Bass  Roberto  Scandiuzzi

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie



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Roberto Scandiuzzi (born July 14, 1958) studied with Anna Maria Bicciato in his native Treviso, and made his debut at La Scala in Milan in 1982 in Le nozze di Figaro under the direction of Riccardo Muti. Shortly thereafter he achieved his first great international success as Fiesco in Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden conducted by Georg Solti. [Vis-à-vis the video recording shown at left, see my interviews with Alexandru Agache, Kiri Te Kanawa, and Michael Sylvester.]

Today Scandiuzzi is one of the most renowned singers of the operatic world, and enthuses the audience with his vocal beauty, his round and noble timbre, and his electrifying stage presence. He is often compared with famous basses such as Ezio Pinza and Cesare Siepi, by whom he was strongly influenced.

Scandiuzzi frequently appears at the most prestigious opera houses worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Opéra-Bastille in Paris, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, State Operas of Vienna and Munich, the San Francisco Opera and Zürich Opera House, as well as with the leading symphonic orchestras such as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestras of Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston and Los Angeles, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre National de Paris and Orchestre National de France, the Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio and the Munich Philharmonic.

The list of conductors he worked with includes Claudio Abbado, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph Eschenbach, Gian Luigi Gelmetti, James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Myung Whun Chung, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Georges Prêtre, Marcello Viotti and Wolfgang Sawallisch. His repertoire is based on the great bass parts by Giuseppe Verdi as Filippo II, Fiesco, Silva, Zaccaria, Padre Guardiano, Attila and Roger, but includes as well operas such as Mefistofele, La Gioconda, the French repertoire with Gounod’s Faust, Massenet’s Don Quichotte, Arkel in Pelléas et Melisande, Frère Laurent in Roméo et Juliette, and the Russian repertoire including Boris Godunov, Dosifiej in Khovanshtchina and Gremin. Furthermore, he sung several world premieres of operas by Lorenzo Ferrero including La figlia del mago, Mare Nostro, Charlotte Corday, and Salvatore Giuliano.

In January 2007 Roberto Scandiuzzi celebrated the 25th anniversary of his career, and was made Ambassador of UNICEF. He has a large number of recordings on CD and DVD, some of which are shown on this webpage. In April 2019 he made his debut at the Berlin State Opera in the role of Isaac Mendoza in Prokofiev’s “The Engagement in the Monastery” with Daniel Barenboim conducting.

==  Text of biography slightly adapted from the website of Silvana Sintow Classicallia International  
==  Names which are links in this box and below refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website.  BD  




scandiuzzi Roberto Scandiuzzi was at the Ravinia Festival in June of 1996 for the Verdi Requiem, with Shinobu Satoh, Florence Quivar, Richard Leech, the Chicago Symphony Chorus directed by Duain Wolfe, and the Chicago Symphony led by Christoph Eschenbach.  Two days before the performance, it was my great pleasure to sit down with Scandiuzzi for a conversation.  His English was quite good, and as you will see, he made his ideas clear.

Portions of the interview were aired later on WNIB, and now, in 2025, I am pleased to present the entire chat on this webpage.

[Vis-à-vis the recording shown at left, see my interviews with Felicity Palmer, and Michel Plasson.]

Some questions that I have asked over the years provide an opportunity for my guest to be comfortable and expound a bit, and this was what I expected here.  However, his response to my first inquiry was mildly shocking . . . . .


Bruce Duffie:   First of all, do you like being a bass?

Roberto Scandiuzzi:   No!

BD:   [Surprised]  Why not?

Scandiuzzi:   [Laughs]  Because the new things come from the soprano and tenor.  Anyway, my favorite voice is the mezzo-soprano.  I’m a man.  I must have a male voice, and I’m a bass.  That’s my job, but my love is the mezzo-soprano voice.

BD:   [Being optimistic]  Oftentimes, the bass is paired with the mezzo, rather than the tenor or the soprano.

Scandiuzzi:   Yes, not so many times with the tenor and soprano, but sometimes.  Just in a few things.  Maybe in Russian repertory, and the Italian repertory in La Giaconda.  There is a very good duo between the bass and the mezzo, and nothing else.

