(Giuseppe) Mario Sammarco (December 13, 1868, although some sources say 1867 - January 24, 1930) was an Italian operatic baritone.
Sammarco was born in Palermo, Sicily, and studied with Antonio Cantelli. He made his operatic début in Palermo as Valentine in Faust in 1888. He subsequently sang to acclaim in Milan, Buenos Aires and London. He appeared in 26 different roles, off and on between 1904 and 1919, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
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(Giuseppe) Mario Sammarco (December 13, 1868, although some sources say 1867 - January 24, 1930) was an Italian operatic baritone.
Sammarco was born in Palermo, Sicily, and studied with Antonio Cantelli. He made his operatic début in Palermo as Valentine in Faust in 1888. He subsequently sang to acclaim in Milan, Buenos Aires and London. He appeared in 26 different roles, off and on between 1904 and 1919, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
In New York City, he was hired by Oscar Hammerstein I for his Manhattan Opera Company as a replacement for the great Maurice Renaud. He sang with the Manhattan company in 1908-1910, becoming its principal Italian baritone, but he never 'graduated' to the rival Metropolitan Opera.
Sammarco next joined the Chicago-Philadelphia opera company. His career there continued smoothly enough until 1913 when he encountered a disapproving Mary Garden in a Chicago production of Tosca. The soprano requested that he be replaced; but after he named some of...
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