Editing Baritone (section)

== History ==
The first use of the term "baritone" emerged as ''baritonans'', late in the 15th century,<ref>[[Franchinus Gaffurius|Franchino Gaffurio]], [http://www.music.indiana.edu/tml/15th/GAFPM3_TEXT.html Practica musicae, liber tertius] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060609125758/http://www.music.indiana.edu/tml/15th/GAFPM3_TEXT.html |date=2006-06-09 }}, 1496</ref> usually in French [[Religious music|sacred]] [[Polyphony|polyphonic]] music. At this early stage it was frequently used as the lowest of the voices (including the bass), but in 17th-century Italy the term was all-encompassing and used to describe the average male choral voice.

Baritones took roughly the range as it is known today at the beginning of the 18th century, but they were still lumped in with their bass colleagues until well into the 19th century.  Many operatic works of the 18th century have roles marked as bass that in reality are low baritone roles (or [[bass-baritone]] parts in modern parlance). Examples of this are to be found, for instance, in the operas and oratorios of [[George Frideric Handel]]. The greatest and most enduring parts for baritones in 18th-century operatic music were composed by [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]]. They include Count Almaviva in ''[[The Marriage of Figaro]]'', Guglielmo in ''[[Così fan tutte]]'', Papageno in ''[[The Magic Flute]]'' and ''[[Don Giovanni]]''.<ref name=NGD>{{cite book | first1=Owen | last1=Jander | first2=J. B. | last2=Steane | author-link2=J. B. Steane | first3=Elizabeth | last3=Forbes | author-link3=Elizabeth Forbes (musicologist) | first4=Ellen T. | last4=Harris | first5=Gerald | last5=Waldman | chapter=Baritone (i) | editor1-first=Stanley | editor1-last=Sadie | editor1-link=Stanley Sadie | editor2-link=John Tyrrell (musicologist) | editor2-first=John | editor2-last=Tyrrell | title=[[The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]] | edition=2nd | publisher=Macmillan | year=2001 | isbn=0-333-60800-3}}. This work is the main reference for the history section of this article.</ref>

=== 19th century ===
In theatrical documents, cast lists, and journalistic dispatches that from the beginning of the 19th century till the mid-1820s, the terms ''primo basso'', ''basse chantante'', and ''basse-taille'' were often used for men who would later be called baritones. These included the likes of [[Filippo Galli (bass)|Filippo Galli]], [[Giovanni Inchindi]], and [[Henri-Bernard Dabadie]]. The basse-taille and the proper bass were commonly confused because their roles were sometimes sung by singers of either actual voice part.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle: Français, historique, géographique, mythologique, bibliographique, littéraire, artistique, scientifique, etc., etc.|last = Larousse|first = Pierre|publisher = Larousse & Boyer|year = 1865|location = Bavarian State Library|pages = 289}}</ref>

The [[bel canto]] style of vocalism which arose in Italy in the early 19th century supplanted the [[castrato]]-dominated ''[[opera seria]]'' of the previous century. It led to the baritone being viewed as a separate voice category from the bass. Traditionally, basses in operas had been cast as authority figures such as a king or high priest; but with the advent of the more fluid baritone voice, the roles allotted by composers to lower male voices expanded in the direction of trusted companions or even romantic leads—normally the province of tenors. More often than not, however, baritones found themselves portraying villains.

The principal composers of bel canto opera are considered to be:
*[[Gioachino Rossini]] (''[[The Barber of Seville]]'', ''[[William Tell (opera)|William Tell]]'');
* [[Gaetano Donizetti]] (''[[Don Pasquale]]'', ''[[L'elisir d'amore]]'', ''[[Lucia di Lammermoor]]'', ''[[Lucrezia Borgia (opera)|Lucrezia Borgia]]'', ''[[La favorite]]'');
*[[Vincenzo Bellini]] (''[[I puritani]]'', ''[[Norma (opera)|Norma]]'');
*[[Giacomo Meyerbeer]] (''[[Les Huguenots]]''); and
* the young [[Giuseppe Verdi]] (''[[Nabucco]]'', ''[[Ernani]]'', ''[[Macbeth (Verdi)|Macbeth]]'', ''[[Rigoletto]]'', ''[[La traviata]]'', ''[[Il trovatore]]'').
The prolific operas of these composers, plus the works of Verdi's maturity, such as ''[[Un ballo in maschera]]'', ''[[La forza del destino]]'', ''[[Don Carlos]]''/''Don Carlo'', the revised ''[[Simon Boccanegra]]'', ''[[Aida]]'', ''[[Otello]]'' and ''[[Falstaff (opera)|Falstaff]]'', blazed many new and rewarding performance pathways for baritones.
Figaro in ''Il barbiere'' is often called the first true baritone role. However, Donizetti and Verdi in their vocal writing went on to emphasize the top fifth of the baritone voice, rather than its lower notes—thus generating a more brilliant sound. Further pathways opened up when the musically complex and physically demanding operas of [[Richard Wagner]] began to enter the mainstream repertory of the world's opera houses during the second half of the 19th century.

The major international baritone of the first half of the 19th century was the Italian [[Antonio Tamburini]] (1800–1876). He was a famous Don Giovanni in Mozart's eponymous opera as well as being a Bellini and Donizetti specialist. Commentators praised his voice for its beauty, flexibility and smooth tonal emission, which are the hallmarks of a bel canto singer. Tamburini's range, however, was probably closer to that of a bass-baritone than to that of a modern "Verdi baritone". His French equivalent was Henri-Bernard Dabadie, who was a mainstay of the [[Paris Opera]] between 1819 and 1836 and the creator of several major Rossinian baritone roles, including [[William Tell (opera)|Guillaume Tell]]. Dabadie sang in Italy, too, where he originated the role of Belcore in ''[[L'elisir d'amore]]'' in 1832.

