He made his professional opera debut in June, 1945, at the Teatro Comunale Modena as Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, opposite Sara Scuderi in the title role.
[1] He made his debut at La Scala in 1947 in the title role of Charles Gounod's Faust with Renata Tebaldi as Marguerite, Cesare Siepi as Mephistopheles, and Antonino Votto conducting.
Other notable appearances that Pola made in the late 1940s included the role of Donello in Ottorino Respighi's La fiamma at both the Liceu in Barcelona and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Maurizio in Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur at the Teatro Francesco Cilea in Reggio Calabria with Maria Caniglia in the title role, and appearances at numerous opera houses as Enzo Grimaldi in Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda.
In the summer of 1951, he sang Enzo Grimaldi at the Baths of Caracalla for a gala performance for the Italian government and the official state guest, the President of the Philippines.
Among the roles Pola sang with the Manila Opera were Canio in Pagliacci, Manrico in Il trovatore, Rodolfo in La bohème, and Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana.
That year, he was approached by a baker named Fernando Pavarotti who wanted to know whether the tenor voice of his 19-year-old son, Luciano, was good enough for training as a professional opera singer.
"[2] In 1957, Pola was offered a position on the voice faculty at the Tokyo University of the Arts, and the post of artistic director of the Fujiwara Opera, with the condition that he master the Japanese language.
[1] Some of his other notable pupils included Riccarda Bassi, Peter Butterfield, Andrea Coronella, Nikolay Dorozhkin, Giuliano Bernardi, Thiérry Félix, Rudy Giovannini, Reinaldo Macias, David Mannell, Michiè Nakamaru, Jacek Pazola, Luana Pellegrineschi, and Manrico Tedeschi.