Gatti-Casazza was born on February 3, 1869 in Udine, Italy, the elder of two sons of Stefano and Ernestina Gatti-Casazza. His father was an Italian patriot who served under Garibaldi, entered the regular Italian army, and subsequently became a member of parliament. Both parents had musical interests.
After first planning to study piano, young Giulio decided instead on a naval career and entered the Naval Academy at Leghorn. Dropping out after three years, he subsequently received (1891) a degree from the Naval Engineering School in Genoa. From boyhood on, Gatti-Casazza had revealed a passion for the theatre and for music, and he learned the opera repertory by attending innumerable performances at nearby theatres, including those at the Ferrara Municipal Theatre, of which his father was for a time chairman of the board of directors.
When, in 1893, his father left for Rome to take up his political duties, Giulio deserted engineering to become director of the Ferrara Municipal Theatre. Combining a sure instinct for stage effect with a sound appreciation of musical values, he was able to attract the attention of several leading Italian musicians. One of them, Arrigo Boïto, recommended him in 1898 for the all-important post of general manager of La Scala theatre in Milan, a remarkable appointment in view of Gatti-Casazza's comparatively limited managerial experience and his even more limited training in music and opera. Nevertheless, his ten years as general manager of La Scala were brilliant. With the assistance of Arturo Toscanini, the musical director, Gatti-Casazza helped to make La Scala the foremost operatic theatre in Italy and one of the great operatic institutions of the world. Significantly enough, the new regime was inaugurated with a performance of Wagner's Die Meistersinger on December 26, 1898, Toscanini conducting - significantly, because the emphasis placed by Gatti-Casazza on the Wagnerian repertory helped to popularize many of these masterworks in Italy for the first time. A vigorous and progressive program of activity introduced to Italy such other non-Italian masterworks as Moussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and Richard Strauss's Salome, together with a long string of new Italian operas by such contemporary masters as Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Franchetti, Cilea, and Puccini. In 1908 Gatti-Casazza left La Scala to become the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera Association in New York City, a post he held with outstanding distinction for a quarter of a century. He sensitively gauged the desires of his audiences and catered to them, at the same time upholding high artistic standards. He strengthened the over-all performances by paying less attention to stars and more to well-rounded casts and by building up other departments formerly neglected. The repertory was vitalized and freshened with a long parade of revivals, novelties, and world premières (over a hundred in number), including revivals of Wagner's complete Ring of the Nibelung, presented seasonally in cycles and often without cuts, and premières of such contemporary works as Humperdinck's K"nigskinder, Puccini's The Girl of the Golden West, Giordano's Madame Sans-Gêne, and Granados's Goyescas, conducted by their composers. Under Gatti-Casazza, also, the Metropolitan gave its first American opera, The Pipe of Desire by Frederick Converse, in 1910, and two years later furthered the cause of American opera with a prize of $10, 000 for an original opera by an American, won by Horatio Parker with his Mona. Altogether fifteen new works by American composers were presented at the Metropolitan during Gatti-Casazza's regime. He also introduced a number of great singers, among them Antonio Scotti, Maria Jeritza, Lawrence Tibbett, Rosa Ponselle, Lily Pons, Lucrezia Bori, and - probably his greatest "discovery, " added to the company in his final season - Kirsten Flagstad. His great contribution to the Metropolitan was to make it self-supporting. During the 1920's, under his efficient management, a reserve fund of over a million dollars was built up which helped to tide the association over the difficult depression years. Gatti-Csazza resigned from the Metropolitan after the termination of the 1934-1935 season and returned to Italy. There he lived in retirement for the remainder of his life; he died in the city of Ferrara.
Gatti-Casazza is best remembered as general manager of La Scala in Milan, Italy from 1898 to 1908 and later the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1908 to 1935.
A man of imposing presence, tall, bearded, and heavy-set, Gatti-Casazza disliked personal publicity. He was a perfectionist, and his work took all his time and energy.
Gatti-Casazza was twice married, to the celebrated prima donna Frances Alda, from 1910 until they were divorced in 1928 and to Rosina Galli, ballet mistress of the Metropolitan Opera, from 1930 until her death in 1939. He had no children.
She was an Italian ballet dancer, choreographer, ballet mistress, and dance teacher.
She was a New Zealand-born, Australian-raised operatic soprano.
