Editing Baritone (section)

=== 20th century ===
The dawn of the 20th century opened up more opportunities for baritones than ever before as a taste for strenuously exciting vocalism and lurid, "slice-of-life" operatic plots took hold in Italy and spread elsewhere. The most prominent [[verismo]] baritones included such major singers in Europe and America as the polished [[Giuseppe De Luca]] (the first Sharpless in ''[[Madama Butterfly]]''), [[Mario Sammarco]] (the first Gerard in ''[[Andrea Chénier]]''), [[Eugenio Giraldoni]] (the first Scarpia in ''[[Tosca]]''), [[Pasquale Amato]] (the first Rance in ''[[La fanciulla del West]]''), [[Riccardo Stracciari]] (noted for his richly attractive [[timbre]]) and [[Domenico Viglione Borghese]], whose voice was exceeded in size only by that of the lion-voiced [[Titta Ruffo]]. Ruffo was the most commanding Italian baritone of his era or, arguably, any other era. He was at his prime from the early 1900s to the early 1920s and enjoyed success in Italy, England and America (in Chicago and later at the Met).

The chief verismo composers were [[Giacomo Puccini]], Ruggero Leoncavallo, [[Pietro Mascagni]], [[Alberto Franchetti]], [[Umberto Giordano]] and [[Francesco Cilea]]. Verdi's works continued to remain popular, however, with audiences in Italy, the Spanish-speaking countries, the United States and the United Kingdom, and in Germany, where there was a major Verdi revival in Berlin between the wars.

Outside the field of Italian opera, an important addition to the Austro-German repertory occurred in 1905. This was the premiere of [[Richard Strauss]]'s ''[[Salome (opera)|Salome]]'', with the pivotal part of John the Baptist assigned to a baritone. (The enormous-voiced Dutch baritone [[Anton van Rooy]], a Wagner specialist, sang John when the opera reached the Met in 1907). Then, in 1925, Germany's [[Leo Schützendorf]] created the title baritone role in [[Alban Berg]]'s harrowing ''[[Wozzeck]]''.<ref>[http://www.staatsoper-berlin.org/staatsoper/geschichte.php?id_language=2 History of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071212100612/http://www.staatsoper-berlin.org/staatsoper/geschichte.php?id_language=2 |date=2007-12-12 }}. Retrieved 4 March 2008</ref> In a separate development, the French composer [[Claude Debussy]]'s post-Wagnerian masterpiece ''[[Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)|Pelléas et Mélisande]]'' featured not one but two lead baritones at its 1902 premiere. These two baritones, [[Jean Périer]] and [[Hector Dufranne]], possessed contrasting voices. (Dufranne – sometimes classed as a bass-baritone – had a darker, more powerful instrument than did Périer, who was a true baryton-Martin.)

Characteristic of the Wagnerian baritones of the 20th century was a general progression of individual singers from higher-lying baritone parts to lower-pitched ones. This was the case with Germany's [[Hans Hotter]]. Hotter made his debut in 1929. As a young singer he appeared in Verdi and created the Commandant in Richard Strauss's ''[[Friedenstag]] ''and Olivier in ''[[Capriccio (opera)|Capriccio]]''. By the 1950s, however, he was being hailed as the top Wagnerian bass-baritone in the world. His Wotan was especially praised by critics for its musicianship. Other major Wagnerian baritones have included Hotter's predecessors [[Leopold Demuth]], Anton van Rooy, [[Hermann Weil]], [[Clarence Whitehill]], [[Friedrich Schorr]], [[Rudolf Bockelmann]] and [[Hans-Hermann Nissen]]. Demuth, van Rooy, Weil and Whitehill were at their peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries while Schorr, Bockelmann and Nissen were stars of the 1920s and 1930s.

In addition to their heavyweight Wagnerian cousins, there was a plethora of baritones with more lyrical voices active in Germany and Austria during the period between the outbreak of WW1 in 1914 and the end of WW2 in 1945. Among them were {{Interlanguage link|Joseph Schwarz (baritone){{!}}Joseph Schwarz|de|3=Joseph Schwarz}}, [[Heinrich Schlusnus]], [[Herbert Janssen]], [[Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender]], [[Karl Schmitt-Walter]] and [[Gerhard Hüsch]]. Their abundant inter-war Italian counterparts included, among others, [[Carlo Galeffi]], [[Giuseppe Danise]], [[Enrico Molinari]], [[Umberto Urbano]], [[Cesare Formichi]], [[Luigi Montesanto]], [[Apollo Granforte]], [[Benvenuto Franci]], [[Renato Zanelli]] (who switched to tenor roles in 1924), [[Mario Basiola]], [[Giovanni Inghilleri]], [[Carlo Morelli]] (the Chilean-born younger brother of Renato Zanelli) and [[Carlo Tagliabue]], who retired as late as 1958.

One of the best known Italian Verdi baritones of the 1920s and 1930s, [[Mariano Stabile]], sang Iago and Rigoletto and Falstaff (at [[La Scala]]) under the baton of [[Arturo Toscanini]]. Stabile also appeared in London, Chicago and Salzburg. He was noted more for his histrionic skills than for his voice, however. Stabile was followed by [[Tito Gobbi]], a versatile singing actor capable of vivid comic and tragic performances during the years of his prime in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. He learned more than 100 roles in his lifetime and was mostly known for his roles in Verdi and Puccini operas, including appearances as Scarpia opposite soprano [[Maria Callas]] as Tosca at [[Royal Opera House|Covent Garden]].

Gobbi's competitors included [[Gino Bechi]], [[Giuseppe Valdengo]], [[Paolo Silveri]], [[Giuseppe Taddei]], [[Ettore Bastianini]], Cesare Bardelli and [[Giangiacomo Guelfi]]. Another of Gobbi's contemporaries was the Welshman [[Geraint Evans]], who famously sang Falstaff at [[Glyndebourne Festival Opera|Glyndebourne]] and created the roles of [[Billy Budd (opera)|Mr. Flint]] and [[Gloriana|Mountjoy]] in works by [[Benjamin Britten]]. Some considered his best role to have been Wozzeck. The next significant Welsh baritone was [[Bryn Terfel]]. He made his premiere at Glyndebourne in 1990 and went on to build an international career as Falstaff and, more generally, in the operas of Mozart and Wagner.<ref>Deutsche Grammophon, [http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/artistmicrosite/biography.htms?ART_ID=TERBR Bryn Terfel's Biographical Timeline] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060918085211/http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/artistmicrosite/biography.htms?ART_ID=TERBR |date=18 September 2006 }}, accessed 28 May 2006</ref>

Perhaps the first famous American baritone appeared in the 1900s. It was the American-born but Paris-based [[Charles W. Clark]] who sang Italian, French and German composers. An outstanding group of virile-voiced American baritones appeared then in the 1920s. The younger members of this group were still active as recently as the late 1970s. Outstanding among its members were the Met-based Verdians [[Lawrence Tibbett]] (a compelling, rich-voiced singing actor), [[Richard Bonelli]], [[John Charles Thomas]], [[Robert Weede]], [[Leonard Warren]] and [[Robert Merrill]]. They sang French opera, too, as did the American-born but also Paris-based baritone of the 1920s, and 1930s [[Arthur Endreze]].

Also to be found singing Verdi roles at the Met, Covent Garden and the Vienna Opera during the late 1930s and the 1940s was the big-voiced Hungarian baritone, [[Sandor (Alexander) Sved]].

The leading Verdi baritones of the 1970s and 1980s were probably Italy's [[Renato Bruson]] and [[Piero Cappuccilli]], America's [[Sherrill Milnes]], Sweden's [[Ingvar Wixell]] and the Romanian baritone [[Nicolae Herlea]]. At the same time, Britain's Sir [[Thomas Allen (baritone)|Thomas Allen]] was considered to be the most versatile baritone of his generation in regards to repertoire, which ranged from Mozart to Verdi and lighter Wagner roles, through French and Russian opera, to modern English music. Another British baritone, [[Norman Bailey (bass-baritone)|Norman Bailey]], established himself internationally as a memorable Wotan and Hans Sachs. However, he had a distinguished, brighter-voiced Wagnerian rival during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s in the person of [[Thomas Stewart (bass-baritone)|Thomas Stewart]] of America. Other notable post-War Wagnerian baritones have been Canada's [[George London (bass-baritone)|George London]], Germany's [[Hermann Uhde]] and, more recently, America's [[James Morris (bass-baritone)|James Morris]].

