Battistini, Mattia

Since childhood, he studied music and vocals, but the requirements of the family, consisting of high-ranking doctors (grandfather and uncle Battistini were personal physicians of the popes ), led to the fact that Battistini graduated from the medical faculty of the University of Rome . However, the love of music won, and he seriously engaged in vocal, studying, in particular, from Venceslao Persicini , Eugenio Terziani and Antonio Cotoni . He debuted in 1878 in Rome with the part of Alphonse in the opera “Favorite” by Gaetano Donizetti . Very soon received the glory of the best Italian baritone.

Since 1881, he constantly toured, performing in opera houses around the world. The first of the opera singers began performing in South America ( Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro ). Season 1882 - 1883 years with great success held in Spain ( Madrid and Barcelona ), from 1883 began performances in London, where he collected full halls, then Vienna , Paris and Budapest .

From 1892 he began touring in different cities of Russia, where he was immediately recognized as the undisputed protagonist of the opera scene. and where he spent 23 theatrical seasons (until 1916), becoming the favorite singer of Russian tsars and aristocracy, in Russia he was called "the king of baritones and the baritone of kings". In 1899, he played the part of Eugene Onegin (in Italian) with Krushelnitskaya as Tatiana at the premiere in Warsaw (then the territory of the Russian Empire ^{[ significance of fact? ]} ).

After the October Revolution of 1917 . tour in Russia stopped.

His career lasted until 70 years (1927) thanks to a technique that was considered immense. The undisputed heir to the "sweet" vocal of Antonio Tamburini, Battistini was to weaken the raging vocal derivatives from Ronconi. To this day, evidence of this taste, disks of opera arias and romances from the living room, where a clear and bright stamp (almost tenoryl on our ears).

Battistini’s wife was a Spanish aristocratic Dolores de Figuera from a very famous family, among her relatives there were many prominent political and religious figures.

As stated in D. Samin’s book “100 Great Vocalists”,

During one of the triumphal seasons in Moscow, in August 1912, at the presentation of the opera Rigoletto, the large public was so electrified, so rampaged and encore that Battistini had to repeat - and this is not an exaggeration - the whole opera from beginning to end. The performance, which began at eight o'clock in the evening, ended only at three in the morning! ^[one]

He continued his singing career up to 70 years (1927). As noted in 1926 , the famous Berlin music critic Leopold Schmidt ,

If a person sings like Battistini still sings, causing fanaticism of the public, then he not only has the right - he must sing as long as possible, because Battistini singing is a symbol of excellence that his contemporaries should strive for, especially the young ^{[2 ]} .

In a number of sources, some well-known Russian singers are called Battistini students, including Alexander Baturin and Sergey Migay ; there are doubts about the accuracy of these messages ^[3] .

Major parties

• Don Juan ( Mozart's Don Juan )
• Don Carlos ( "Ernani" Verdi )
• Germon-father ( Verdi's "Traviata" )
• Scarpia ( Puccini Tosca ),
• Figaro ( The Barber of Seville by Rossini )
• The Demon ( “The Demon” by Rubinstein )
• Renato ( “Masked Ball” by Verdi )
• Iago ( Verdi 's Othello )
• Yevgeny Onegin ( “Eugene Onegin” by Tchaikovsky )
• Richard ( Bellini's "Puritans" )
• Rigoletto ( "Rigoletto" Verdi )
• Escamillo ( "Carmen" by Bizet )
• Don Carlos (“ The Power of Fate ” by Verdi )
• Rodrigo ( "Don Carlos" Verdi )
• Hamlet ( Tom's "Hamlet" )
• Werther ( "Werther" Massenet )

• Battistini Matteo // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 t. (82 t. And 4 extra.). - SPb. , 1890-1907.

• Mattia battistini
• Mattia Battistini belcanto.ru
• "RUSSIAN MUSIC SOUNDS IN THE WORLD". Mattia Battistini - in M.Malkov's cycle "From the collection of rare records".