{"id":32860,"date":"2023-08-31T13:27:09","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T11:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/?p=187796"},"modified":"2023-08-31T18:39:59","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T16:39:59","slug":"meet-nicola-stame-an-italian-tenor-and-war-hero-who-fought-fascism-and-was-murdered-by-the-nazis","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/meet-nicola-stame-an-italian-tenor-and-war-hero-who-fought-fascism-and-was-murdered-by-the-nazis\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Nicola Stame, an Italian tenor and war hero who fought fascism and was murdered by the Nazis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rssexcerpt\"> Opera tenor Nicola Ugo Stame took on many roles \u2013 but proved himself a true hero during World War II in his defiance against fascism, says Christopher Gillett <\/p><p class=\"rssauthor\">By BBC Music Magazine\n                \t\t<\/p><p class=\"rssbyline\">Published: Thursday, 31 August 2023 at 11:27 AM<\/p><hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/><?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"yes\"?>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body> <p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">As <\/span><span class=\"s1\">you face the main entrance of Rome\u2019s Teatro dell\u2019Opera, on its right side runs a street, Via Torino, where on the theatre\u2019s wall hangs a large, despondent laurel wreath.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Many years of midday <\/span><span class=\"s2\">sun have bleached the colour from the foliage and <\/span><span class=\"s1\">the <i>tricolore<\/i> ribbon attached to it. The wreath sits below a stone plaque which says (in Italian):<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s3\"><i>In 1939 in this theatre, while rehearsing Puccini\u2019s Turandot in the role of Calaf, the tenor NICOLA UGO STAME was arrested for anti-fascism. For the courage of his ideas, after being tortured in Via Tasso, he was slaughtered with Nazi ferocity on the 24\u00a0March 1944 at the Ardeatine Caves<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-handler__container image-handler__container--aspect\" style=\"padding-bottom: calc(100% \/ 1.501210653753);\"> <picture> <source media=\"(max-width: 320px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=90&amp;resize=265%2C199, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=45&amp;resize=532%2C399 2x, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=45&amp;resize=799%2C599 3x, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=45&amp;resize=1065%2C799 4x\" 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data-srcset=\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=90&amp;resize=359%2C269, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=45&amp;resize=719%2C539 2x, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=45&amp;resize=1079%2C809 3x, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=45&amp;resize=1439%2C1079 4x\" type=\"image\/jpeg\"> <source media=\"(max-width: 589px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=90&amp;resize=492%2C369, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=45&amp;resize=984%2C738 2x, 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data-srcset=\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=90&amp;resize=361%2C271, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=45&amp;resize=724%2C543 2x, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=45&amp;resize=1087%2C815 3x, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=45&amp;resize=1449%2C1087 4x\" type=\"image\/webp\"> <source media=\"(min-width: 768px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=90&amp;resize=361%2C271, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=45&amp;resize=724%2C543 2x, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=45&amp;resize=1087%2C815 3x, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=45&amp;resize=1449%2C1087 4x\" type=\"image\/jpeg\"> <source media=\"(min-width: 590px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=90&amp;resize=493%2C370, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=45&amp;resize=987%2C740 2x, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?webp=true&amp;quality=45&amp;resize=1481%2C1111 3x\" type=\"image\/webp\"> <source media=\"(min-width: 590px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=90&amp;resize=493%2C370, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=45&amp;resize=987%2C740 2x, https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=45&amp;resize=1481%2C1111 3x\" type=\"image\/jpeg\"> <img class=\"wp-image-187804 align size-landscape_thumbnail image-handler__image image-handler__image--aspect no-wrap js-lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/24\/2023\/08\/Nicola-Ugo-Stame-f1e53a3.jpeg?quality=90&amp;resize=551%2C413\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" alt=\"\u00a9 Lalupa, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons\" title=\"Nicola Ugo Stame\"\/>\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div><div class=\"caption-hold\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"caption-copy\"><i class=\"icon-arrow icon-camera-circle\"\/> \u00a9 Lalupa, CC BY-SA 4.0 &lt;https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/figcaption><span class=\"im-image-caption\"\/><\/div>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">There is so much to digest in this epitaph. But the first question is certainly this: who was this Nicola Stame, the rare tenor who not only played the hero but who was actually heroic?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>When was <span class=\"s1\">Nicola Stame born?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">Born in 1908, Nicola Stame \u2013 Ugo to his family and friends \u2013 grew up in Puglia, in the town of Foggia, birthplace of the composer Umberto Giordano. As the child of a single mother, his life was hard. Poverty was rife. At a time when bread cost 45 cents a kilo, a farm labourer might earn just one lira a day. Politics became riven between Mussolini\u2019s populist fascism and those who believed the solution to widespread poverty was socialism. Ugo reached adulthood during the early years of Mussolini\u2019s dictatorship, but he had no time for<i> <\/i>Il Duce. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">Today professional sport has become a golden ticket out of poverty and on to unimaginable wealth. In the first half of the 20th century, the prospects for an Italian tenor were equally rich. There was a huge demand not only in Italy itself but abroad \u2013 particularly in the US and South America with their vast populations of Italian immigrants \u2013 where Italian opera was so dominant that even German and French operas were commonly sung in Italian.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>When did <span class=\"s1\">Nicola Stame become an opera singer?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">Like many other tenors who grew up in relative <\/span><span class=\"s1\">poverty \u2013 such as Enrico Caruso and Beniamino<\/span> <span class=\"s1\">Gigli \u2013 Stame had little or no musical education. We don\u2019t know when and why he decided to <\/span><span class=\"s2\">pursue a precarious career in opera, but whatever <\/span><span class=\"s1\">long-term ambitions Ugo may have had were overwhelmed by the immediate need to earn a living; to take care of not only himself but his mother and his younger sister. So when <\/span><span class=\"s2\">he turned 18 he joined the Italian <\/span><span class=\"s1\">air force and learned to fly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">Stame\u2019s final posting as an airman was outside Rome, at Ciampino. In 1933, now 25, he hung up his uniform to move into the city and study singing. It was quite common for talented singers in the armed forces to be discovered by well-to-do officers with a love of opera, who \u2018invested\u2019 in the singer\u2019s career by paying for their training, so perhaps Ugo had been heard singing and urged by his fellow airmen to give it a go.<\/span><\/p>\n<section class=\"highlight \"> <div class=\"highlight__content editor-content\"> <ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/best-italian-composers-of-all-time\/\">The best Italian composers of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/best-italian-operas\/\">Italian operas: 5 of the best to explore after Tosca<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/which-are-the-best-opera-houses-in-italy\/\">Which are the best opera houses in Italy?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <\/p><\/div> <\/section> <p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">Over the next six years he studied in Rome with <\/span><span class=\"s1\">various conductors and distinguished singers. He married a fellow singing student and had his first child, Rosina, known as Rosetta; then, <\/span><span class=\"s2\">despite his aversion to Mussolini, he re-joined the <\/span><span class=\"s1\">air force twice and flew on missions to Ethiopia and Spain. There are no records detailing the 31-year-old tenor\u2019s path to his big break as Calaf in <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/giacomo-puccini\/\">Puccini<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s <i>Turandot <\/i>at the prestigious Rome Opera. But, however tempting it might have been for the sake <\/span><span class=\"s2\">of his career, Stame steadfastly refused to join the <\/span><span class=\"s1\">Fascist Party.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"s1\">Nicola Stame and fascism\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">In early August of 1939, while <\/span><span class=\"s2\">mid-rehearsal singing \u2018Non piangere, Li\u00f9\u2019, he <\/span><span class=\"s1\">was arrested for his non-compliance. The doors of Italy\u2019s major houses were now closed to him, and he spent two months in jail. Within weeks of his release, Ugo\u2019s next role was as the defiant Cavaradossi in <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/puccinis-tosca-guide\/\">Puccini\u2019s<i> Tosca <\/i><\/a><\/strong>at a theatre in the Circo Massimo. He was a marked man, constantly under surveillance by the secret police. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">In April 1940 he sang in<i> Tosca <\/i>again, in Bergamo. A local critic wrote: \u2018Young in years and a novice on stage\u2026 he sang the top register with great ease. Thunderous applause greeted him after the famous romance of the third act \u201cE lucevan le stelle\u201d, which he had to repeat at the insistence of the public.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">A month later and with Italy entering the war, he was recalled to the air force despite being branded a security risk. During the next three years Stame found himself alternating between bouts in uniform and appearances on stage, often doing both when he gave concerts for his air force comrades. He sang in<i><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/rigoletto-a-guide-to-verdis-great-opera-and-its-best-recordings\/\"> Rigoletto<\/a><\/strong>,<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/la-boheme-best-recordings\/\"> La boh\u00e8me <\/a><\/strong><\/i>and<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/cavalleria-rusticana-best-recordings\/\"><i> Cavalleria rusticana<\/i> <\/a><\/strong>in various houses in Rome and the provinces, while secretly becoming more involved in the communist group<i> <\/i>La Bandiera Rossa<i> <\/i>(The Red Flag).<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">After Mussolini was kicked out of office in 1943, celebrations were short-lived. Within days the Nazis were on their way to Rome. Stame had a chance to escape with his family to South America, where an impresario had already secured offers of work. But Ugo was stubborn. His country had to come before art. He told his daughter Rosetta: \u2018It\u2019s not politics. Right now, the choice is to be a man, or not be a man.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>When was <span class=\"s1\">Nicola Stame captured by the Nazis?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">Wearing his uniform, Ugo purloined weapons from the air force and joined the motley gang of soldiers, carabinieri<i> <\/i>and students who gallantly tried to stop the Nazis entering Rome at Testaccio. He went into hiding and took part in various small partisan raids, but was eventually betrayed and captured in January 1944, along with other members of<i> <\/i>La Bandiera Rossa. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">Ugo was put in a cell in the Via Goito police station with an 18 year-old called Claudio Pica, whose family was constantly in trouble for advocating communism. Pica would soon adopt the stage name of Claudio Villa and become a star \u2018popular\u2019 tenor. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">In the 1980s Villa described in his autobiography \u2018a man with a romantic appearance and a warm and harmonious voice that could only be that of a tenor. His name was Stame. I didn\u2019t know much more about him, not even his first name. Many years later I saw a photo of him and almost had a heart attack. That martyr had been my cellmate.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">Stame was taken to the Gestapo\u2019s notorious headquarters on Via Tasso<i> <\/i>(now a museum to the liberation of Rome) where he was beaten and tortured, but said nothing. A German war tribunal sentenced him to five years imprisonment. In the Regina Coeli prison in Trastevere, in his tiny, gloomy cell, Ugo sang every evening \u2013 usually \u2018Recondita armonia\u2019 from <i>Tosca<\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">A fellow inmate, Roberto Guzzo, wrote: \u2018The voice vibrated melodiously. As it increased in volume, in tonality, the notes rose, filling the air with sweetness, our hearts with passion. We listened to him enraptured in religious silence. Even the gruff Teutonic guards listened in meditation.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<section class=\"highlight \"> <div class=\"highlight__content editor-content\"> <ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/terezin-ghetto-how-the-persecuted-jewish-community-created-music-within-theresienstadt\/\">Terezin ghetto: how the persecuted Jewish community created music within Theresienstadt<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/4-jewish-composers-suppressed-by-nazism-and-the-third-reich\/\">4 Jewish composers suppressed by Nazism and the Third Reich<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/how-the-royal-philharmonic-orchestra-became-a-pawn-in-a-nazi-propaganda-scheme\/\">How the London Philharmonic Orchestra became a pawn in a Nazi propaganda scheme<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/best-war-poems\/\">10 best war poems of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <\/p><\/div> <\/section> <p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>How did <span class=\"s2\">Nicola Ugo Stame die?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">On 23 March 1944 on Via Rasella, a group of partisans ambushed the SS-Polizei-Regiment \u2018Bosen\u2019<\/span><span class=\"s2\">, killing 33. Retaliation was swift and fierce, <\/span><span class=\"s1\">with orders from Berlin that, within 24\u00a0hours, ten Italians must be executed for every dead German. In a frantic effort to meet the deadline, anyone suitable \u2013 no matter how insignificant their crime \u2013 was added to a list of potential victims, and a location was found where the executions could be carried out quickly and secretly. