Ines Talamo : Information needed.

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epigramophone
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Ines Talamo : Information needed.

Post by epigramophone »

I have recently acquired a copy of Italian Columbia D4951, a c1925 record featuring two songs from "La Danza delle Libellule" sung by Ines Talamo, solo on one side and with Alfredo Poggianti on the other. Poggianti gets a mention on the Forgotten Opera Singers website, but I can find no biographical details for Ines Talamo. Can anyone help?

I have discovered that "La Danza delle Libelulle" (The Dance of the Dragonflies) re-used music by Franz Lehar from his unsuccessful operetta "Der Sterngucker" (The Star Gazer), not that Lehar's name appears anywhere on the record label!

melvind
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Re: Ines Talamo : Information needed.

Post by melvind »

I found this link that has a discography for her as well as a link to a short biography. Not much info, but something. In Italian, but pretty easy to translate with something like google translate.

http://www.ildiscobolo.net/CANTANTI%20P ... 20HOME.htm

epigramophone
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Re: Ines Talamo : Information needed.

Post by epigramophone »

Thank you. I found that website too. It has no information on dates of birth and death etc, but I will keep searching.

What is interesting is that she recorded more songs from "La Danza delle Libellule" on Columbia D4912 and D5340, but the discography does not include D4951. That record was from a large collection which I and two collector friends recently exhumed from a damp decrepit barn in deepest darkest Somerset. It was one of the few gems among the dross.

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Marco Gilardetti
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Re: Ines Talamo : Information needed.

Post by Marco Gilardetti »

I have searched for Ines Talamo in the Italian Song Dictionary by Gino Gastaldo and Renzo Arbore, and the authors once again remark that (very unusually, for a singer who was so famous) nearly nothing is known about her biography. Incidentally, Gastaldo & Arbore mark her interpretation of Vipera as superlative.

Her birth data is desumed by mere speculation. Due to the fact that the lyrics of Una Spagnola Di Nola were custom-taylored around her, Enzo Giannelli deduces that Nola might be her birthplace. The birth date is set "after 1895" by the same author, but there is no clue about why he thinks it is so; it is possibly just a gross approximation considered her reported age in the years in which she was already famous.

Another research by a private citizen reports that in the Monumental Cemetery of Milan, Edicola "R" di Ponente Inferiore, Colombaro "H", Loculo 10, a madame Ines Talamo is buried. Being "Ines Talamo" a very uncommon name & surname combo in Italy, it is very unlikely a case of homonimy. The death date is reported being July the 30th 1972.

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