Pier Miranda Ferraro

Pier Miranda Ferraro (October 30, 1924 – January 18, 2008) was an Italian operatic tenor who had an active international opera career from 1951 through 1981. He particularly excelled in the dramatic Italian repertoire with his signature role being the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's opera Otello. Other important roles in his performance repertoire included Radames in Verdi's Aida, Alvaro in La Forza del Destino, and de Grieux in Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut. He also found success in the German repertoire portraying Wagnerian heroes. Although he was a gifted singer and had a highly impressive list of performance credits, he never achieved the international recognition enjoyed by his most important contemporaries, such as Franco Corelli or Mario Del Monaco. After retiring from the opera stage in 1981 he took up a second highly successful career as a voice teacher.

Born Pietro Ferraro in Altivole, Ferraro took his stage name from his wife's first name. He was trained by Mirko Bonomi at the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello in Venice and by Aureliano Pertile at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan. He made his professional opera debut as Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan in 1951. That same year he began performing at La Scala where he sang often through 1972. His first major triumph at that house was as Achille in Christoph Willibald Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide in 1959.

...
Wikipedia