Salvatore Licitra sounds like a wonderful star ready to burn up all the
Operatic charts.  His life even sounds like the tale of  Enrique Caruso,
at least as portrayed by Mario Lanza in films.  When I first heard his
"Debut" album from 2003, I was impressed with the beautiful quality
of this man's voice.  Everyone is talking and writing about how he is
set to take the place of  Luciano Pavarotti.  I am not writing about the
end of one man's career and the beginning of anothers.  I will let
Luciano Pavarotti say when it is over for his touring and performing.
In Chicago many had written Mr. Pavarotti off years ago since he
cancelled too many times at our Lyric Opera in Chicago.  His tabloid
behavior from time to time is another thing, but the quality of his voice
is never something of doubt.  Salvatore Licitra has a quality in his
voice that is outstanding, a powerful appearance, a sweet smile, and
career ahead of him that looks boundless.  

His debut album is a tremendous selection of beautiful compositions for the voice and he does each composer proud with his efforts.  This album is highly recommended by our staff.   

His biography below sounds like a movie script waiting for a producer.

SALVATORE LICITRA
Biography

      "For Salvatore Licitra, it's just beginning," the Associated Press predicted in its coverage of the young Italian tenor's sensational Metropolitan Opera debut in May 2002, which it hailed as "the most triumphant" at the house in recent memory.
      
Though he was not scheduled for a formal Met debut until the 2004-05, Licitra stepped in on short notice to replace the ailing Luciano Pavarotti as Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca, in a gala performance in the house on Saturday, May 11, 2002. Singing not only to a  long-sold-out house expecting to hear Pavarotti but alsosome 3,000 fans watching a live      telecast in the plaza outside the Met, Licitra won over the crowd in a performance that The New York Times described as "the starry anointing of a potential successor," capped with "an ecstatic standing ovation." "It was his athletic and ardent singing that  won you over ... He is a genuine find, an exciting tenor with a big, dark-hued and  muscular voice," Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times wrote of Licitra's  performance, noting his "viscerally powerful" top notes and his "ability to shape long      pianissimo phrases with sensitivity."
     
It was only in November of 2001 that Salvatore Licitra sang in the U.S. for the first time,  at the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala. In reviewing that performance, Anne Midgette of The New York Times described him as "an Italian tenor with a deep baritonal lower register, a brighter upper register, and strong secure high notes that in true Italian tenor      tradition, he was happy to hold out for ages in "Ma se m'e forza perderti' from Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. If he could withstand the inevitable "fourth tenor' hype, he could be one to watch."
      
An exclusive Sony Classical recording artist, Licitra collaborates with tenor Marcelo Alvarez on his latest recording Duetto, a collection of new romantic ballads created especially for the two singers by a carefully selected group of the greatest writers and arrangers working in music today. Duetto will be released internationally in the summer.

Licitra and Alvarez reunite on June 12 for Duetto - The Concert at the Roman Colosseum, an outdoor concert performance featuring the music of Duetto, to be filmed for subsequent broadcast on RAI Uno, BBC, PBS Great Performances and Arte, with home video release to follow.
      
Salvatore Licitra: The Debut - the tenor's first operatic recital disc, released in summer  2002 - features the most celebrated tenor arias from the operas of Verdi and Puccini,  including the two Tbsca arias that won him thunderous ovations in his Met debut. The tenor had already established himself with the listening public, most notably in his first      complete opera recording of La Scala's Verdi centenary production of Il Trovatore, with  Riccardo Multi conducting, featuring Barbara Frittoli, Leo Nucci and Violetta Urmana.
      
Licitra made his Sony Classical debut in 2000 on the soundtrack of the Sally Potter film The Man Who Cried, for which he is the singing voice of actor John Turturro, performing arias from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers and Tosca, among others.
 

