Arturo Basile

A popular Italian conductor in the 1950s and '60s, Arturo Basile is best remembered for collaborating with star female sopranos Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi and specialising in interpretations of the work of Verdi and Puccini.

Born in Sicily, Basile started studying oboe at the age of 12 at the Giuseppe Verdi Music Conservatory in Turin and, after serving in the military during WWII, he began his career as a conductor. Leading the Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino della RAI, he worked with a 25-year-old Callas in 1949 on a recital which featured performances of arias from Bellini's operas 'Norma' and 'I Puritani' and Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde' - one of the first recordings which introduced Callas as a major new force in the classical music world.

He went on to have a tumultuous romantic relationship with Callas's great rival Renata Tebaldi in the late 1950s, while also working with the likes of Giuseppe di Stefano, Giorgio Tozzi and Mario Sereni and recording pieces by some of Italy's great operas including 'Tosca', 'Madame Butterfly' and 'La Boheme'. He gained international fame and performed all over the world, returning to Italy in the 1960s. There he worked at the Comunale Theatre in Bologna, the Opera House of Rome and the Regio of Parma, performing with stellar casts to great critical acclaim. He died aged 54 in 1968 when he was involved in a fatal car crash whilst driving back home to Turin.