Editing Mario Ancona (section)

==Career==
Ancona was born into a middle-class [[Jewish]] family at [[Livorno]], Tuscany, on 28 February 1860. After embarking on a business career he decided to study voice with a local singing teacher named Matteini in his native city of Livorno. Later, he took lessons from Giuseppe Cima in Milan.

Ancona is reputed to have made his debut as an amateur singer in 1880; but according to ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera''—from which many of the ensuing appearance dates, venues and career highlights are taken—his earliest known professional appearance in an opera did not occur until 1889, when he sang the role of Scindia in [[Massenet]]'s ''[[Le roi de Lahore]]'' in Trieste. Not long afterwards, he appeared in another Massenet opera, ''[[Le Cid (opera)|Le Cid]]'', at Italy's principal theatre—[[La Scala]], Milan. His arrival at La Scala so soon after his debut reflects the excellence of the technical grounding that he must have received as an amateur performer.

On 21 May 1892, Ancona was asked to create the part of Silvio in the first performance of [[Leoncavallo]]'s ''[[Pagliacci]]'', which took place at Milan's [[Teatro Dal Verme]] with [[Arturo Toscanini]] conducting. The next year, he appeared in the first London performance of ''Pagliacci'' at the [[Royal Opera House]], [[Covent Garden]]. On this occasion, however, he sang the role of Tonio. (Soprano [[Nellie Melba]] and tenor [[Fernando De Lucia]] were also in the high-quality cast.)

Ancona would appear regularly at Covent Garden until 1901, being held in high esteem by London audiences. He also sang as a guest artist in Cairo, Lisbon, Madrid, Warsaw, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Chicago, Boston and Buenos Aires.

The New York [[Metropolitan Opera]] first engaged him in 1893. He sang successfully at the Met until 1897, when he went back to Europe. In 1906–1908, he returned to New York—this time to join the [[Manhattan Opera Company]], where he was paid a generous fee. He became a special favourite of this company, which had been established by [[Oscar Hammerstein I]] in direct rivalry to the Met. His suave interpretation of [[Mozart]]'s [[Don Giovanni]] was singled out for particular praise by newspaper reviewers and the Manhattan's audiences.

Ancona sang in Paris in 1908, and again in 1914, at the [[Sarah Bernhardt]] theatre, where he was complimented by Bernhardt in person for his impressive singing. The illustrious French actress was not alone in her admiration for Ancona's vocal artistry. Music critics on both sides of the Atlantic commended Ancona on his elegant singing style and beautiful voice, with its easy top register and open-throated emission of homogeneous tone. Indeed, the great tenor [[Jean de Reszke]] called him the best-schooled Italian baritone of his era. His histrionic skills were less developed however, and he was not considered to be an especially imaginative or exciting interpretive artist. Physically, he was said to resemble King [[Edward VII]] of England because of his pointed beard and ample waistline.

The fact that Ancona was able to establish himself as a major singer in the face of intense competition from a host of other first-class baritones is a testament to his sheer quality as a vocalist. His main Italian rivals in the period between his debut in 1889 and the outbreak of [[World War I]] were: [[Mattia Battistini]], [[Antonio Scotti]], Giuseppe Pacini, [[Antonio Magini-Coletti]], [[Giuseppe Campanari]] and Giuseppe Kaschmann (born [[Josip Kasman]])—and, from a younger generation of [[verismo opera]]-influenced baritones, [[Titta Ruffo]], [[Riccardo Stracciari]], [[Pasquale Amato]], [[Giuseppe De Luca]], [[Eugenio Giraldoni]], [[Mario Sammarco]], Domenico Viglione-Borghesi and the promising newcomer [[Carlo Galeffi]].