Giorgio Ronconi

Giorgio Ronconi (6 August 1810 – 8 January 1890) was an Italian operatic baritone celebrated for his brilliant acting and compelling stage presence.

[1] However, Harold Rosenthal has written: "This lady, who failed on virtually every opera stage in Europe, was considered a good concert-room singer only, but so indispensable was her husband to any Italian company that willy-nilly she had to be engaged as well.

"[2] In his later years, Ronconi founded a school of singing at Granada in Spain and also accepted a professorial post at the Madrid Royal Conservatory.

The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition offers the following assessment of Ronconi: His voice was neither extensive in compass nor fine in quality, but the genius of his acting and the strength of his personality atoned for his vocal defects.

But the most esteemed of his contemporaries and immediate successors were probably Felice Varesi, Leone Giraldoni, Francesco Graziani and Antonio Cotogni, all of whom were chosen by Verdi himself to create or premiere his baritone roles.