Lamberto Gardelli, born on Nov. 8, 1915, became one of the great conductors of the Italian repertory during the “Golden Age” of opera.

He was born in Venice and studied at the Liceo Musicale Rossini and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He started off as a pianist before eventually turning into a conductor. He was an assistant to Tulio Serafin and even worked with Piero Mascagni.

In 1944, he made his professional conducting debut in “La Traviata” at the Rome Opera and subsequently became the permanent guest conductor with the Royal Swedish Orchestra; he also worked at the Stockholm Opera and the Drottningholm Theatre. He would continue to build on his international reputation becoming music director at the Hungarian State Opera and Chief Conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra.

He would appear at the Royal Opera House, Metropolitan Opera, and Glyndebourne Festival, among others.

He was also a composer, creating five operas and a Requiem.

He was made an “Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” in 1995.

He passed away on July 17, 1989.

Major Interpretations

Gardelli was a champion of Italian opera and to his credit, he recorded the first French version of Rossini’s “Guillaume Tell.” He also championed operas of Resphigi.

But the core of his career was in his interpretations of Verdi. He performed all of Verdi and made important recordings of many of the great maestro’s little-known works like “Alzira,” “Attila,” “Oberto,” “Il Corsaro,” and “Un Giorno di Regno,” among others.

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His Iconic Verdi Recordings

Watch and Listen

Here is a famed recording of “Attila.”

And here he leads a recording of “I Due Foscari.”