There are 19th-century references in the musical literature to certain baritone subtypes. These include the light and tenorish baryton-Martin, named after French singer
Jean-Blaise Martin (1768/69–1837), and the deeper, more powerful Heldenbariton (today's bass-baritone) of Wagnerian opera. Perhaps the most accomplished
Heldenbaritons of Wagner's day were
August Kindermann,
Franz Betz and
Theodor Reichmann. Betz created
Hans Sachs in
Die Meistersinger and undertook Wotan in the first
Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle at
Bayreuth, while Reichmann created Amfortas in
Parsifal, also at Bayreuth. Lyric German baritones sang lighter Wagnerian roles such as Wolfram in
Tannhäuser, Kurwenal in
Tristan und Isolde or Telramund in
Lohengrin. They made large strides, too, in the performance of art song and oratorio, with
Franz Schubert favouring several baritones for his vocal music, in particular
Johann Michael Vogl. Nineteenth-century
operettas became the preserve of lightweight baritone voices. They were given comic parts in the tradition of the previous century's comic bass by
Gilbert and Sullivan in many of their productions. This did not prevent the French master of operetta,
Jacques Offenbach, from assigning the villain's role in
The Tales of Hoffmann to a big-voiced baritone for the sake of dramatic effect. Other 19th-century French composers like Meyerbeer,
Hector Berlioz,
Camille Saint-Saëns,
Georges Bizet and
Jules Massenet wrote attractive parts for baritones, too. These included Nelusko in ''
L'Africaine'' (Meyerbeer's last opera), Mephistopheles in
La Damnation de Faust (a role also sung by basses), the Priest of Dagon in
Samson and Delilah, Escamillo in
Carmen, Zurga in
Les pêcheurs de perles, Lescaut in
Manon, Athanael in
Thaïs and Herod in
Hérodiade. Russian composers included substantial baritone parts in their operas. Witness the title roles in
Peter Tchaikovsky's
Eugene Onegin (which received its first production in 1879) and
Alexander Borodin's
Prince Igor (1890). Mozart continued to be sung throughout the 19th century although, generally speaking, his operas were not revered to the same extent that they are today by music critics and audiences. Back then, baritones rather than high basses normally sang Don Giovanni – arguably Mozart's greatest male operatic creation. Famous Dons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries included Scotti and Maurel, as well as Portugal's
Francisco D'Andrade and Sweden's
John Forsell. The verismo baritone, Verdi baritone, and other subtypes are mentioned below, though not necessarily in 19th-century context.
20th century The dawn of the 20th century opened up more opportunities for baritones than ever before as a taste for strenuously exciting vocalism and lurid, "slice-of-life" operatic plots took hold in Italy and spread elsewhere. The most prominent
verismo baritones included such major singers in Europe and America as the polished
Giuseppe De Luca (the first Sharpless in
Madama Butterfly),
Mario Sammarco (the first Gerard in
Andrea Chénier),
Eugenio Giraldoni (the first Scarpia in
Tosca),
Pasquale Amato (the first Rance in
La fanciulla del West),
Riccardo Stracciari (noted for his richly attractive
timbre) and
Domenico Viglione Borghese, whose voice was exceeded in size only by that of the lion-voiced
Titta Ruffo. Ruffo was the most commanding Italian baritone of his era or, arguably, any other era. He was at his prime from the early 1900s to the early 1920s and enjoyed success in Italy, England and America (in Chicago and later at the Met). The chief verismo composers were
Giacomo Puccini, Ruggero Leoncavallo,
Pietro Mascagni,
Alberto Franchetti,
Umberto Giordano and
Francesco Cilea. Verdi's works continued to remain popular, however, with audiences in Italy, the Spanish-speaking countries, the United States and the United Kingdom, and in Germany, where there was a major Verdi revival in Berlin between the wars. Outside the field of Italian opera, an important addition to the Austro-German repertory occurred in 1905. This was the premiere of
Richard Strauss's