Among the late-20th-century baritones noted throughout the opera world for their Verdi performances was [[Vladimir Chernov]], who emerged from the former [[Soviet Union|USSR]] to sing at the Met. Chernov followed in the footsteps of such richly endowed East European baritones as [[Ippolit Pryanishnikov]] (a favorite of Tchaikovski's), [[Joachim Tartakov]] (an Everardi pupil), [[Oskar Kamionsky]] (an exceptional ''bel canto'' singer nicknamed the "Russian Battistini"), [[Waclaw Brzezinski]] (known as the "Polish Battistini"), [[Georges Baklanoff]] (a powerful singing actor), and, during a career lasting from 1935 to 1966, the [[Bolshoi Theatre|Bolshoi]]'s [[Pavel Lisitsian]]. [[Dmitri Hvorostovsky]] and [[Sergei Leiferkus]] are two Russian baritones of the modern era who appear regularly in the West. Like Lisitsian, they sing Verdi and the works of their native composers, including Tchaikovsky's ''Eugene Onegin'' and ''[[The Queen of Spades (opera)|The Queen of Spades]]''.

In the realm of French song, the bass-baritone [[José van Dam]] and the lighter-voiced [[Gérard Souzay]] have been notable. Souzay's repertoire extended from the Baroque works of [[Jean-Baptiste Lully]] to 20th-century composers such as [[Francis Poulenc]]. [[Pierre Bernac]], Souzay's teacher, was an interpreter of Poulenc's songs in the previous generation. Older baritones identified with this style include France's [[Dinh Gilly]] and [[Charles Panzéra]] and Australia's [[John Brownlee (baritone)|John Brownlee]]. Another Australian, [[Peter Dawson (bass-baritone)|Peter Dawson]], made a small but precious legacy of benchmark Handel recordings during the 1920s and 1930s. (Dawson, incidentally, acquired his outstanding Handelian technique from Sir Charles Santley.) Yet another Australian baritone of distinction between the wars was [[Harold Williams (baritone)|Harold Williams]], who was based in the United Kingdom. Important British-born baritones of the 1930s and 1940s were [[Dennis Noble]], who sang Italian and English operatic roles, and the Mozartian [[Roy Henderson (baritone)|Roy Henderson]]. Both appeared often at Covent Garden.

Prior to World War II, Germany's Heinrich Schlusnus, Gerhard Hüsch and Herbert Janssen were celebrated for their beautifully sung lieder recitals as well as for their mellifluous operatic performances in Verdi, Mozart, and Wagner respectively. After the war's conclusion, [[Hermann Prey]] and [[Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau]] appeared on the scene to take their place. In addition to his interpretations of lieder and the works of Mozart, Prey sang in Strauss operas and tackled lighter Wagner roles such as Wolfram or Beckmesser. Fischer-Dieskau sang parts in 'fringe' operas by the likes of [[Ferruccio Busoni]] and [[Paul Hindemith]] as well as appearing in standard works by Verdi and Wagner. He earned his principal renown, however, as a lieder singer. Talented German and Austrian lieder singers of a younger generation include [[Olaf Bär]], [[Matthias Goerne]], [[Wolfgang Holzmair]] and [[Johannes Sterkel]] (which are also performing or have performed regularly in opera), [[Thomas Quasthoff]], {{ill|Stephan Genz|de}} and [[Christian Gerhaher]]. Well-known non-Germanic baritones of recent times have included the Italians [[Giorgio Zancanaro]] and [[Leo Nucci]], the Frenchman [[François le Roux]], the Canadians [[Gerald Finley]] and [[James Westman]] and the versatile American [[Thomas Hampson]], his compatriot [[Nathan Gunn]] and the Englishman [[Simon Keenlyside]].