The most important of Tamburini's Italianate successors were all Verdians. They included:
*[[Giorgio Ronconi]], who created the title role in Verdi's ''Nabucco''
*[[Felice Varesi]], who created the title roles in ''[[Macbeth (Verdi)|Macbeth]]'' and ''[[Rigoletto]]'' as well as Germont in ''[[La traviata]]''
*[[Antonio Superchi]], the originator of Don Carlo in ''[[Ernani]]''
*[[Francesco Graziani (baritone)|Francesco Graziani]], who was the original Don Carlo di Vargas in ''[[La forza del destino]]''
*[[Leone Giraldoni]], the creator of Renato in ''[[Un ballo in maschera]]'' and the first Simon Boccanegra
*[[Enrico Delle Sedie]], who was London's first Renato
*{{ill|Francesco Pandolfini|ca}}, whose singing at La Scala during the 1870s was praised by Verdi
*[[Antonio Cotogni]], a much lauded singer in Milan, London and Saint Petersburg, the first Italian Posa in ''Don Carlos'' and later a great vocal pedagogue, too
*[[Filippo Coletti]], creator of Verdi's Gusmano in ''[[Alzira (opera)|Alzira]]'', Francesco in ''[[I masnadieri]]'', Germont in the second version of ''La traviata'' and for whom Verdi considered writing the (unrealized) opera ''Lear''<ref>Laura Macy, ed. ''The Grove Book of Opera Singers'', [[Harold Rosenthal]]/[[Julian Budden]], entry "Coletti, Filippo"</ref>
*[[Giuseppe Del Puente]], who sang Verdi to acclaim in the United States

Among the non-Italian born baritones that were active in the third quarter of the 19th century, Tamburini's mantle as an outstanding exponent of Mozart and Donizetti's music was probably taken up most faithfully by a Belgian, [[Camille Everardi]], who later settled in Russia and taught voice. In France, [[Paul Barroilhet]] succeeded Dabadie as the Paris opera's best known baritone. Like Dabadie, he also sang in Italy and created an important Donizetti role: in his case, Alphonse in ''[[La favorite]]'' (in 1840).

Luckily, the [[Phonograph|gramophone]] was invented early enough to capture on disc the voices of the top Italian Verdi and Donizetti baritones of the last two decades of the 19th century, whose operatic performances were characterized by considerable re-creative freedom and a high degree of technical finish. They included [[Mattia Battistini]] (known as the "King of Baritones"), Giuseppe Kaschmann (born [[Josip Kašman]]) who, atypically, sang Wagner's Telramund and Amfortas not in Italian but in German, at the [[Bayreuth Festival]] in the 1890s; [[Giuseppe Campanari]]; [[Antonio Magini-Coletti]]; [[Mario Ancona]] (chosen to be the first Silvio in ''[[Pagliacci]]''); and [[Antonio Scotti]], who came to [[Metropolitan Opera|the Met]] from Europe in 1899 and remained on the roster of singers until 1933. [[Antonio Pini-Corsi]] was the standout Italian ''[[wikt:buffo|buffo]]'' baritone in the period between about 1880 and [[World War I]], reveling in comic opera roles by Rossini, Donizetti and [[Ferdinando Paer|Paer]], among others. In 1893, he created the part of Ford in Verdi's last opera, ''Falstaff''.

Notable among their contemporaries were the cultured and technically adroit French baritones [[Jean Lassalle (baritone)|Jean Lassalle]] (hailed as the most accomplished baritone of his generation), [[Victor Maurel]] (the creator of Verdi's Iago, Falstaff and Tonio in [[Ruggero Leoncavallo|Leoncavallo]]'s ''Pagliacci''), [[Paul Lhérie]] (the first Posa in the revised, Italian-language version of ''Don Carlos''), and [[Maurice Renaud]] (a singing actor of the first magnitude). Lassalle, Maurel and Renaud enjoyed superlative careers on either side of the Atlantic and left a valuable legacy of recordings. Five other significant Francophone baritones who recorded, too, during the early days of the gramophone/phonograph were [[Léon Melchissédec]] and [[Jean Noté]] of the Paris Opera and [[Gabriel Soulacroix]], [[Henry Albers]] and [[Charles Gilibert]] of the Opéra-Comique. The Quaker baritone [[David Bispham]], who sang in London and New York between 1891 and 1903, was the leading American male singer of this generation. He also recorded for the gramophone.

The oldest-born star baritone known for sure to have made solo gramophone discs was the Englishman Sir [[Charles Santley]] (1834–1922). Santley made his operatic debut in Italy in 1858 and became one of Covent Garden's leading singers. He was still giving critically acclaimed concerts in London in the 1890s. The composer of ''[[Faust (opera)|Faust]]'', [[Charles Gounod]], wrote Valentine's aria "Even bravest heart" for him at his request for the London production in 1864 so that the leading baritone would have an aria. A couple of primitive cylinder recordings dating from about 1900 have been attributed by collectors to the dominant French baritone of the 1860s and 1870s, [[Jean-Baptiste Faure]] (1830–1914), the creator of Posa in Verdi's original French-language version of ''Don Carlos''. It is doubtful, however, that Faure (who retired in 1886) made the cylinders. However, a contemporary of Faure's, Antonio Cotogni, (1831–1918)—probably the foremost Italian baritone of his generation—can be heard, briefly and dimly, at the age of 77, on a duet recording with the tenor [[Francesco Marconi]]. (Cotogni and Marconi had sung together in the first London performance of [[Amilcare Ponchielli]]'s ''[[La Gioconda (opera)|La Gioconda]]'' in 1883, performing the roles of Barnaba and Enzo respectively.)