Opera Scotland

Fernando Corena Suggest updates

Born Geneva, 22 December 1916.

Died Lugano, 26 November 1984.

Swiss bass.

Fernando Corena was one of the leading performers of comic bass and baritone roles in Italian opera, especially those of Rossini and Donizetti, but also including Verdi (Melitone, Falstaff) and Puccini (Gianni Schicchi). Other comic roles included Varlaam in Boris Godunov. Early in his career he also performed serious parts such as Scarpia, Escamillo and Sparafucile.

He initially studied theology at Freiburg University. After switching to singing in 1937, he spent a season with the Geneva Opera. He trained with Enrico Romano in Milan before joining the Zurich company, being based there 1940-49. In the fifties and sixties he sang with most of the world's leading opera houses, including La Scala, Vienna, the Met, Covent Garden, Buenos Aires, Berlin and the Salzburg Festival.

His three visits to Edinburgh took place as a guest with Glyndebourne, then La Scala and finally the San Carlo. The role he performed most frequently at Covent Garden from 1960 was that of Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia.