Josip Kašman

Possessed of a fine natural voice and a facility with languages, he abandoned a planned career in the law, to study singing instead with Ivan Zajc in Zagreb.

[citation needed] He reached the peak of his success as a singer in the 1880s and 1890s, building an international reputation (as Giuseppe Kaschmann) and performing at such important venues as the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in Germany (in 1892 and 1894) and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City (in 1883 and 1896), as well as continuing to appear at La Scala.

Audiences in Spain, Portugal, Russia, Monaco, Egypt, Brazil and Argentina also had an opportunity to hear him perform during his prime but he never sang in England.

For many years he had been prevented from returning to Croatia because, as a young man, he had allegedly deserted from the Austrian army following the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Towards the end of his stage career however, as the quality of his voice began to deteriorate due to age, he switched to the buffo repertoire of Rossini, Donizetti and other composers of comic operas.