Del Monaco was born in Florence, into a musical upper-class family, to a Neapolitan

father and to a mother of Sicilian descent.[2] As a young boy he studied the violin
but had a passion for singing. He graduated from the Rossini Conservatory at
Pesaro, where he first met and sang with Renata Tebaldi, with whom he would form
something of an operatic dream team of the 1950s. His early mentors as a singer
included Arturo Melocchi, his teacher at Pesaro, and Cherubino Raffaelli, who
recognized his talent and helped launch his career.

That career began in earnest with Del Monaco's debut on 31 December 1940 as
Pinkerton at the Puccini Theater in Milan. (His initial appearance in an opera had
occurred the previous year, however, in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana in Pesaro.)
He sang in Italy during the Second World War and married, in 1941, Rina Filipini.
In 1946, he appeared at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, for the first
time. During the ensuing years he became famous not only in London but also across
the operatic world for his powerful voice and heroic acting style. It was almost
heldentenor-like in scope but Del Monaco was no Wagnerian, confining his activities
overwhelmingly to the Italian repertoire. He sang Wagner in concerts, from
Lohengrin and Die Walküre.

As Otello
Del Monaco sang at the New York Metropolitan Opera from 1951 to 1959, enjoying
particular success in dramatic Verdi parts such as Radamès. He soon established
himself as one of four Italian tenor superstars who reached the peak of their fame
in the 1950s and '60s, the others being Giuseppe Di Stefano, Carlo Bergonzi and
Franco Corelli. Del Monaco's trademark roles during this period were Giordano's
Andrea Chénier and Verdi's Otello. He first tackled Otello in 1950 and kept
refining his interpretation throughout his career. It is said that he sang Otello
427 times. However, the book published by Elisabetta Romagnolo, Mario Del Monaco,
Monumentum aere perennius, Azzali 2002, lists only 218 appearances by him as
Otello, which is a more realistic figure. He was buried in his Otello costume.
Although Otello was his best role, throughout his career, Del Monaco sang a number
of other roles with great acclaim, for example: Canio in Pagliacci (Leoncavallo),
Radames in Aida (Verdi), Don Jose in Carmen (Bizet), Chenier in Andrea Chénier
(Giordano), Manrico in Il trovatore (Verdi), Samson in Samson and Delilah (Saint-
Saëns), and Don Alvaro in La forza del destino (Verdi).

Del Monaco made his first recordings in Milan in 1948 for HMV. Later, he was
partnered by Renata Tebaldi in a long series of Verdi and Puccini operas recorded
for Decca. On the same label was his 1969 recording of Giordano's Fedora, opposite
Magda Olivero and Tito Gobbi.

His ringing voice and virile appearance earned him the nickname of the "Brass Bull
of Milan".[3]

The soprano Magda Olivero noted in an interview with Stefan Zucker that:

When Del Monaco and I sang Francesca da Rimini together at La Scala [in 1959] he
explained his whole vocal technique to me. When he finished I said, "My dear Del
Monaco, if I had to put into practice all the things you’ve told me, I’d stop
singing right away and just disappear." The technique was so complicated: you push
the larynx down, then you push this up, then you do that—in short, it made my head
spin just to hear everything he did.[4]

In 1975 he retired from the stage. He died in Mestre as a result of nephritis.

His son Giancarlo Del Monaco is an opera director and theatre manager; his niece
Donella Del Monaco, a soprano, is the singer of Opus Avantra.