Antonio Cortis - Recondita armonia

Antonio Cortis (1891-1952) was born Antonio Tomás Montón Corts aboard a ship in the Alboran Sea between Algeria and Spain. The son of a shoemaker (who, sadly, died a week before his birth) young Antonio was raised in Valencia and Madrid. His mother encouraged the youngster’s musical aspirations and helped to secure a scholarship to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid. He entered the school at the tender age of eight to study composition and violin, with the intention of becoming, obviously, a composer or violinist. His vocal talents were soon discovered, however, and he became a member of the children’s chorus of Madrid’s Teatro Real. When the family relocated to Barcelona, he was accepted into the children’s choir of the Gran Teatro del Liceu. At eighteen, he entered the Municipal Conservatory, focusing on vocal studies. Still singing in the chorus of the Liceu (now as a tenor), he made his stage debut as Gastone in La Traviata in 1912. He changed his name from Corts to Cortis and continued singing in Spain and Italy, primarily in comprimario roles. A 1917 engagement in Buenos Aires led to Cortis sharing the stage with Enrico Caruso in a production of Pagliacci. Caruso was impressed with his young colleague’s voice and took Cortis under his wing. Years later, Cortis recalled that the great tenor took the time to teach him the niceties of social graces and even showed him how to dress properly. Cortis never forgot the great man’s encouragement and support. Although Caruso’s offer to take the young tenor with him to the U.S. was politely turned down, the older tenor’s influence helped Cortis’ career take off in the right direction.

During the course of the next decade, Cortis was busy on both sides of the Atlantic, namely in Rome, Naples, Madrid, London, Berlin, Monte Carlo, Buenos Aires, Havana, Boston and San Francisco. In 1924, the tenor began his association with the Chicago opera, where he was a popular fixture until 1932. Known as “Il Piccolo Caruso”, Cortis cultivated a repertoire of over two dozen roles in such operas as Tosca, Manon Lescaut, La Bohème, Turandot, La Fanciulla del West, Andrea Chénier, La Cena delle Beffe, Pagliacci, Cavalleria Rusticana, Iris, La Gioconda, Lucia di Lammermoor, Aïda, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, La Traviata, Dinorah, Carmen, Faust, Werther and Manon. When the Great Depression took hold of the U.S. in the early 1930s, Cortis decided to return to Spain. Sadly, not long after the tenor had arrived in his homeland, the Spanish Civil War erupted. Although he was not politically involved on either side of the revolution (as was his friend and fellow tenor, Miguel Fleta), the conflict made it difficult for Cortis to travel freely. By the time hostilities had ceased in Spain in 1939, war had broken out in Europe, restricting the tenor’s career even further. Although he had amassed a fortune during his twenty-year career, the Spanish Civil War and the worldwide economic depression had wiped the tenor out financially. Desperate for money, Cortis continued to give sporadic performances with second rate provincial companies throughout the 1940s until a final Tosca in Saragossa in 1950. He opened a singing school in Valencia in the early 1940s and also found time to write a number of vocal works. Ill health had plagued the tenor during the final decade of his life and he died at his home in Denia, near Valencia, in the spring of 1952 at the age of sixty.

Antonio Cortis is not as well remembered today as his recordings suggest he should be. Although he enjoyed a lucrative career on three continents, success at two of the world’s biggest opera houses eluded him. Possibly because of competition from the likes of Merli, Schipa and Pertile, Cortis was never quite able to get a foothold at La Scala and he never even set foot on the stage of New York’s Metropolitan Opera. In addition, Cortis’ love for his homeland may have led to his declining offers to sing in the Americas during a period (the 1930s) when his career could have used a bit of a boost. Despite the fact that Antonio Cortis never became a household name, even among opera fans, he left behind scores of recordings, made for the Gramophone Company, Parlophone, Victor and HMV between 1918 and 1930. These recordings showcase a big spinto voice, well suited for the verismo heroes he so often portrayed on stage. In this recording, Cortis sings Cavaradossi's first act aria, "Recondita armonia" from Puccini's Tosca. This was recorded in Milan for HMV on September 19, 1929.

Видео Antonio Cortis - Recondita armonia канала Dead Tenors' Society