ABSTRACT
Italian lyric tenor, born near Catania. His debut was in 1946 at Reggio Emilia; then he sang in Rome and at La Scala. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut as the Duke on 25 Feb 1948, and was with the company until 1952, returning in 1955/1956 and 1964/1965. However, vocal problems began to develop for the singer by the late 1950s, exacerbated by asthma, and the quality of his singing declined over the next 15 years. Widely regarded as the world’s leading tenor, he sang also in San Francisco and Chicago, and in Europe and South America. Di Stefano made an acclaimed concert tour with Maria Callas in 1973-1974. He has been mostly inactive since, and he made a final appearance at age 71 in 1992 in Rome in Turnadot.
