Vittorio Vanzo - orchestra conductor

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.

The Teatro Verdi in Padua, where Vanzo 
conducted Puccini's opera, Edgar, in 1894

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 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.

Vanzo's wife, the Norwegian
soprano, Anna Kriebel

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.

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