Lando Bartoloini
Tenor

Lando Bartolini was born in Prato (Florence) Italy, and received his musical education at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia after winning the Mario Lanza Award in 1968. His voice teacher was the famous bass Nicola Moscona. In 1973 he made his debut as Osaka in Mascagni´s Iris at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and as Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana at the New York City Opera where he sang nearly all the major spinto roles during the following years.

Having become a naturalized American, Lando Bartolini returned to Italy in January 1982 to make his debut at La Scala di Milano in the title role of “Ernani”,where he also sang Luigi in Tabarro the following year. He was invited to all the major opera houses in Europe (Vienna, Paris, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Covent Garden and the Arena di Verona) and the United States as well as South America. 

In 1986, he replaced Luciano Pavarotti in a new production of Ernani at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and had a huge success with the audience and the critics, which finally secured him a place among the leading tenors of these days. In 1988 Lando Bartolini made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera, where he has been a regular guest since then, (singing  Radames in Aida, Manrico in Il Trovatore and the title role in Andrea Chenier).

In 1991, Mr. Bartolini returned to “his city”, Florence, to sing Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana. One of his most prestigious projects was Calaf in the new production of Turandot at the Maggio Musicale in 1997, which later toured to Beijing, China, to be shown “at the original place”.

Lando Bartolini has worked with nearly all the important conductors and leading opera singers of the 80’s and 90’s.   His repertoire includes (with the exception of Riccardo in Un Ballo in Maschera) all major tenor roles including the ultimate tenor challenge, Otello.  He has become a specialist in all the dramatic Italian tenor roles, such as Manrico in Il Trovatore, Radames in Aida, Alvaro in La Forza del Destino, Dick Johnson in La Fanciulla del West and Pollione in Norma. He also sings Canio and Turiddu in “Cavalleria/Pagliacci in the same evening but his most important role seems to be Calaf in Turandot, which he has sung more than 200 times in more than 30 different productions all over the world.

Lando Bartolini has made a number of recordings, which include Zandonai´s
I Cavalieri di Ekebu (Fonit Cetra), and Respighi´s Semirama (Hungaroton), as well as Puccini's Turandot (Naxos). Also available from Hungaroton is a studio recital of opera arias. Most interesting is the CD “Lando Live” with live clips from performances between 1980 and 1992 (Legato Classics).

During the past several years, Mr. Bartolini toured with the famous Turandot production from Florence. In March 2002 he sang Otello at the Hamburg Opera. He also is a regular guest at Torre del Lago each summer where he recently sang Calaf and Des Grieux.  This year also brought him to many houses in France, Italy, Greece, and Korea, in his signature role of Calaf, as well as Radames in Aida.

In November 2003, he celebrated his 30^th Anniversary, making his debut in the fiendishly difficult title role of Guglielmo Ratcliff at Lincoln Center with Teatro Grattacielo, for which he received many rave reviews, including one from the New York Times which said “Lando Bartolini was excellent in the notoriously demanding title role”.  The review in New York Magazine said “the title role was almost impossible to sing.  So congratulations to Lando Bartolini, who tirelessly belted out this killer part and probably didn’t need to be accommodated by so many cuts”.  This past November brought him to Lincoln Center again with Teatro Grattacielo, this time for La Cene delle beffe, scoring yet another triumph, receiving more great reviews including one in the New York Times which said “Giordano had to be a bit of a sadist to create the role of Giannetto, which requires big, powerful, high singing in aria after aria.  Lando Bartolini acquitted himself honorably”.