Giulio Stradi was successful in the produce business. At the age of 16, Stradi's daughter Louise became Merola's secretary.
The 1922 City Directory shows that brothers Alfonso and Amedeo Napolitano worked as a foreman and a clerk respectively (the initial G. Napolitano must have been a mistake?). Redfern Mason's list includes an A. Paoni, but later account list three men with that surname - Amedeo, Amalio and Anacleto Paoni appear to have been cousins (Amelio is usually listed with the surname Paone). They variously worked a produce clerk and machinist, grocer, and fitter.
Mason lists a G. Milani among Merola's benefactors (there was a clerk named Guido Milano living in North Beach at that time). However, later accounts give the name of Milano Milani who appears as actor in the Italian language press of the 1910s. Later City Directories show him working as a bookkeeper and clerk. V. Frevola is actually James V. Frevola who also worked as a bookkeeper.
Opera at Stanford Stadium was a tremendous success -- artistically. It, however, was a failure financially. Merola's friends were never paid back. Merola had to work off the remaining debt by conducting in Mexico City for a spell.
The San Francisco Opera formally acknowledged the contribution of Merola's Italian-American friends with a plaque dedicated in 2003. Although they were not among the 45 sponsors for the San Francisco Opera's inaugural season, Gaetano Merola could not have stage his Stanford Stadium success and garnered wider community support.
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