Giulio Gari

Giulio Gari, born Samu Gyula on September 9, 1909, in Mediasch, Nagy-Küküllő County, Austria-Hungary (now Mediaş, Romania), was a tenor whose career spanned opera, concert, and Broadway stages. The youngest of ten children, he first attracted attention as a child performer singing operetta in Romania and Hungary. He later studied with Viennese soprano Lotte Gelinek and subsequently trained at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He died on April 15, 1994, of pneumonia at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan.

Gari's professional operatic debut came in 1938 at Rome's Teatro Reale dell'Opera, where he stepped in for Tito Schipa in the role of Almaviva in Rossini's Barbiere di Siviglia, conducted by Tullio Serafin. Shortly thereafter he secured a contract with the National Broadcasting Company, performing weekly with the NBC Symphony Orchestra and appearing on the NBC Radio program Musical Bits under conductor Phil Spitalny. In 1939 he sang at the St. Louis Opera in Gian Carlo Menotti's Amelia Goes to the Ball, an engagement that initiated his long professional association with Maestro Laszlo Halasz, who would later found the New York City Opera. During World War II, Gari served in the American armed forces as an infantryman with the Eighth Motorized Division in Germany.

His Broadway activity ran from 1945 to 1946, during which time his credits included productions of M. Butterfly, Rigoletto, Flying Dutchman, Faust, and La Bohème. His official debut with a leading American opera company came in 1945 when he appeared at the New York City Opera as the Steersman in Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer. Composer and New York Herald Tribune critic Virgil Thomson described the vocal treat of the evening as Gari, citing his beauty of voice, easy command of the heroic style, and confidence on the high notes. Gari continued with the New York City Opera through 1952, accumulating more than fifty-five lyric and dramatic roles over the course of his career.

During the mid-1940s Gari also toured Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1946 he performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Havana Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, and in Central America he appeared alongside Gladys Swarthout. In Guatemala he participated in the country's first opera season in twenty years. He married Lela Mae Flynn in New York City on October 29, 1946, and in the early 1950s he married Gloria Fishman.

On January 6, 1953, Gari made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, with Licia Albanese singing Cio-Cio-San. New York Times critic Howard Taubman praised his fine voice, fine style, and skill and polish, predicting a luminous future for the tenor. Gari remained with the Metropolitan Opera through 1961. During that tenure he was recognized for roles including Rodolfo in La Bohème, the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, Calaf in Turandot, Don Jose in Carmen, Dimitry in Boris Godunov, and Don Carlo. On one occasion he sang Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana and Canio in Pagliacci in the same evening, then continued that night as Don Jose in Carmen, a feat the New York Times noted for its severe demands on vocal and histrionic endurance. He also made last-minute appearances on three successive nights as the Duke in Rigoletto, Don Jose in Carmen, and Dimitry in Boris Godunov. In 1955 he appeared on the television program Opera Cameos, singing Alfredo in excerpts from Verdi's La Traviata. He additionally performed Kodály's Psalmus Hungaricus at Carnegie Hall and took part in the American premiere of Ildebrando Pizzetti's L'Assassinio nella Cattedrale at the Empire State Music Festival.

Following his retirement from the Metropolitan Opera in 1961, Gari moved into music education. In 1964 he became director of the Voice Department at the Long Island Institute of Music, and he also taught voice at Lehigh University. He joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1970 and began teaching at Temple University in 1974. Concurrently he maintained a private voice studio in Manhattan and served as Cantor at Temple Sinai in Forest Hills, New York.

The Giulio Gari Foundation was established in 2002 by his widow Gloria Gari, née Fishman, together with Licia Albanese and Stephen de Maio, to support and encourage young classical singers. The foundation, a not-for-profit organization registered in New York, has hosted an annual vocal competition in New York City since 2003, open to professional opera singers between the ages of 21 and 35, with winners recognized at the foundation's gala concert.