| Biography | Giovanni Matteo De Candia, also known as Mario (17 October 1810-11 December 1883), was an Italian opera singer. The most celebrated tenor of his era, he was lionized by audiences in Paris and London. He was the mate of the opera singer Giulia Grisi.
Mario was born in Cagliari, Sardinia as Giovanni Matteo De Candia; his inherited heraldic titles were Cavaliere (Knight), Nobile (Nobleman) and Don (Sir) in the Kingdom of Sardinia and subsequently the Kingdom of Italy. His aristocratic family belonged to the Savoyard-Sardinian social elite, part of the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the House of Savoy. His relatives were members of the Royal Court of Turin, while his father held the rank of general and was aide-de-camp to King Charles Felix of Sardinia (house of Savoy).
In order to free himself from the burdensome ancestral traditions which he had inherited, and to mitigate his father's opposition to a member of the high-born De Candia family pursuing a 'lowly' musical career, the budding singer adopted the one-word stage name of "Mario" when he made his debut on 30 November 1838.
Mario's decision to become a professional singer arose from accidental circumstances. He was 12 years old when he moved from Cagliari to Turin, where he studied at the Royal Military Academy. Among his fellow students at the academy was the future Prime Minister of Italy, Camillo Cavour. While serving as a second-lieutenant in the King of Sardinia's Guards in Turin, he got some debt. His father refused to help him and the young man, on 24 November 1836, was expelled from the army. Then he left Piedmont and travelled to Paris. The fugitive nobleman was made to feel welcome in Parisian salons and in the city radical milieu, especially in the salon of principessa Cristina Belgiojoso, where he was appreciated as an amateur tenor. For a time he earned his living by giving fencing and riding lessons.
Because he possessed an exceptionally fine natural voice, Mario was encouraged by the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer to become a singer. He took singing lessons and proved so gifted that he was swiftly offered an engagement with the Opéra. The young tenor made his debut there on 30 November 1838 as the hero of Meyerbeer's Robert le diable.
Despite scoring an immediate success, he did not choose to stay long at the Paris Opéra. In 1839 he was first heard in London, achieving instant success in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, where he met the famous Italian soprano Giulia Grisi. Then he joined the Théâtre Italien making his first appearance as Nemorino in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore.
From 1841 Mario and Grisi lived together. The acclaim that Mario received in Italian opera surpassed even that which he had won in French opera, and he soon acquired a Europe-wide reputation for the beauty of his singing and the elegance of his bearing. He possessed a handsome face and a lithe figure (he liked to show off his legs in tights), and his lyrical voice, was described as having a gracefulness and a beguiling, velvety softness that made it unique. The music critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw, who was born in 1856 and therefore could not have heard Mario in his prime, said his singing featured a marked vibrato.
Mario created few operatic parts, the most notable being that of Ernesto in Donizetti's Don Pasquale (1843). However, he sang in the première of Rossini's Stabat Mater and Verdi wrote a new cabaletta for him to sing in the main tenor aria in I due Foscari for a production in Paris. In established roles, Mario's very greatest performances were as the title character in Rossini's Otello of the same name, Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia, Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Fernando in La favorite, the Duke in Rigoletto, Alfredo in La traviata, Manrico in Il trovatore, Lionel in Martha and many others. The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London and the Théâtre Italien in Paris were the scenes of most of his stage triumphs. He sang in London from 1847 until 1867 and again during 1871.
Mario also made occasional appearances elsewhere in England in oratorio, for example at the Birmingham Festival of 1849 and at the Hereford Festival of 1855. Also, he undertook a string of concert tours around the United Kingdom. In about 1849 he acquired the "Villa Salviati" in Florence. At his salon there he received many distinguished cultural figures and members of the European nobility.
In 1854 he toured America with Giulia Grisi, earning much money and much adulation during their trans-Atlantic jaunt. Mario could never marry Grisi, because she was married although separated, from Gérard de Melcy and divorce was not permitted. Before meeting Mario, Grisi had also had a son, whose father was Lord Frederick Castlereagh, a nephew of the famous Robert Castlereagh. The child was acknowledged by Castlereagh with the name Frederick Ormsby. Mario and Grisi had six daughters.
In 1869 Giulia Grisi died in Berlin, after which Mario he went on to sing at the St. Petersburg theatre. During this time his daughters were put under the care of tutors assigned by their godmother, the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg and president of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.
Mario bade farewell to the stage at Covent Garden in 1871, but his last performances were concerts in a USA tour with Carlotta Patti in 1872-1873.
He spent his last years in Rome, where he was a friend of Prince Odescalchi, but he was in some financial difficulties which now beset him owing to his habitual extravagance. It is said that he used to smoke cigars continually, even when taking a bath.
A benefit concert was mounted for Mario in London in 1878 and collections reached £4,000, that provided a pension for the old singer. He died in Rome in 1883 and was buried in his town Cagliari in 1884. |