Julián Gayarre

Sebastián Julián Gayarre Garjón (9 January 1844 in Roncal, Navarre – 2 January 1890 in Madrid), better known as Julián Gayarre, was a Spanish opera singer who created the role of Marcello in Donizetti's Il Duca d'Alba and Enzo in Ponchielli's La Gioconda.

Although he faced strong competition for this title from the likes of Roberto Stagno, Italo Campanini, Angelo Masini and Francesco Tamagno, Gayarre was regarded by many late 19th-century music commentators as being the supreme Italianate tenor of his generation.

The man who was to become one of Europe's most celebrated singers was born and raised in a Basque family in the small Pyrenean town of Roncal. The third child of Mariano Gayarre and Maria Ramona Garjón, a couple of modest means, he left school at 13 to work as a shepherd. When he was 15, his father sent him to Pamplona to work in a shop. It was there that he had his first contact with music. It was a passion that would cost him his job when he was fired for leaving the shop to follow a band that was parading in the street outside.

He then worked as a blacksmith in the village of Lumbier and later in Pamplona at the Pinaqui foundry. One of his fellow workers, who heard him singing as he worked, encouraged him to join the Orfeón Pamplonés, the city's newly formed choir directed by Joaquin Maya. Maya took him on as first tenor and introduced him to the celebrated music teacher and composer, Hilarión Eslava. Eslava, struck by the beautiful timbre of the yet untrained voice, arranged a scholarship for Gayarre to study at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. His first public performance was in 1867 with a zarzuela company in Tudela under the stage name of "Sandoval".

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