Achille De Bassini (5 May 1819 – 3 July 1881) was an Italian

baritone A baritone is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the bass (voice type), bass and the tenor voice type, voice-types. It is the most common male voice. The term originates from the ...

, particularly noted for his performances in Verdi's operas. He created the roles of Francesco Foscari in ''

I due Foscari ' (''The Two Foscari'') is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the 1821 historical play, ''The Two Foscari (Byron), The Two Foscari'' by Lord Byron. After his success with ''Ernani'', ...

'' (1844), Pasha Seid in '' Il corsaro'' (1848), Miller in '' Luisa Miller'' (1849) and Fra Melitone in '' La forza del destino'' (1862). Bassini was born and studied in Milan, and is thought to have made his début at

Voghera image:Voghera Castle.jpg, The Castle of Voghera in a 19th-century etching. Voghera (Emilian dialect, Vogherese dialect of Emilian: ''Vughera''; Latin language, Latin: ''Forum Iulii Iriensium'') is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Pavia i ...

in 1837 in the title role of

Donizetti Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian Romantic composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the ''bel canto'' opera ...

's '' Belisario''. Although he had a talent for portraying noble, suffering characters, Verdi also recognized his capacity for humorous roles and wrote the character of Fra Melitone specifically for him. He sang throughout Italy and from 1852 to 1863 in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

as well. He made his London debut in

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

in 1859. De Bassini was married to the soprano Rita Gabussi. Their son, Alberto De Bassini, was also an opera singer, first as a tenor, and later as a baritone. Achille died, aged 62, at Cava de' Tirreni.

Sources

*J. Warrack and E. West, 'De Bassini, Achille', ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press, 1992. * Francesco Regli,
Dizionario biografico dei più celebri poeti ed artisti melodrammatici
', E. Dalmazzo, 1860, pp. 151–152 Italian operatic baritones 1819 births 1881 deaths Singers from Milan 19th-century Italian male opera singers {{Italy-opera-singer-stub