Jerome LoMonaco (1925-2002) was one of the finest (and most underrated) American tenors of the post war era, whose promising career was cut short by illness. Born Girolamo LoMonaco to a Sicilian grocer and his wife, he showed an early love of music while growing up in Brooklyn. At age 12, he nearly died after being hit by a truck. The youngster spent a week in a coma, his legs badly crushed. His recovery was lengthy and painful, but he eventually learned to walk again. Unfortunately, the crippling injuries he suffered left his legs stunted and deformed. For the rest of his life, LoMonaco wore a built up shoe to compensate for legs of unequal length.
In his teens, LoMonaco displayed a fine singing voice, but had no aspirations for an operatic career. Initially, his dream was to be a pop singer. His brother Thomas LoMonaco, who was beginning his own career as a singer and teacher, advised his little brother to take up studies with renowned pedagogue Douglas Stanley and aim for a stage career. LoMonaco spent the next several years under the tutelage of Stanley, as well as coaching with tenor Pasquale Rubino.
While supporting himself as a produce packer in his father’s grocery, LoMonaco watched his older brother Tom gain notoriety as a leading tenor. Although Jerry was picking up extra cash by singing for community events, he was a bit envious of his brother’s success. Realizing that he might never have a solid singing career, LoMonaco decided to learn piano tuning, a skill that came in handy as he struggled to establish himself in the opera world.
LoMonaco’s first operatic stage experience occurred in the mid 1950s with Amato Opera Theatre. Located in New York’s Bowery, this amateur troupe offered young singers the opportunity to sing operatic roles in fully staged productions. Here, LoMonaco began building an impressive repertoire, while gaining valuable stage experience. “It was the best damn training program in the country”, LoMonaco quipped years later. The young tenor sang with other small local companies, including Long Island Opera, Brooklyn Opera Company, and Opera in Brief, receiving little or no pay for his efforts. There were local symphony concerts and even a well received Carnegie Hall recital, but LoMonaco’s career remained stagnant.
Things began to look up in 1961 when LoMonaco made his New York City Opera debut as Rinuccio in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. The tenor became stalwart member of the company, remaining with them for the next nine seasons. His career began to take off, with appearances at San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, Central City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Baltimore Opera, Opera Theatre of New Jersey, Oper Köln, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Teatro Municipal de Santiago and others.
By the early 1970s, illness had begun to plague LoMonaco. He had long suffered from ulcerative colitis but was now also often fatigued and in excruciating pain. The tenor finally decided that a visit to his doctor was in order. The diagnosis he received was staggering…cancer. Radical surgery had to be performed to save his life. In the fall of 1971, LoMonaco received an offer from the Philips label to record Verdi’s I Lombardi. Although not fully recovered from his surgery, he accepted the offer to sing the second tenor lead, Arvino (Placido Domingo sang Oronte), and received glowing reviews when the album was released the following year. His fee for the project covered his recent medical bills, but his ordeal was far from over. In the ensuing years, LoMonaco underwent an additional 34 surgeries, his precarious state of health causing him to lose out on an offer from the Metropolitan Opera.
At the urging of his wife, soprano Anne Ottaviano, LoMonaco accepted a position at Illinois State University in 1975. For the next decade, the aging tenor taught voice at the university, as well as privately from his home. Despite damaged abdominal muscles that affected his support, LoMonaco continued to make occasional stage appearances with smaller opera companies. In the summer of 1986, he left ISU but remained active with his Manhattan voice studio. After the turn of the century, LoMonaco’s health began to fail. He passed away from a heart attack on January 15, 2002 at his home in Flushing, Queens. He was 76.
Jerry LoMonaco deserved a much better career. Although he built a repertoire of some 20 roles, including the leads in Tosca, La Bohème, Turandot, La Traviata, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, Aïda, La Gioconda, Faust, Guglielmo Tell, Pagliacci, Andrea Chénier, and Lucia di Lammermoor, he relied on his voice studio for much of his income. “I think that God wanted me to teach”, he once told me. It’s truly a loss that LoMonaco made but a single commercial recording. However, his singing does survive on many live and private recordings. Here, LoMonaco sings “Come un bel dì di maggio” from Giordano’s Andrea Chénier. This was recorded live at New York’s Town Hall (with Amato Opera Theatre) on February 9, 1960.