Gui, Vittorio (EN)

Gui Vittorio, *14 September 1885 Rome, †17 October 1975 Florence, Italian conductor and composer. He began his musical training under the guidance of his mother, a pupil of G. Sgambati, and subsequently studied at the Liceo Musicale di S. Cecilia in Rome, where his teachers were G. Setaccioli and S. Falchi; he also graduated from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Rome. He made his debut there in 1907, conducting Ponchielli’s Gioconda at the Teatro Adriano; he soon gained great acclaim in Italy and abroad as an opera and concert conductor. At Toscanini’s invitation, he opened the 1923/24 season at La Scala in Milan with a performance of R. Strauss’s Salome, and as a result was offered the post of director of the Società dei Concerti Sinfonici in Milan in 1924. From 1925 to 1927, he was the resident conductor of the newly founded Teatro di Torino. In 1928, he moved to Florence, where he founded an orchestra, which was soon transformed into the Teatro Comunale, which he directed until 1943. He contributed to the revival of musical life in Florence, notably as co-organiser and artistic director (1933–36) of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival, established in 1933. At this festival, he conducted, among others, such rarely performed works as Verdi’s Luisa Miller, Spontini’s La Vestale, Cherubini’s Medea and Gluck’s Armida. In 1933, at the invitation of B. Walter, he appeared at the Salzburg Festival; in 1938, at the invitation of Beecham, he conducted performances of Verdi’s Rigoletto, Tosca and Puccini’s La Bohème at London’s Covent Garden. Numerous guest appearances in Europe’s major centres cemented his reputation as a brilliant interpreter of both Italian opera and the works of Brahms, Debussy and Busoni. During the Second World War, he conducted in Vienna and Berlin. Between 1949 and 1965, he appeared regularly at the festivals in Glyndebourne and Edinburgh, and also conducted as a guest in Moscow and Leningrad, among other places. In 1952, he conducted the much-acclaimed production of Bellini’s Norma with M. Callas at London’s Covent Garden. He made recordings of productions from Glyndebourne: Rossini’s Cinderella (1953), Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Le Comte Ory (1955), and Rossini’s The Barber of Seville (1962). He continued to perform into his old age, conducting for the last time in Italy at the age of 87.

Literature: G. Christie Vittorio Gui 1885–1975. An Appreciation, “Opera” XXVI, 1975; U. Bonafini Vittorio Gui tra musica e poesia, “Discoteca” 1975 No. 156 (with discography).