Salome, with the pivotal part of John the Baptist assigned to a baritone. (The enormous-voiced Dutch baritone
Anton van Rooy, a Wagner specialist, sang John when the opera reached the Met in 1907). Then, in 1925, Germany's
Leo Schützendorf created the title baritone role in
Alban Berg's harrowing
Wozzeck. In a separate development, the French composer
Claude Debussy's post-Wagnerian masterpiece
Pelléas et Mélisande featured not one but two lead baritones at its 1902 premiere. These two baritones,
Jean Périer and
Hector Dufranne, possessed contrasting voices. (Dufranne – sometimes classed as a bass-baritone – had a darker, more powerful instrument than did Périer, who was a true baryton-Martin.) Characteristic of the Wagnerian baritones of the 20th century was a general progression of individual singers from higher-lying baritone parts to lower-pitched ones. This was the case with Germany's
Hans Hotter. Hotter made his debut in 1929. As a young singer he appeared in Verdi and created the Commandant in Richard Strauss's
Friedenstag and Olivier in
Capriccio. By the 1950s, however, he was being hailed as the top Wagnerian bass-baritone in the world. His Wotan was especially praised by critics for its musicianship. Other major Wagnerian baritones have included Hotter's predecessors
Leopold Demuth, Anton van Rooy,
Hermann Weil,
Clarence Whitehill,
Friedrich Schorr,
Rudolf Bockelmann and
Hans-Hermann Nissen. Demuth, van Rooy, Weil and Whitehill were at their peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries while Schorr, Bockelmann and Nissen were stars of the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to their heavyweight Wagnerian cousins, there was a plethora of baritones with more lyrical voices active in Germany and Austria during the period between the outbreak of WW1 in 1914 and the end of WW2 in 1945. Among them were ,
Heinrich Schlusnus,
Herbert Janssen,
Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender,
Karl Schmitt-Walter and
Gerhard Hüsch. Their abundant inter-war Italian counterparts included, among others,
Carlo Galeffi,
Giuseppe Danise,
Enrico Molinari,
Umberto Urbano,
Cesare Formichi,
Luigi Montesanto,
Apollo Granforte,
Benvenuto Franci,
Renato Zanelli (who switched to tenor roles in 1924),
Mario Basiola,
Giovanni Inghilleri,
Carlo Morelli (the Chilean-born younger brother of Renato Zanelli) and
Carlo Tagliabue, who retired as late as 1958. One of the best known Italian Verdi baritones of the 1920s and 1930s,
Mariano Stabile, sang Iago and Rigoletto and Falstaff (at
La Scala) under the baton of
Arturo Toscanini. Stabile also appeared in London, Chicago and Salzburg. He was noted more for his histrionic skills than for his voice, however. Stabile was followed by
Tito Gobbi, a versatile singing actor capable of vivid comic and tragic performances during the years of his prime in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. He learned more than 100 roles in his lifetime and was mostly known for his roles in Verdi and Puccini operas, including appearances as Scarpia opposite soprano
Maria Callas as Tosca at
Covent Garden. Gobbi's competitors included
Gino Bechi,
Giuseppe Valdengo,
Paolo Silveri,
Giuseppe Taddei,
Ettore Bastianini, Cesare Bardelli and
Giangiacomo Guelfi. Another of Gobbi's contemporaries was the Welshman
Geraint Evans, who famously sang Falstaff at
Glyndebourne and created the roles of
Mr. Flint and
Mountjoy in works by
Benjamin Britten. Some considered his best role to have been Wozzeck. The next significant Welsh baritone was
Bryn Terfel. He made his premiere at Glyndebourne in 1990 and went on to build an international career as Falstaff and, more generally, in the operas of Mozart and Wagner. Perhaps the first famous American baritone appeared in the 1900s. It was the American-born but Paris-based
Charles W. Clark who sang Italian, French and German composers. An outstanding group of virile-voiced American baritones appeared then in the 1920s. The younger members of this group were still active as recently as the late 1970s. Outstanding among its members were the Met-based Verdians
Lawrence Tibbett (a compelling, rich-voiced singing actor),
Richard Bonelli,
John Charles Thomas,
