Mario Sereni
Italian baritone Mario Sereni was born in Perugia on 25 March 1928. After studies at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia and the Accademia Chigiana, he began singing professionally in 1953 at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and from 1957 he sang for twenty-seven seasons at New York Metropolitan Opera. He also guested at the Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco opera houses, and at Vienna State Opera, La Scala Milan and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
He was Germont in two well-known performances of Verdi's La traviata - the 'Lisbon traviata' (1985, with Maria Callas and Alfredo Kraus) and the 'Karajan Traviata' (1964, with Anna Moffo and Renato Cioni at La Scala).
Mario Sereni retired in 1986 and died in Perugia on 24 July 2015, aged eighty-seven.