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">The next day, meat trucks collected the selected men from various prisons and took them to<i> <\/i>Fosse Ardeatine<i>, <\/i>an old underground quarry close to the Appian Way and the Catacombs of St Callisto. The Nazis led the men into the tunnels of the quarry in groups of five, made them kneel, and then shot them in the back of the head. Among the 335 victims \u2013 five too many were rounded up but slaughtered anyway \u2013 were 70 Jews, several <\/span><span class=\"s2\">teenagers, two actors, five artists, a priest, and one musician: Nicola Ugo Stame. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">After the executions <\/span><span class=\"s1\">were complete, the mouths of the quarry were destroyed with explosives in an attempt to <\/span><span class=\"s2\">obliterate evidence of the massacre. But within <\/span><span class=\"s1\">days, a dreadful stench hung in the air, and <\/span><span class=\"s2\">suspicions were aroused. In his autobiography, Stame\u2019s former cellmate Claudio Villa claimed <\/span><span class=\"s1\">that he was among the first to raise the alarm. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">After the war, the bodies were exhumed and a monument-mausoleum created in the<i> <\/i>Fosse Ardeatine<i>.<\/i> In Stame\u2019s jacket pocket they found a toothbrush, a pitch-pipe, and a tuning fork in its case.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">In 1994, an American news crew found former SS Hauptsturmf\u00fchrer Erich Priebke living in Argentina, where he had escaped after the war. Priebke had been the officer in charge of checking the list of victims at<i> <\/i>Fosse Ardeatine<i> <\/i>and had shot two of them himself. He showed no remorse and was shocked to find himself extradited to Italy to face charges of war crimes. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">At his trial, one of the main witnesses was Rosetta Stame, Ugo\u2019s eldest daughter, who was six when her father was shot. After she told a newspaper that Priebke had tortured her father, Priebke sued her for libel. He won the case and a settlement of 70 million lire (about \u20ac35,000). The judgment was overturned on appeal \u2013 he had indeed tortured Stame \u2013 but Rosetta Stame still had to pay all costs. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">Priebke was first acquitted of war crimes on the defence that he was obeying orders. But on appeal he was convicted of murder, because he was ultimately responsible for the deaths of the extra five men at the massacre. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998, he lived under house arrest in Rome. He was occasionally seen eating out in restaurants, and died in Rome in 2013 at the age of 100. After a funeral mass, the former SS officer\u2019s body was seized by the Italian authorities and buried in a secret location.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">Nicola Ugo Stame had two streets named after him \u2013 in Rome and Foggia \u2013 but we have no memorial of his voice. His family had for many years what they believed to be recordings of Ugo singing arias from<i> Il trovatore <\/i>but, cruelly, these turned out to be by Aureliano Pertile. No recordings survive of the heroic Puglian tenor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Opera tenor Nicola Ugo Stame took on many roles \u2013 but proved himself a true hero during World War II in his defiance against fascism, says Christopher Gillett <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":32861,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"9"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/08\/meet-nicola-stame-an-italian-tenor-and-war-hero-who-fought-fascism-and-was-murdered-by-the-nazis.jpg",1890,1534,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/08\/meet-nicola-stame-an-italian-tenor-and-war-hero-who-fought-fascism-and-was-murdered-by-the-nazis-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/08\/meet-nicola-stame-an-italian-tenor-and-war-hero-who-fought-fascism-and-was-murdered-by-the-nazis-300x243.jpg",300,243,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/08\/meet-nicola-stame-an-italian-tenor-and-war-hero-who-fought-fascism-and-was-murdered-by-the-nazis-768x623.jpg",768,623,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/08\/meet-nicola-stame-an-italian-tenor-and-war-hero-who-fought-fascism-and-was-murdered-by-the-nazis-1024x831.jpg",800,649,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/08\/meet-nicola-stame-an-italian-tenor-and-war-hero-who-fought-fascism-and-was-murdered-by-the-nazis-1536x1247.jpg",1536,1247,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/08\/meet-nicola-stame-an-italian-tenor-and-war-hero-who-fought-fascism-and-was-murdered-by-the-nazis.jpg",1890,1534,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Opera tenor Nicola Ugo Stame took on many roles \u2013 but proved himself a true hero during World War II in his defiance against fascism, says Christopher Gillett","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/32860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}