Louis Quilico
'I am Italian-French-Canadian. And I am sorry to say it, but I still can sing.' - Louis Quilico
Louis Quilico, the Canadian baritone who gained international acclaim for his performances of the title role in Verdi's Rigoletto, was born in Montreal on 14 January 1925 to an Italian father and a French-Canadian mother. He studied with Frank H Rowe and with Teresa Pediconi and Riccardo Stracciari at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Quilico sang in more than five hundred performances of Verdi's opera, and he became known as 'Mr Rigoletto'. He worked for the New York Metropolitan Opera for twenty-five years, previously winning the Met's 'Auditions of the Air' early in his career, in 1955. A favourite of Darius Milhaud, Quilico sang in the première of La Mère Coupable, and he appeared all over the world ... alongside Joan Sutherland in La Traviata at the UK's Covent Garden in 1960, at the Paris Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Bolshoi, at Italy's Spoleto Festival, New York City Opera and locally at the Opéra du Québec and the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto.
He recorded extensively with his second wife, pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico.
Louis Quilico died suddenly on 15 July 2000 in Toronto, aged seventy-five.
Further information: louisquilico.com