Giuseppe De Luca

Giuseppe De Luca (25 December 1876 – 26 August 1950), was an Italian baritone who achieved his greatest triumphs at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

After his voice broke, a wealthy patron paid for him to have singing lessons at the Rome Conservatory, where he studied with two top-class pedagogues, Venceslao Persichini (who also taught De Luca's fellow baritone stars Mattia Battistini and Titta Ruffo) and Antonio Cotogni.

His first appearance at that house was on 25 November 1915, as Figaro in The Barber of Seville with Frieda Hempel as Rosina and Giacomo Damacco as Count Almaviva, with Gaetano Bavagnoli conducting.

De Luca's elegant vocalism is preserved on numerous recordings which he made for the Gramophone, Fonotipia and Victor companies in Italy and America from the early 1900s through to the 1920s and '30s.

On some of them, he is partnered by other great singers of the Metropolitan Opera's golden age, including Enrico Caruso, Giovanni Martinelli, Beniamino Gigli, Amelita Galli-Curci, Elisabeth Rethberg, Rosa Ponselle and Ezio Pinza.

Giuseppe de Luca in 1917