Manuel García (tenor)

Manuel del Pópulo Vicente Rodriguez García (also known as Manuel García the Senior; 21 January 1775 – 10 June 1832) was a Spanish opera singer, composer, impresario, and singing teacher.

García was born in Seville, Spain, on 21 January 1775. In 1808, he went to Paris, with previous experience as a tenor at Madrid and Cadiz. By that year, when he appeared in the opera Griselda in Paris, he was already a composer of light operas. He lived in Naples, Italy, performing in Gioachino Rossini's operas. These included the premières of Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra and The Barber of Seville, in which he portrayed the role of Count Almaviva. In 1816, he visited Paris and London, England. Between 1819 and 1823, he lived in Paris, and sang in operas such as The Barber of Seville, Otello, and Don Giovanni.

His elder daughter was the celebrated mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran, and his second daughter was Pauline Viardot, a musician of consequence and, as a singer, one of "the most brilliant dramatic stars" of her time. His son, Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García, after being a second-rate baritone, became a world-famous vocal pedagogue, "the leading theoretical writer of Rossini vocal school".

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