BD:   Of the voices available to you, are you glad to be a bass, or would you rather be a tenor or a baritone?

Scandiuzzi:   No, no!  Of course, the baritones have the most intelligent roles, but absolutely not a tenor.  No thanks.  A baritone maybe, but I love my voice.  However, if you are asking me which I would choose, then the baritone, of course.

BD:   You are destined to be a bass, and your voice range is imposed upon you.  How can you make the most of your characters?

Scandiuzzi:   First of all, I must respect the character and the range of my voice in each role.  Sometimes I would like to push higher to the baritone range, but I can’t.  I cannot be a baritone.  I must be sure to find a character in each role, and that is much hard work that I have to do.  I must also respect the color of the voice.

BD:   Just learning the notes is easy, but learning the character is hard?

Scandiuzzi:   That’s correct.  You must know, first of all, the words, and the meaning of those words.  Secondly, you must know the line of the music.  Then thirdly, you must combine the musical line, the character, and the words.  That’s hard work, but that’s my work!

BD:   Is it too much to do?

Scandiuzzi:   No, we must do it.  If you want to be a complete artist, you must do this.

BD:   You sing both opera and concerts.  How do you divide how many concerts and how much will be opera?

Scandiuzzi:   As many concerts as I can, because I love to do concerts.  I love the French song repertoire.  I love to mix the French, Russian, Italian, German, and American songs.  When I do a recital, I love to prepare a program, but not as in opera.  In opera, you are obliged to follow the line.  In recital work, you can change everything.  You can prepare and really use your imagination.  You can present your real face to the public.  This is the most important way for a singer to show to the public their personality.  In opera you can do it, but you have a guide.  You are obliged to say on the track, but in concerts and recitals, you can be yourself and make everything and anything you like with your voice.
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BD:   In a recital, do you try to demonstrate your low notes, your high notes, the fioritura, and the beauty of the voice?

Scandiuzzi:   Yes, everything!  You must show everything in a recital.  With the happy songs, and maybe the love songs, and everything, you can do it all with your voice.  That’s in the face of the singer.

BD:   Do you ever find it difficult to convince the public that you, with this low voice, can sing a love song?

Scandiuzzi:   No!

BD:   [With a wink]  Don’t they expect a tenor to sing a love song, but not a bass?

Scandiuzzi:   [Sighs]  It’s my chance.  I have a particularly warm voice, and that’s a present from God, thank you again!  My voice is very warm and very soft, so it’s not difficult for me to present love songs, or lyrical songs, also country songs.  Why not?  Mine is not a hard voice, and I love to use my voice in love songs, also in a serenade.  Yes, I love this.

BD:   From the huge array of songs, how do you select which ones you will sing?

Scandiuzzi:   From thinking with my head, and from my mind!  I’ve found many, many things in every place, such as libraries.  Every time when I prepare a recital program, I’m thinking about myself.  How is my mood at this time?  I love to prepare the program close to my humor and mood.  That’s it.  That’s how I choose.  Maybe it’s not the correct or best way to prepare a recital, because I don’t do things in chronological order.

BD:   You don’t go from early to late?

Scandiuzzi:   That’s what I mean.  I mix it up.  The audience is more sympathetic to that.
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BD:   In the song recital you try to be yourself, but operatic characters must be assumed and portrayed.

Scandiuzzi:   Yes.  I have to find the character for the role, and this is half of the work.  For example, for Fiesco in Simon Boccanegra, you must find the three colors that it needs.  He must be vindictive in the last duet.  He has to be as a stone-face in the first duet, and the third color is a paternal sound during the duet with the tenor, and the very last part of the duet with the baritone.  Those are three most important colors in the voice in this role, and you must find those.  You must work a lot within yourself, because you have to find and pick up these possibilities from yourself.  Also, you must be able to apply it with the music when you are working with a conductor and with other singers.  You have to find the very correct way to give the correct impression and character of the role.

BD:   Is there one correct way, or are there many correct ways?

