Gwen Curatilo: ‘I Simply Stored Singing’

Her sparkling soprano voice, which once thrilled audiences across the country, can no longer be heard live on stage. But the petite Gwen Curatilo remains an oversized presence in Chico’s opera scene, a major role she has played for nearly five decades.

Legions of CSU, Chico alums, and people from across Northern California’s music scene know Curatilo, the former head of the university’s opera program.

Affectionately known as Mrs. C., she drives a car with the inscription “Soprano” on the make-up license plate and is characterized by her bubbly personality and unmistakable giggle. She is also recognized as a dedicated teacher, accomplished performer, and voracious fundraiser for causes she loves.

The 83-year-old Curatilo “is a synonym for opera in this city,” said Dr. Steven Schwartz, a Chico cardiologist and amateur opera singer who met Curatilo when he moved to Chico in 1982.

“She had a great talent and she worked hard,” recalls Schwartz. “She could identify with the students and wanted them to experience what she was doing – discover the joy and complacency of learning to sing and perform.”

After a well-known professional opera career, 24 years at the helm of Chico State’s opera program, and years of private training for vocal students, Curatilo is stepping back into the limelight.

This weekend, the Opera Impresario and their many accomplishments will be honored at Celebrating Gwen Curatilo at the Harlen Adams Theater in Chico State.

Gwen Curatilo holds a photo of herself from her professional singing days at the San Francisco Opera. She came to Chico State to teach and started the Opera Ball, an annual music scholarship fundraiser.

The affair is billed as a showcase of the past, present, and future of locally grown opera talent, many of whom were at some point sponsored by Curatilo through the Chico State Opera Workshop program she sponsored. Several students have had formidable music careers in the US and Europe, and some are coming back to perform this weekend.

Proceeds from the show will support a music and theater production of The Little Sweep, a children’s opera about a young chimney sweep. The Little Sweep will be performed in January in front of 1,500 elementary school students in the Chico Unified School District.

While many of Chico’s current opera fans are baby boomers or beyond, Curatilo (pronounced “gurr-RAH-tea-low”) hopes the upcoming children’s production will attract a whole new generation of followers.

“If you are not exposed to it, you will never know if you will love it. In my opinion, it’s the most gorgeous and complex art form, ”she explained. “We sing in foreign languages. There is ballet in the opera. There’s a nice orchestra in the orchestra pit. There is costumes, there is acting, and there are beautiful voices. The drama of the opera is so deep. Choose an opera and I’ll tell you that there is a story there that has to do with the culture of that country or the political atmosphere of the time. “

Curatilo will also speak about the intrigue of the opera in late September just before a film of the 2008 San Francisco Opera performance of La Boheme is shown to a group of students at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Chico state.

Your zeal for the opera arose entirely by chance.

One day while her family was living near Chicago, a friend of her mother’s suggested that the women take their daughters to the opera. Curatilo, then in third grade, had never attended such a performance.

The show featured Maria Callas, an international post-war soprano, in Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca.

“I was speechless. I was overwhelmed,” recalls Curatilo.

Her love for music remained and a few years later Curatilo joined the choir of her high school. There she learned to refine her singing, to read sheet music, to play the viola and to perform.

By the time she graduated two years early from high school at 16, she knew she wanted to sing. To raise money for college, Curatilo worked for a year in a bakery and then as a clerk at the University of Chicago, where she also sang in the college choir, although she was not a student at the time.

After Curatilo saved enough to begin studying music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Curatilo did the housework and cooked in the dormitories to support himself. She also sang for a Jewish temple on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings and for a Christian church on Sundays while doing a full course load.

After three semesters, the 19-year-old singer dropped out to marry Joe Curatilo, who had a PhD in music education from the University of Illinois. They moved to San Francisco where he began a teaching career and she found many opportunities to sing.

“I’ve been singing all along; for churches, for associations, for the Sons of Italy, for a Jewish women’s organization, ”she said. “I sang for everyone who asked me. I just kept singing. “

Gwen Curatilo, the former director of the Chico State Opera Workshop program,
still privately trains aspiring singers at her Durham home.

In 1958 she auditioned for the prestigious Merola Opera Program of the San Francisco Opera, a senior school for talented young opera singers, and won a place.

In 1960, the San Francisco Opera hired Curatilo as a full-time member and her professional career blossomed while singing in the United States. Over the next six years, she sang in dozen of performances with the opera company, including Madame Butterfly, Marriage of Figaro, Carmen, and The Crucible. Curatilo received many cover roles – she learned the scores of other singers so she could easily jump in at the last minute if necessary.

Eventually it piqued the ears of the Chico State music department, who offered Curatilo the role of Madam Butterfly in the 1968 production of this opera at the university.

After the hit show ended, the University invited Curatilo to return to Chico State in 1969 to teach, a role that inspired them as much as they did on stage.

“I was very aware that singers and athletes get old,” she said. “I didn’t have to be the leading actress all the time… I enjoyed this teaching activity and felt a lot of affection from the students – they were like sponges. I thought how nice it was to be invited to use my skills. “

In 1982 she officially retired from singing.

While studying in Chico state, Curatilo made a name for herself with the university’s Opera Workshop program, which was attended by students, faculty and community members.

“She could identify with the students so deeply and selflessly that they experience what she was doing, learn the joy and self-satisfaction of singing and have the opportunity to pursue a profession or calling.” When singing, “said Schwartz, a frequent singer at Opera Workshop events who will perform during the Saturday gala.

Curatilo also launched the Opera Ball, a lavish fundraiser that takes place every fall for 15 consecutive years until the last one in 1996. And she set up a scholarship program that was instrumental in attracting students to study at the university. Proceeds from the Opera Ball, considered the largest social event in Chico, funded scholarships for music students.

“Our little stars weren’t famous yet, but I thought they would one day,” she said.

Curatilo still privately trains aspiring singers and helps students raise money for their performance studies by holding fundraisers in their ornate home by invitation only. The last charity festival, held in early September, drew about 100 people.

Curatilo calls singing “a passion that has never left me. It hasn’t left me yet. “

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