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*Comment on Facebook*by Frederick M. Winship, Tucson Daily Citizen, May 6, 1961
Tenor Franco Corelli, the opera world's only genuine matinee idol, probably gets more love letters than any married man outside Hollywood.
But they're from Italian and French girls, not Americans.
"I attract mostly young, very beautiful girls," said the darkly handsome young giant whose golden voice created a sensation at the Metropolitan Opera this year. "In Italy and France they write about love. In America they write for photographs. How you figure that?"
It figures, chimed in chic, red-haired Mrs. Loretta Corelli, that American girls respect marriage.
"Everybody knows Franco is married," she said. "That stops them from writing love letters in America - but not in Europe! I know because I read all those love letters first, and I answer them, too."
Female fans with designs on the curly-haired Corelli must be ready to cope with Loretta, who admittedly serves as her husband's secretary, translator, promoter, cook, washer, ironer, mender and general go-between even though they are in the top opera income bracket. Loretta accompanies him to the opera house and brings him home.
"I don't worry about all the beautiful women he meets," she said. "Franco not leave me. Where else he get a wife who works like me? He needs me and he love me. He has no interest to look farther."
The Corellis are an extremely self-contained couple. They have dined together in their hotel suite on Loretta's ample Italian cuisine almost every night since they arrived here three months ago, in spite of many invitations.
"I like to go out, but a singer is like a boxer," said Corelli, slipping into Italian. "I must keep in training. I think only of my voice and whether I am singing well. I do not think about amusing myself." "That's another reason I don't have to worry," said Loretta. "At heart he's a hermit."
Loretta explained that her husband's intense preoccupation with his career is because success came to him almost overnight. He was a 23-year-old mechanical draftsman in his native Ancona, Italy, when he discovered he had a singing voice. He enrolled in a conservatory and lost his voice in three months. He brought it back by self-study, entered the famous Florence May musical competition in 1951 [1949], and won a scholarship.
Corelli soon made a name in Florence and accepted offers to sing opera in Spoleto and Rome before he knew a complete opera role. In 1954 he was given a contract by La Scala of Milan, the bellwether of opera companies, and contracts with the Naples, Rome and Metropolitan operas followed. Today at 35 [40], he is world-renowned as "The Second Caruso."
"His success still seems mysterious to him," said his wife. "At first he suspected the public liked him because he was handsome. They called him 'golden thighs' and women paid extra to sit in boxes next to the stage when he sang. Now he knows that his voice is his real success."
Loretta met the tenor during backstage visit with friends [in reality, they met at the Rome Opera in 1952, where Loretta had already been singing for years when Franco joined the company]. It was "love at first sight" but they waited four years to get married because Corelli wanted to be sure his career would provide "a solid life with money."
"Now he's going to give me a gift for how hard I work - my first mink coat," confided Loretta. "I give myself a gift for how hard I work, too," said Corelli. "I give myself a Cadillac."
by Collins George, Detroit Free Press, May 20, 1961
Met Tenor, Wife Hail Americans For Their Love of Opera
With the physique of a football player, the face of a matinee idol and one of the most exciting tenor voices of our times, Franco Corelli headed the contingent of Metropolitan Opera stars arriving in Detroit Friday.
Corelli, 35 [40], who made his debut with the Met this year, arrived with his wife to spend 10 days in the city and to sing two roles — the only two he is singing on tour.
He will sing the role of Calaf Monday night in the opening production, "Turandot," and in "Aida" next Friday.
The couple greeted the press in their suite in the Park Shelton in several languages.
The tenor knows only a few words of English. His wife speaks English fluently, but it is a very special English.
The Corellis like American 'enthusiasmo.'
She was asked, for example, whether she, too, would follow a career as a singer, for which she studied.
Mrs. Corelli threw up her hands in horror.
"In a family, is enough, one," she said... and her meaning was perfectly clear.