Scandiuzzi:   Each singer must arrive with one way of doing the character of each role.  It’s too dangerous to have many ways.  For me I have just one way.  My system is to read [laughs], even though I’m not discovering anything new.  First, I must know all of the words.  Secondly, I have to be sure about the phrasing of the musical line.  You have to be sure about the intention and intensity of each phrase, and thirdly, if you can, you have to prepare the historical personality of the role if he was a historical figure.

BD:   If he was a real person, not fiction?

Scandiuzzi:   Yes.  You can find out a lot of things about him, and you can prepare a very good mix between the music, the words, and the character.  You have these possibilities going in the same way to prepare the role, and you can find many possibilities, especially if the voice is not so good.  But I have one way for myself to arrive at the end result.  There are many, many possibilities, because many old singers with fantastic voices, or not so fantastic voices, have shown us the possibility to have a very, very good character in a role.  Maybe they found the historical way in books to prepare the history of the character of the role, or maybe just by following the music.  You can find that character, but you’re right.  There are many possibilities to get there.  What’s important is the final correct expression of the role.

BD:   The reason I ask is because you arrive at this correct idea, but then you get other input from the stage director.

Scandiuzzi:   Yes, but first of all, the singer has to prepare himself, and correct my understanding when I’m not so sure about the meaning of the words, when they are not Italian.  Sometimes I sing in Russian, and it’s not so easy to find a correct meaning of the Russian words.  You have to find the musical line, and then a big part of the work is ready.  If you just follow the musical line, you have a big part of the role already developed.

BD:   Is there any character that you sing, or might sing, that is too close to the real Roberto Scandiuzzi?

Scandiuzzi:   Yes, maybe a few parts.  I love to sing just three or four pieces which are good for me, and where I can do the best of my job.  I can sing at the top of my form.  L’Elisir d’amore has one of my favorite pieces.  The last duet with the baritone in Simon Boccanegra is another one I love, and one more piece is the duet between Padre Guardiano and Leonora in La Forza del Destino.  A fourth one is completely different, but I love it and it’s very close to me, and this is the serenade from Don Giovanni!  Maybe I have many, many faces [both laugh], but you can see that each piece has a different personality, and they are, by far, the four closest to me.

BD:   Do you enjoy playing older men?  [He was 38 at the time of this conversation, being born (as he told me later) on Bastille Day, 1958.]

Scandiuzzi:   No!  I’m getting older now, but you never see me with make-up like an old man.  Every one of those four different personalities was not old.  Historically, Philip II was about thirty-five or thirty-six.  In the presentations of the opera he is older, but not very, very old.  He was a man with full power, with all of his faculties.  Fiesco is quite old, but he also has full power.  Padre Guardiano is not old...  Usually all of these parts are played older, and I don’t know why.  If you are to watch my picture of each role, I am never old.  It’s the color and the intensity of the accent that makes the role.  Again, it’s the musical line.  That’s enough.  It’s stupid to use lots of white make-up because the character is not an old man.  It’s not important to be old to explain this character.

BD:   Is it important to be wise, and to have wisdom and experience of age?
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Scandiuzzi:   Yes, certainly.  It is this, but you can have experience at the age of twenty.  Philip II was not old when he married Elisabeth.  Don Giovanni?  Absolutely not!  Padre Guardino was about thirty-eight or forty, and that’s not old!

BD:   To us, at the end of the 20th century, it’s not old, but a hundred years ago, it might have been regarded as old.

Scandiuzzi:   No.  The experience was quicker.  [Laughs]  Also, on the opera stage, there’s another problem.  It’s impossible to find a very young Leonora.  So, to make a Leonora seem young, you must make Padre Guardiano older.  To make Elisabeth very young, she would then have to be a girl of fourteen or sixteen years old, no more.  So, you must make Philip II very old.  That’s the problem for the stage, not for the music, and not the history.

BD:   So, the bass is the victim, and must make the adjustment?  [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at left, see my interviews with Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Robert Lloyd, Robin Leggate, Sylvia McNair, and Bernard Haitink.]

Scandiuzzi:   Many times!  Many times, the bass is the victim!  [Much laughter]
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BD:   In opera, where is the balance between art and entertainment?

