Alfredo Gandolfi, sometimes given as Alfred Gandolfi, (18 May 1885 – 9 June 1963) was an Italian-born American cinematographer, operatic baritone, and librettist. He should not be confused with the Alfredo Gandolfi who co-founded Ambrosio Film with Arturo Ambrosio in 1906.
A native of Turin, Gandolfi began his career as a cameraman for the Cines film company in Rome in c. 1906. He worked for a variety of film companies in Italy while training as a vocalist with the opera singer Chiarina Fino-Savio. He made his professional opera debut in Turin in 1911, and over the next five years periodically performed in operas in Italy while primarily working as a cinematographer in the United States. He notably portrayed Amfortas in the first staging in Italy of Richard Wagner's Parsifal at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in 1914, a role he repeated at La Scala, the Teatro Regio in Turin, and the Teatro Carlo Felice.
Gandolfi formed a prolific partnership with the film director Oscar Apfel. From 1914 through 1924 he worked as Apfel's cinematographer on 15 feature-length silent films which were made for a variety of film studios including the Fox Film Corporation, Paramount Pictures, and the World Film Company among others. He also made several films with other directors for Selznick Pictures during the early 1920s. After this, his career in film was mainly over as his opera career in the United States became his focus. He worked as a cinematographer on two final films: The Viking (1931) and Amore e morte (1932).
Gandolfi was committed to the Chicago Civic Opera in 1923–1924. From 1924 to 1929 he was a leading baritone of the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company. In 1923 he made his debut at the San Francisco Opera, but was not a regular performer with the company until the 1930s. He notably portrayed Scarpia in Tosca with the company for the grand opening of the newly built War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco in 1932. He simultaneously worked as a singer at the Metropolitan Opera from 1929 through 1936, appearing in more than 300 performances on the Met stage. In New York he had supporting roles in the world premieres of Arrigo Pedrollo's La Veglie (1924), Deems Taylor's Peter Ibbetson (1931) and Howard Hanson's Merry Mount (1934). He wrote the libretto to Anthony F. Paganucci's one-act opera Idillio Pastorale (1932). After retiring from the stage he lived in New York City and worked as a voice teacher.