Luigi Lablache

He was most noted for his comic performances, possessing a powerful and agile bass voice, a wide range, and adroit acting skills: Leporello in Don Giovanni was one of his signature roles.

He was educated from 1806 at the Conservatorio della Pietà de' Turchini in Naples, where Gentili taught him the elements of music, and Giovanni Valesi instructed him in singing, while at the same time he studied the violin and cello.

On 30 March 1830, under Ebers's management, he was first heard in London as Geronimo in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto and thenceforth appeared there annually, also singing in many provincial festivals.

A physically imposing man, his voice was at all times extraordinarily powerful; but he could produce comic, humorous, tender, or sorrowful effects with equal ease and mastery.

Towards the close of his career he played two new characters of quite different types with great success, Shakespeare's Caliban in Fromental Halévy's La Tempesta and Gritzenko, the Kalmuck, in Scribe's and Meyerbeer's L'étoile du nord.

The actor Stewart Granger was his great-great-grandson, and the BBC TV Antiques Roadshow expert Bunny Campione is also a descendant.