Scandiuzzi:   [Laughs]  Now it’s very difficult to keep these two things separated.  The public wants to see entertainment, and opera is very close to the entertainment that they see on the television or in the cinema.  For the opera it’s very difficult to keep those two things separate.  We have to mix them up sometimes.  I don’t know why we do, but sometimes we do this.  I’m not sure if it can help to mix entertainment with the art, and I’m not sure it’s the right solution to mix them, but we have to do it to get an audience.

BD:   Is opera for everyone?

Scandiuzzi:   Yes, opera is for everyone.  Yes, absolutely.  It must be for everyone.  To mix the entertainment with the opera may be a new way to bring the opera to everybody.  Maybe it’s a good way to do this, but the opera has to be for everybody, absolutely.  Every kind of music has to be for everyone, and if they like it, okay.  If they don’t, they can go to another place, but there has to be the possibility for everyone to know about it.  Every kind of art has to be shown to every level of society.  Then they can make a choice.

BD:   Are you part of a lineage, a heritage of great Italian basses?

Scandiuzzi:   First of all, my God is Cesare Siepi.  Many people compare me to him, and sometimes to another singer, but I’m sure that I’ve nothing to do with them.  Certainly not Boris Christoff.

BD:   Perhaps not Boris Christoff, but what about Tancredi Pasero, or somebody like that?

Scandiuzzi:   I love his work, but as I told you, my God for me in my vocal repertoire is Cesare Siepi, and also Ezio Pinza.  Siepi is the most important singer in the bass voice in this century, and maybe after the last War, for the color, for the accent, for phrasing, for diction, for his musicality, and for his personality on stage.  Nobody can do Don Giovanni like him. Nobody can do better than him, not Samuel Ramey, not Ruggero Raimondi, and I don’t know who else.

BD:   Do you try?

Scandiuzzi:   I try, but not to be the same!  I love it.  It’s a fantastic role for a bass.

BD:   Is there competition amongst basses?

Scandiuzzi:   Of course!  Every time there’s a competition.  If not, the quality goes down.  There has to be a competition, and always with the respect of each other’s quality.  You must know your limit, but you have to be in competition every time.

BD:   You are in competition with others.  Are you in competition with yourself?

Scandiuzzi:   Every time, also.  If not, you are finished.  It’s a competition every time from when you get up until you go to sleep again.  Absolutely, it has to be like that, I’m sure.

BD:   Are you at the point in your career that you want to be at this still young age?

Scandiuzzi:   I don’t understand the significance of that.  I’m not young.  I’m quite ready to be a singer for the bass voice.  I’m not young as a man, but as a singer I’m quite ready to be a good bass, but not yet!  Basses start at thirty-three or thirty-five, so I’m starting.  I’ve been singing for seventeen years.  I started very young, but it’s a very good choice if your voice can do it.  For me it was a big learning experience to be on stage, and have the possibility to sing with many big conductors.  I had a very big chance to know Carlo Maria Giulini, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo  Muti, Claudio Abbado, and Georg Solti.

BD:   These men all like the voice.

Scandiuzzi:   Yes, they like to work with the voice.  They use the voice as an instrument.  They want to complete the orchestra with the voice.  That’s correct, because if you have first the orchestra, second the voice, you never have a good balance.  You must push everyone together.  The voice is also an instrument, and you must use it like an instrument.  The singer has to be very careful, and also the conductor.

BD:   Can we assume that you don’t want to be used as a cello?

Scandiuzzi:   [Laughs]  Not too much!

BD:   Thank you for speaking with me today.  I wish you continued success.

Scandiuzzi:   Thank you.

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See my interviews with Denyce Graves, Paul Groves, Jane Bakken Klaviter, Neil Shicoff, Carol Vaness
Piero Cappuccilli, Daniela Dessì, Miguel Ángel Gómez-Martínez, Thomas Hampson, and Franz Welser-Möst



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See my interviews with Ghena Dimitrova, Cecilia Gasdia, Piero De Palma, and Nancy Gustafson


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© 1996 Bruce Duffie

This conversation was recorded at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, on June 21, 1996.  Portions were broadcast on WNIB in 2001.  This transcription was made in 2025, and posted on this website at that time.  My thanks to British soprano Una Barry for her help in preparing this website presentation.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.  To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

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Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001.  His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests.  He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago.  You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.