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Nino Ederle (1892-1951) was an Italian lyric tenor whose career stretched across the two decades between the world wars. Born in Verona, Ederle made his debut as Ernesto in Don Pasquale at the Teatro Sociale in the Lombard city of Revere in 1919. Although he possessed an exceptionally beautiful lyric voice and cut a dashing figure on the stage, his ascent in the opera business was rather slow. In the five or six years following his debut, Ederle seemed stuck in the Italian provinces, with appearances in the smaller theaters of Asti, Verona, Genoa, Livorno and a few other cities. It wasn’t until the end of 1925 that he received an offer to sing at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. After a successful series of performances at the celebrated theater…including the Duke in Rigoletto, Fenton in Falstaff, Elvino in La Sonnambula and Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore…Ederle’s star began to rise. Early in 1926 came the tenor’s first appearance at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome as Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia followed by a summer tour in South America. 1929 saw Ederle’s debut at Milan’s famed La Scala as the Duke, followed by appearances in Modena, Turin, Ancona and Trieste. Although he spent the majority of his career in Italy, there were sporadic appearances in Madrid, Lisbon, Malta, London and Augsburg, and Ederle spent the entire 1931/32 season at the State Theater in Zurich. In 1934, Ederle set foot on the stage of Venice’s Teatro La Fenice for the first time as Fenton in Falstaff and sang Matteo in the first Italian performances of Strauss’ Arabella at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa in January of 1936. This would prove to be Ederle’s last major assignment and he soon found himself relegated to the secondary provincial theaters once again. Following a final Almaviva at the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele in Turin early in 1942, the 49-year-old tenor retired from the stage and devoted himself to teaching. Nino Ederle passed away in Milan in 1951 at the age of 59. Nino Ederle was a gifted tenor whose nuanced interpretations…even in his day…harkened back to an earlier era. His sense of legato and his use of vocal ornamentation, not to mention his ravishing mezza voce, recall the art of 19th century bel canto. His repertoire of nearly thirty roles included leads in all the typical works…La Traviata, La Sonnambula, La Favorita, Lucia di Lammermoor, Die Entführung aus dem Serail (sung in Italian, of course), Mignon, Madama Butterfly and Gianni Schicchi…as well as many of the NOT so typical works… Crispino e la Comare, Papà Martin, Un Caso Singolar, I Quattri Rustighi, Le Preziose Ridicole and Le Furie di Arlecchino. Ederle was not terribly well known outside of Italy and is, unfortunately, practically forgotten today. The recorded legacy of Nino Ederle consists of over 50 discs made during the 1920s for such labels as Phonotype, Columbia, Parlophon, Fonotipia, Odeon and Brunswick.
