Mattia Battistini

Mattia Battistini (27 February 1856 – 7 November 1928) was an Italian operatic baritone. He was called "King of Baritones".

Battistini was born in Rome and brought up largely at Collebaccaro di Contigliano, a village near Rieti, where his parents had an estate.

His grandfather, Giovanni, and uncle, Raffaele, were personal physicians to the Pope and his father, Cavaliere Luigi Battistini, was a professor of anatomy at the University of Rome. Battistini attendedthe Collegio Bandinelli and later the Istituto dell' Apollinare.

Battistini dropped out of law school to study singing, first with Emilio Terziani and then with Venceslao Persichini. Battistini worked with conductor Luigi Mancinelli and the composer Augusto Rotoli, and he consulted with baritone Antonio Cotogni, in an effort to refine his technique.

Most of the following information about Mattia Battistini's performance venues, dates and roles is drawn from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (second edition, 1980), edited by Harold Rosenthal and John Warrack, and The Record of Singing (Volume One, 1977), by Michael Scott.

A 22-year-old Battistini made his operatic début at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, as Alfonso in Donizetti's La favorita on 11 December 1878. However, this date is erroneously given by many reference books and articles as correct, but reveals careless and repeated copying from faulty sources. It has been proven by the painstaking research of Jacques Chuilon that the date should most likely be replaced by Saturday, 9 November 1878. For full argumentation please see page 7 of the definitive Battistini biography Mattia Battistini, King of Baritones and Baritone of Kings, 2009 (The Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Md, USA), translation by E. Thomas Glasow; also to be found on page 17 of the author's original French edition Battistini, le dernier divo, 1996 (Editions Romillat, Paris).

During the first three years of his professional career he toured Italy, honing his voice and gaining invaluable experience by singing principal rôles in such varied operas as La forza del destino, Il trovatore, Rigoletto, Il Guarany, Gli Ugonotti, Dinorah, L'Africana, I Puritani, Lucia di Lammermoor, Aïda, and Ernani. He participated, too, in several operatic premières. In 1881 he went to Buenos Aires for the first time, touring South America for more than 12 months. On his return trip, he appeared in Barcelona and Madrid where he sang Figaro in Rossini's comic masterpiece Il Barbiere di Siviglia. His success in this was enormous and it marked the beginning of his ascent to major operatic stardom.

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