TOZZI: AT HOME IN A HOUSE OF MUSIC

Long before arriving at the front door of Giorgio Tozzi’s beach-view house in North Malibu, it is apparent that singers live here.

From upstairs, the sound of vocalizing emerges, presumably from Tozzi’s wife, soprano Monte Amundsen. Downstairs, the veteran operatic basso himself is busy teaching, intently guiding a young baritone through the intricacies of a Verdi aria.

Punch the doorbell and the visitor is greeted with a chime that plays the opening phrase of the Triumphal March from “Aida.”

Inside, Tozzi, a youthful-looking 62, leaves the grand piano and ends the lesson.

Tozzi, the American-born bass who in his long operatic career sang at La Scala, Hamburg, Chicago, Munich and San Francisco, among other international houses, has done a number of roles in films and television and has appeared on Broadway and in musicals around the country in the three decades since his Met debut.

But the rigors of traveling have caused him to take fewer engagements lately and to turn his attention to teaching. (Although he will give a rare master class for young singers at Santa Monica College, today at 10 a.m., he generally does only private teaching, noting that most Southern California colleges have not discovered his presence in their backyards.) Vocal pedagogy--the psychological and physiological analysis of singing--is one of his abiding interests now.

“Some young singers think that learning a few tricks of the trade will enable them to build a career. That just isn’t so. Becoming a singer is like becoming an athlete: You have to be trained into it,” Tozzi says

“That means you enter the training, and part of the result is that your voice develops. But it’s only total commitment that gets any results at all. I believe ballet dancers understand this better than most young singers. They know that no matter what you do artistically, you always have to come back to the barre. You have to develop your muscles continually.”

He says there are no shortcuts in vocal training. “It takes a long time. That’s the ‘shortcut’--the only ‘shortcut.’ ”

Though Tozzi, his wife Monte and their two children, now 17 and 13, originally moved to the beach community to get out of an urban center (New York) and into a milder climate, some of the other reasons the 20-year Metropolitan Opera veteran brought his family to Southern California in 1975 are no longer pressing, he says.

“I expected, in addition to my operatic work, to get roles in films and television,” he recalls, seated in the comfortable living room of his ocean-facing home.

“And I did.” But not so many acting roles, he says, that he feels he needs to remain in California. One reason for his lack of roles, Tozzi says, has been improper management.

“As in the music business,” he says, “the professional performer in the acting business is at the mercy of agents and managers and their ability to get him the work.” And, he adds gently but meaningfully, “It’s difficult to find management who are totally reliable.”

About managers in general, he good-humoredly quotes Rossini: “Music is a beautiful art, but an ugly profession.” Then he laughs at the longevity of that composer’s ancient opinion.

So now Tozzi, a Malibu homeowner for more than 10 years, is considering a move. “I’ve been tempted,” says the energetic singer, describing job offers from universities in the Midwest and Southeast.

Until he decides, Tozzi will remain near the Pacific, commuting by plane to opera and concert engagements--”I like singing once in a while, but not too often, because I no longer want to do a lot of traveling,” he explains.

In these last few years, Tozzi reveals, he has been tempted not only by acting roles and teaching jobs, but also by the lure of musical administration. “After all,” he notes, “in 40 years on the stage, I have also been an observer. I think my experience qualifies me for a lot of jobs in either opera production or administration.”

With this thought in mind, the Chicago-born singer recalls writing to San Diego Opera at the time of Tito Capobianco’s departure for Pittsburgh. “I guess they didn’t agree,” he remembers, without rancor. “I never got a response.”