Instead he maintained the capacity to deal with singing (especially in the Verdi literature) with correctness and measure, malleable timbre and fluent sureness in the upper voice that made him “one of the few baritones of his generation capable of representing the true traditional Italian school.
[3]” This early training period was very profitable for him but also very difficult: when he was expelled from the Conservatory for “insufficient voice” caused by a bout of "physical wasting," Cotogni came to his aid again.
In 1916 he sang his first wartime benefit concerts in and around Rome, including arias from Massenet's Hérodiade, Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles, Mozart's Don Giovanni and others in the presence of Cotogni, who praised his student enthusiastically.
In 1920, Emma Carelli signed him for Pagliacci (for which he was to sing a stunning Tonio in the 1934 complete HMV recording featuring Gigli as Canio) at the Teatro Verdi in Florence.
He debuted at Port Said as Alfonso, a role that “exalted his legato singing, for which Cotogni had taught him all the subtlest nuances and even where to breathe in order to deliver such broad, sustained phrases.”[4] 1923 was a very important year for Basiola: he was cast for a U.S. tour with the San Carlo Opera Company, headed by impresario Fortunato Gallo.
Through 1925 he sang in all the major American theaters, mainly in Verdi roles but also (as arch-villain Barnaba) in La Gioconda, Tonio in Pagliacci (in which he was to make a stunning complete recording in 1934 for HMV back in Italy with the great Gigli as Canio) and Escamillo in Carmen, with robust success: critics praised his vocal sonority and homogeneity throughout all registers, with such a wide range and clarity of color as to compare it to a tenor's voice.
In the 1926–27 season, he debuted in Spontini's La vestale, then appeared in Lucia di Lammermoor and Il barbiere alongside Amelita Galli-Curci, and then again in I pagliacci.
His sojourn in America was important for him but did not bring with it guaranteed adulation, given the presence of such baritones as Titta Ruffo, Giuseppe De Luca and Antonio Scotti - competitors idolized by the American public.
Back in Italy, Basiola returned to sing in the provinces, but soon became one of the most popular baritones, given certain qualities - possessed by few others - needed to interpret certain 19th-century repertory being revived in those years due to the shortage of successful new works, including triumphs in 1933 — alongside Giannina Arangi-Lombardi at the Teatro Carlo Felice in L’africana and at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Bellini's I puritani with Lauri-Volpi, Mercedes Capsir and Ezio Pinza.
After his debut at the San Carlo in Naples and a successful 1934 Otello with the Verona Philharmonic ("a proper, controlled Iago, drawing out the character without overdoing it”), Basiola celebrated the Ponchielli centenary in Cremona, interpreting Amenofi in Il figliuol prodigo.
In 1936, after performing Perosi's oratorio Il Natale, he sang alongside Tito Schipa in Cilea's L’arlesiana at La Scala, where, to give Basiola the opportunity to show off his sonorous high notes, the composer added the phrase "Bravi, ragazzi miei" to the third act.
In these years Basiola's activity reached its maximum intensity, with debuts of even more new roles, performances with all the greatest Italian singers of the day, in all the major theaters of Italy.
Managing to resolve vocal difficulties without force and maintaining the soft suppleness of the voice gave him the opportunity to enrich the characters such as Tonio, Barnaba, Rigoletto, making them figures that weren't unilaterally gloomy and vindictive.
Over time Basiola had to make some concessions to verismo vocalism, and his incessant activity did bring about some cloudiness of the voice, but his technique and style made him much in demand, especially in works from the second half of the 19th century.