Licitra's 2002-03 season included performances of Tosca and a new production of Simon Boccanegra at the Vienna State Opera; Tosca and a new production of Un Ballo in Maschera in Zurich; a new production of Un Ballo in Maschera that toured several Italian cities. The tenor made his debut in Munich in Tosca, and in Tel Aviv in Un Ballo in Maschera. He also made concert debuts in San Francisco/Berkeley, Orange County
CA and Vancouver. On January 23, 2003, Licitra made a triumphant return to New York in a concert performance of La Forza del Destino, under the auspices of Robert Bass's Collegiate Chorale. The New York Times praised his voice for possessing "a firm, baritonal quality, all the way up to solid, blossoming top notes ... he warmed up into some affecting singing in gorgeous rivers of sound." Newsdav cited "the classic tenor
virtues" in Licitra's singing: "high notes with a bright trumpet glare, low ones that are weighty and clear and a voice with an internal combustion that keeps it always revving into the next phrase ... he also has what everyone craves in a singer: personality."
 
Though he has already enjoyed great acclaim for his appearances at La Scala, the mammoth Arena of Verona, and other prestigious Italian and European opera companies, Salvatore Licitra discovered his voice by accident. When he was 18 he and his parents were vacationing in Sicily, where he had taken a summer job as a graphic artist. One day, after work, he at home listening to the radio and heard someone sing a song he liked. He started imitating the singer on the radio, when his mother called the garden, "WHO is that singing?!" When he told her it had been he, she was surprised at the basic quality of the voice and urged him to seek a teacher.
 
While still a graphic artist, he joined a chorus, singing in churches and concerts. The chorus master was a woman who also gave private lessons on the side. Young Salvatore became a student of hers, but when she felt she could no longer give him the kind of lessons he needed she turned him over to a woman who had taught her. He stayed with her for a number of years only to discover that natural voice had almost been ruined. As if guided by divine intervention, he came to the attention of Carlo Bergonzi, the famous tenor of the latter part of the last century. Bit by bit, the old master found again the fundamental voice that had been there from the start and began building on its natural foundation. It was in this study period that Licitra felt positive enough about his voice to enter 6 different voice competitions - and lost all of them. (None of those who won, however, have made a career so far.) He also began appearing in legitimate opera productions in small roles, like Gastone in La Traviata.
 
In 1998 he auditioned for the Arena of Verona and received a contact to cover the tenor leads in Rigoletto, Aida and Un Ballo in Maschera. At one rehearsal he had to step in for the tenor who was to sing the role of king Gustavo at the opening night of Un Ballo in Maschera. After the rehearsal Daniel Oren, the conductor, was so impressed with Licitra that he insisted the young tenor be given the premiere, instead of the other tenor.
 
Fortified by the great audience reception and by glowing reviews, the rather inexperienced young tenor did something that is typical of innocent rashness - he auditioned for the pinnacle of Italian opera houses, La Scala. This audition was, of all things, for the fiendishly difficult role of Don Alvaro in La Forza del Destino, which was to be mounted in new production under the baton of La Scala's music director, Riccardo  Muti. Although the maestro was not at that first audition he heard enough positive  reports about it that he asked for a separate private audition that landed Licitra a
contract to make his La Scala debut in the alternate cast of La Forza del Destino. His success in that production led to follow-up engagements at La Scala as Cavaradossi in Tosca, Gustavo in a new production of Un Ballo in Maschera, Don Alvaro in La Forza del Destino during the La Scala tour in Japan, Macduff in a new production of Macbeth and  Manrico in the new production of Il Trovatore which not only opened the 2000/2001  season of La Scala but also was its first homage to Verdi in the year-long centennial of his death.
   
When a young tenor with such credentials appears on the scene, the international houses, of course, take notice. Already behind him are debuts at the Vienna State Opera and the companies of Rome, Zurich, Lisbon, etc. while future commitments  between now and 2006 include debuts at the Paris Bastille Opera, London's Covent Garden, Munich's Bavarian State Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and returns to La Scala, the Arena of Verona, the Metropolitan Opera, etc. On the immediate horizon his   new repertoire will include leading roles in Aida, Andrea Chenier, Pagliacci, Cavalleria Rusticana, Adriana Lecouvreur, Simon Boccanegra, Norma, Aida and Turandot.
   
As the English critic Rupert Christiansen wrote after hearing him in the above-mentioned  Il Trovatore. "Licitra's vocal promise is sensational."