Was Mario perfectly fluent in Italian?

[Joe Fagan]

I know he had a working knowledge of the language but I have often
wondered if he spoke it 100% while living in Italy ( to the natives,
not his family)

[Armando]

Hi Joe: Lanza spoke Italian pretty well. It naturally improved during
his more than two years stay in Italy. By the time of his death only
the occasional word, such as portafoglio, which means wallet, eluded
him. The reason for this one is most likely the fact that he never
carried a wallet as he preferred to carry his money in bundles of
notes.
Betty had also made considerable progress with the language. As far as
I know none of the staff at the Villa Badoglio spoke English, which
meant that the Lanzas had to communicate with them in Italian.

[wayne.a...@googlemail.com]

Yes, I did a poll on this with various Italian friends. They are not
music lovers and were not really Lanza fans. I played them some
recordings of Lanza speaking in Italian from Great Caruso and also
some arias and songs. They all agreed he had a powerful 'Italian-
American' accent when he spoke. That really is how it should be I
feel.

[Armando]

Wayne: Your Italian friends are wrong. Lanza didn’t have even a hint
of an Italian American accent, let alone a powerful one. The lines
spoken in The Great Caruso, “Quella strega, quella dannata….. Io non
ci ritono….. Questa volta l’ho fatta grossa davvero.” have no trace of
an accent, not even the Abruzzese, which is the dialect he grew up
with. What they reveal, though, is the typical delivery of someone
who didn’t speak Italian on a regular basis.

On Jan 14, 2:03 am, "wayne.alling...@googlemail.com"

[Derek McGovern]

On Jan 13, 10:21 pm, Armando <cesar...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi Joe: Lanza spoke Italian pretty well. It naturally improved during
> his more than two years stay in Italy. By the time of his death only
> the occasional word, such as portafoglio, which means wallet, eluded
> him. The reason for this one is most likely the fact that he never
> carried a wallet as he preferred to carry his money in bundles of
> notes.

Ciao Armando: Your mention of the occasion when Lanza couldn't recall
the word "portafoglio" reminded how much I'd like to hear that long-
lost segment of his 1959 RAI Radio interview again. As I recall it,
Mario was jabbering away perfectly fluently in Italian (talking about
Koussevitzky, I think, but I could be wrong; it's over 20 years since
I heard it!), when suddenly he stopped and asked the interviewer,
"Come si dice 'wallet' in italiano?" I also remember him telling the
interviewer (in Italian) that he was born in 1925 :-)

But at least we still have the portion in which he introduces his
family. It's charming, and Lanza (only weeks away from his death)
sounds as though he doesn't have a care in the world. Here's the link
for those who haven't heard this recording. This version also includes
a lengthy preamble in Italian (mentioning, among other things, Lanza's
funeral in Rome the next day), together with the superior Great Caruso
version of Because. Mario starts speaking at the 3.05 mark:

http://www.4shared.com/file/80545959/1bf629ef/RAI_Radio_--_La_Mia_Vita_per_il_Canto__broadcast_October_1959_.html

10 years earlier, of course, he'd also spoken impressively (albeit
briefly) in Italian on the hilarious Life with Luigi live radio show
with J. Carroll Naish:

http://www.4shared.com/file/80544759/a9d46380/J_Carroll_Naish__Lanza_--_Life_with_Luigi_radio_show__Nov_1949_.html
(Mario comes on at the 3.35 mark)

And for those who haven't heard this programme before, here's a much
better-sounding version of the live Mamma Mia, Che Vo' Sape that Lanza
sings at the end. It's not up to the standard of his classic RCA
version from that same year, though, so I hope it doesn't find its way
on to youtube!

http://www.4shared.com/file/80544837/136aae3c/Mamma_Mia_Che_Vo_Sape__live_radio_--_Life_with_Luigi_1949_.html

[Joe Fagan]

great stuff Derek, thanks! Also, thanks to Armando for his usual precise and
quick response!

[Armando]

Ciao Derek: I don’t recall much of what was said on that RAI segment
but the wallet bit stuck in my mind.

Listening to his speaking in Italian on both the RAI and the Life of
Luigi that you posted, what I hear in his Italian pronunciation here,
which I do not detect in the brief The Great Caruso phrases, is his
Abbruzzese origins. Other than that the words flow freely with only
the occasional minor slip such as saying “Ti piace scuola’ instead of
“Ti piace ‘la’ scuola.”
But pronunciation wise, his Italian is very good and there’s no trace
of American in it.

By the way, does the British Lanza Society have the entire RAI
segment? Or perhaps the Lanza Museum. It would be good to hear it
again in its entirety.

[Derek McGovern]

Ciao Armando: That's very interesting about the Abruzzese accent. In
The Great Caruso, of course, he was following a screenplay -- and was
therefore more conscious of *how* he pronounced the Italian phrases --
whereas in the Rome interview he was relaxed & speaking naturally
without a script. That would explain why he reverted to the accent of
the dialect that he'd grown up speaking. As for the Italian that he
speaks on the Life with Luigi show, he may have spontaneously come up
with those sentences himself rather than following a script for that
segment. It makes sense.

I'd be surprised if the Mario Lanza Institute holds the complete RAI
Radio La Mia Vita per il Canto programme (the one broadcast on October
4th, 1959), but the BMLS may well have a copy (though they didn't in
the 1980s, when I was a member). However, one has to join them in
order to find out what items they have! Perhaps one of our BMLS
members could check on our behalf. I understand that the BMLS sends
out a list of all available merchandise to members on signing up.

Cheers,
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

I've just been re-reading this old thread after noticing that one of the search terms on this site today was "Did Lanza speak Italian?"

Of course, the answer is yes, as Armando explains in some interesting posts above. And just to update this 2009 thread, the English translations (courtesy of Armando) for two of Lanza's interviews in Italian can be read alongside their sound files here:

http://www.mariolanzatenor.com/audio-interviews.html#rome

(The first one is in St. Peter's Square in July 1957; the second---at the bottom of the page---is from September 1959.)

Incidentally, I would still like to hear from anyone in the British Mario Lanza Society as to whether the Society owns the complete Lanza RAI programme of 4 October 1959 (see the previous two posts). This programme included a longer interview with Lanza in Italian, and among the topics discussed was his first meeting with Koussevitzky. I'd love to hear the complete programme again!

Cheers,

Derek