Prominent in mid-twentieth-century American
grand opera and also a star in Europe, tenor Joseph Benton, known
professionally as Giuseppe Bentonelli, was born in Kansas City on September 10, 1898. His
parents, Oliver and Ada Seawell Benton, moved their family to Sayre, Oklahoma,
in 1901, where Joe Benton graduated from high school in 1916. Then the family
moved to Norman, where Benton studied medicine at the University of
Oklahoma (OU). In mid-academic career he switched to music, studied voice, and
received bachelor's degrees in 1920 and 1921. In school Benton befriended future playwright Lynn
Riggs, a fellow student, and helped him with musical notation for Riggs's first
play, Cuckoo (1922). After brief attendance at Chicago
Musical College
and study in France with
Jean de Reszke, Benton
made his operatic debut in 1925. Study in Italy followed, and he Italianized
his name to Giuseppe Bentonelli. Bentonelli's Italian debut came in 1928, after
which he performed in hundreds of operas all across Europe.
Returning to the United States,
in 1934 Benton
made his American debut in Puccini's Tosca with the Chicago Grand Opera
Company. Handsome and charming, he had a voice that the Chicago Tribune music
critic described as "excellent quality and the finest training; it was
mellow, it was flexible, it was expressive and winning." In 1936, while in
New York to perform on a radio show, Benton was asked by the
Metropolitan Opera Company to substitute for the tenor scheduled for Massenet's
Manon, and afterward the company offered him a contract. He continued singing
in New York and Chicago and also toured with the Metropolitan
Opera Quartet. In 1941 Joe Benton decided to retire. He came home to Oklahoma, completed a
master's degree in modern languages at OU in 1941, and in 1944 became a
professor of voice at the university. He retired in 1969. In 1973 he published
his memoirs, Oklahoma Tenor, a modest book of anecdotes about his European
experiences. A Mason, a Presbyterian, and a philanthropist, Benton was a Fellow
of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the American Institute of
Vocal Pedagogy, and the International Association of Teachers of Singing and an
associate member of the International Institute of Arts and Letters. Industion
into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame came in 1951. Joseph Benton, or Giuseppe
Bentonelli, died April 6, 1975, in Norman.
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/B/BE020.html
Chronology of some appearances
1926 Bologna
Teatro Duse Season
1928 Genova Politeama Genovese Traviata (Alfredo)
1929 Mantova Teatro Sociale Manon
(De Grieux)
1930 Lecce Politeama Greco Boheme (Rodolfo)
1931 Bari Teatro Petruzzelli Boheme (Rodolfo)
1932 Asti Teatro Alfieri Manon
Lescaut (De Grieux)
1933 Novara Teatro Coccia Boheme
(Rodolfo)
1934 Piacenza Teatro Municipale Tosca (Cavaradossi)
1935 Philadelphia
Academy of Music Ifigenia in Aulide di C. W. Gluck
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Madama Butterfly (Puccini): Vogliatemi bene with Elizabeth
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Madama Butterfly (Puccini): Via dall'anima in pena with Elizabeth Rethberg
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