Versatile musician was born in Padua
Vittorio
Maria Vanzo, who was passionate about the music of Wagner and introduced many
of his works to Italian audiences, was born on 29 April in 1862 in Padua.
Vanzo toured
both Italy and abroad as a piano accompanist and conductor and he also composed
music himself.
In 1894 he
conducted the orchestra of the Teatro Verdi in his home town of Padua during a
run of performances of the opera, Edgar by Giacomo Puccini.
Vanzo’s
mother was from a noble family in Padua and his father was a doctor in
literature and mathematics. Encouraged by his mother, Vanzo studied piano
technique under the pianist and composer Melchiorre Balbi.
He then went
to the Conservatory in Milan, where he studied counterpoint with Stefano
Ronchetti-Monteviti and composition with Antonio Bazzini.
After
graduating in 1881, Vanzo became a piano accompanist in the school for singing headed
by the baritone, Felice Varesi, and he later performed in concerts throughout
Italy and in other countries.
He is perhaps
best known as a conductor and interpreter of the music of the German composer,
Wilhelm Richard Wagner. He had become interested in Wagner’s music while
studying at the Conservatory in Milan and in order to further his studies of
the works of the composer, he went to Bayreuth in northern Bavaria in 1883.
There he was able to listen to the music performed in the composer’s own
theatre, the Teatro del Festival. Wagner lived in Bayreuth for the last 11
years of his life.
In the same
year, Vanzo directed a production of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, which was first staged
in Parma on Christmas Day.
In 1891, he
married the Norwegian singer, Anna Kriebel, who he had met while he was
conducting, and she was performing, at La Scala in Milan. She took part in
Wagner’s Lohengrin and Tanhauser, and Vanzo also went on to be her piano
accompanist when she performed in Lieder concerts.
Later that
year, he conducted the first Italian performance of Wagner’s opera, La
Valchiria (The Valkyrie) at the Teatro Regio in Turin, and in 1893 he revived
the opera for the Teatro Comunale in Trieste.
Vanzo also
conducted Giacomo Puccini’s Edgar at the Teatro Giglio in Lucca and at the
Teatro Regio in Turin.
During his
career, Vanzo conducted operas by the Italian composers Catalani, Boito,
Leoncavallo, Pergolesi, and many others.
He met the
Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in Norway in 1897, who had heard his
interpretations for orchestra and piano, and Grieg later said he had been impressed
with the technical skill and virtuosity of the conductor and composer.
In 1906, Vanzo
abandoned his conducting career to devote himself to composition. He composed
music for voice with piano accompaniment, chamber music, a sonata for piano and
mandolin, and an opera, whose score was never published. He also opened an
opera singing school in Milan.
Vanzo and
his wife, Anna Kriebel, had three children. Vanzo’s wife died in Milan in 1926,
and the conductor and composer also died there himself in 1945.
The Teatro
Verdi, where Vanzo conducted the orchestra for a run of an opera by Puccini in 1894, is a
beautiful 18th century theatre named after the composer Giuseppe Verdi. It is
located in Via del Livello in the centre of the city, close to Piazza dei
Signori.
