page_title: Titta Ruffo
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Titta Ruffo / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Titta Ruffo as Rigoletto, full-length portrait, facing front, seated in chair
context_page_description: Titta Ruffo, born as Ruffo Cafiero Titta, was an Italian operatic baritone who had a major international singing career. Known as the "Voce del leone", he was greatly admired, even by rival baritones, such as Giuseppe De Luca, who said of Ruffo: "His was not a voice, it was a miracle", and Victor Maurel, the creator of Verdi's Iago and Falstaff. Maurel said that the notes of Ruffo's upper register were the most glorious baritone sounds he had ever heard. Indeed Walter Legge, the prominent classical record producer, went so far as to call Ruffo "a genius".
context_section_description: Born Ruffo Titta in Pisa (he reversed his forename and surname for the stage), Ruffo was the son of an engineer. He studied voice with several teachers.  In Musical America, December 27, 1913, Ruffo wrote the following: "In view of the fact that numerous vocal instructors have endeavored to claim the credit of having been my "teacher" I desire to state emphatically that my brother Ettore is the one to whom practically all such distinction is due. I studied four months at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome under Signor Persichini and was told that I possessed neither voice nor musical talent. Afterward I received instruction from Signor Sparapani for two months and from Signor Casini for four months, but as this was not sufficient tuition for an operatic career I placed myself under the tutelage of my brother. I remained his faithful pupil for six years and am the living proof of his scientific method of voice production. All those asserting that they have been my "teacher" and therefore responsible for my success arrogate to themselves false and mendacious prerogatives."
  Ruffo made his operatic debut in 1898 at the Teatro Constanzi in Rome as the Herald in Wagner's Lohengrin. After a slow start, his career took off in the early 1900s and he quickly achieved international renown due to the power and ardency of voice and acting.
  His other major debuts occurred in the following venues and years: Buenos Aires (1902), London (1903), Milan (1904), Lisbon (1907), the Paris Opéra (1911) and São Paulo [Teatro Municipal] (1911). Ruffo made his American debut in Philadelphia in 1912 and sang extensively in Chicago. He reached the New York Metropolitan Opera relatively late in his career, in 1922, as Figaro in The Barber of Seville, having enlisted in the Italian army during World War I. He would give a total of 46 performances at the Met from 1922 through to 1929. In 1929 he signed a $350,000 (approximately $5,211,000 today) movie contract.
  He retired in 1931, staying for several years in exile Switzerland and Paris. He wrote an autobiography, La mia parabola, which was translated into English in 1995 as "My Parabola". In 1937 he returned to Italy, where he was later arrested by the authorities for opposing the Fascist regime and espousing socialist beliefs. His sister was married to Giacomo Matteotti, after whose murder by the Fascists he had vowed never to sing in Italy again.
  Titta Ruffo died in Florence, Italy from heart disease on 5 July 1953, aged 76.
caption: Ruffo as Rigoletto
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