Word: gallos
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Fortune Gallo, at 64, is proud of his balanced-budget opera company, proud that the San Carlo has given many U.S. singers (among them Queena Mario, Richard Bonelli, eight others who graduated to the Metropolitan) their first big opportunities. His latest cause for pride is pretty, blonde Soprano Dorothy Kirsten, who brought a fresh, appealing voice and promising style to her Mimi, Micaela and Nedda during the last fortnight. A former telephone girl from Livingston, N.J., she later did secretarial work and scrubbed floors to pay for singing lessons. Grace Moore met her in a radio studio, took...
...Theater, and watched the red velours curtains close in front of the shadowy vault scene of Verdi's Aïda. He had a right to be pleased. For the 150 members of his troupe, it was merely the last perform-ance of another season, but for Fortune Gallo it was a milestone. His San Carlo Opera Company had wound up its 30th season, giving the U.S. public opera at popular prices, and without deficits...
Behind its success lies the colorful shrewdness of Impresario Fortune Gallo. Unlike top-flight opera companies, Gallo's San Carlo keeps away from operas which are artistic monuments but financial hazards. For its 20,000-mile tour this season, 13 operas were enough. Seven of them (Aïda, Carmen, Faust, Trovatore, Rigoletto, Traviata, Boheme) are such longtime favorites that Gallo's troupe has given them more than 1,000 times apiece...
...Operaman Gallo keeps out of the red by paring expenses to the bone. Instead of having an executive staff, he handles all decisions and details himself, working at a rolltop desk in a mousy Broadway office building. He pays no fancy salaries: minimum for principals is $40 a performance. On the road, San Carlo's orchestra numbers only 23, the total company 100-odd. Expense-conscious Fortune Gallo once spied the orchestra's harpist strolling down the street while a Rigoletto performance was going on, angrily inquired why he was not in the pit. To the harpist...
...Fortune Gallo was a dreamy, 16-year-old Italian lad when he came to the U.S. His first job was at $3 a week, in an Italian bank, but by 1906 he had blossomed out as a band manager. When Mario Lombardi's South American opera company got tangled in difficulties in St. Louis, Gallo was called in to help push the operatic ship off the reefs...