Biography

Italian tenor and actor Pino de Vittorio has performed in opera and in sacred and secular vocal pieces, but some of his most distinctive recordings are historical investigations into regional Italian folk music forms. Vittorio was born Giuseppe de Vittorio in Leporano, in Italy's Taranto region, home of the tarantella dance. He co-founded the ensemble La Compagnia Pupi e Fresedde, which performed tarantellas, among other folk dance and song forms, in 1976. Vittorio then joined the theatrical company of Roberto de Simone, devoted to works by Simone that toured worldwide, including in the U.S. As an actor, Vittorio has appeared at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, where he also began to find operatic roles in works by Monteverdi (Orfeo), Paisiello, and Stravinsky (L'histoire du soldat, directed by Salvatore Accardo). Later he sang the role of the nurse in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea at the Paris Opéra, conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini and produced by Robert Wilson; the production was repeated at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Later in his career, Vittorio increasingly emphasized Baroque music. With Antonio Florio he founded the Baroque ensemble La Cappella della Pietà dei Turchini, giving concerts at festivals and venues in France, Japan, China, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Israel, and Spain. With this group, Vittorio has appeared in operas by Leonardo Vinci, Domenico Scarlatti, and a host of lesser-known Italian Baroque composers. He has recorded for the Symphonia, Opus 111, Naïve, Eloquentia, and Glossa labels. For the last of these he recorded Occhi Turchini, a collection of Calabrian folk music accompanied by the ensemble Laboratorio '600, in 2017; he has also recorded a similar disc of Sicilian folk music. As a soloist, Vittorio has given concerts for the Accademia Chigiana of Siena, Settembre Musica of Torino, and San Maurizio of Milano. He performed in London for the royal family of England. ~ James Manheim, Rovi