Grandfather Guido [Venosta], my mother Giorgina Ven osta ‘s father, loved opera music. He had been educated to listen to it and to appreciate it since he was a boy, when he went to La Scala with his parents, dressed ‘in an Eton Jacket [black three-button screwed jacket] and a large starched collar, white of course’. It was the 1920s, and young Guido experienced one of the most beautiful seasons of grand opera: he heard the performances of legendary singers such as the soprano Toti Dal Monte or the tenor Aureliano Pertile, saw Victor de Sabata, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini and Gianandrea Gavazzeni conduct, experienced historic moments such as Giacomo Puccini’s ‘Turandot’ on 25 April 1926, when Toscanini laid his baton on the music stand saying ‘Here ends the performance because at this point the Maestro is dead’ (Puccini had in fact left not even two years earlier, leaving the opera unfinished, G. Venosta, Memoirs, p. 18).
This passion remained with him all his life, and probably also for this reason he got to know and frequent ‘the’ soprano, Maria Callas, famous not only for her voice and interpreting skills, but also for her beauty and intense social life, which filled the magazines for years. Theirs must have been a beautiful friendship, judging by one of the photos in grandfather’s albums, with the affectionate dedication ‘To Guido and Carla [his second wife, Carlo Fossati Bellani] dear friends with much affection. Maria, 1957′.
Sources:
Albiate (MB), Villa San Valerio, Villa San Valerio Archives, Guido Venosta Archives, unpublished “Memoirs”.
G. CAPROTTI, Le Ossa dei Caprotti. Una storia italiana, Milan, 2023