Robert Weede,
Leonard Warren and
Robert Merrill. They sang French opera, too, as did the American-born but also Paris-based baritone of the 1920s, and 1930s
Arthur Endreze. Also to be found singing Verdi roles at the Met, Covent Garden and the Vienna Opera during the late 1930s and the 1940s was the big-voiced Hungarian baritone,
Sandor (Alexander) Sved. The leading Verdi baritones of the 1970s and 1980s were probably Italy's
Renato Bruson and
Piero Cappuccilli, America's
Sherrill Milnes, Sweden's
Ingvar Wixell and the Romanian baritone
Nicolae Herlea. At the same time, Britain's Sir
Thomas Allen was considered to be the most versatile baritone of his generation in regards to repertoire, which ranged from Mozart to Verdi and lighter Wagner roles, through French and Russian opera, to modern English music. Another British baritone,
Norman Bailey, established himself internationally as a memorable Wotan and Hans Sachs. However, he had a distinguished, brighter-voiced Wagnerian rival during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s in the person of
Thomas Stewart of America. Other notable post-War Wagnerian baritones have been Canada's
George London, Germany's
Hermann Uhde and, more recently, America's
James Morris. Among the late-20th-century baritones noted throughout the opera world for their Verdi performances was
Vladimir Chernov, who emerged from the former
USSR to sing at the Met. Chernov followed in the footsteps of such richly endowed East European baritones as
Ippolit Pryanishnikov (a favorite of Tchaikovski's),
Joachim Tartakov (an Everardi pupil),
Oskar Kamionsky (an exceptional
bel canto singer nicknamed the "Russian Battistini"),
Waclaw Brzezinski (known as the "Polish Battistini"),
Georges Baklanoff (a powerful singing actor), and, during a career lasting from 1935 to 1966, the
Bolshoi's
Pavel Lisitsian.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky and
Sergei Leiferkus are two Russian baritones of the modern era who appear regularly in the West. Like Lisitsian, they sing Verdi and the works of their native composers, including Tchaikovsky's
Eugene Onegin and
The Queen of Spades. In the realm of French song, the bass-baritone
José van Dam and the lighter-voiced
Gérard Souzay have been notable. Souzay's repertoire extended from the Baroque works of
Jean-Baptiste Lully to 20th-century composers such as
Francis Poulenc.
Pierre Bernac, Souzay's teacher, was an interpreter of Poulenc's songs in the previous generation. Older baritones identified with this style include France's
Dinh Gilly and
Charles Panzéra and Australia's
John Brownlee. Another Australian,
Peter Dawson, made a small but precious legacy of benchmark Handel recordings during the 1920s and 1930s. (Dawson, incidentally, acquired his outstanding Handelian technique from Sir Charles Santley.) Yet another Australian baritone of distinction between the wars was
Harold Williams, who was based in the United Kingdom. Important British-born baritones of the 1930s and 1940s were
Dennis Noble, who sang Italian and English operatic roles, and the Mozartian
Roy Henderson. Both appeared often at Covent Garden. Prior to World War II, Germany's Heinrich Schlusnus, Gerhard Hüsch and Herbert Janssen were celebrated for their beautifully sung lieder recitals as well as for their mellifluous operatic performances in Verdi, Mozart, and Wagner respectively. After the war's conclusion,
Hermann Prey and
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau appeared on the scene to take their place. In addition to his interpretations of lieder and the works of Mozart, Prey sang in Strauss operas and tackled lighter Wagner roles such as Wolfram or Beckmesser. Fischer-Dieskau sang parts in 'fringe' operas by the likes of
Ferruccio Busoni and
Paul Hindemith as well as appearing in standard works by Verdi and Wagner. He earned his principal renown, however, as a lieder singer. Talented German and Austrian lieder singers of a younger generation include
Olaf Bär,
Matthias Goerne,
Wolfgang Holzmair and
Johannes Sterkel (which are also performing or have performed regularly in opera),
Thomas Quasthoff, and
Christian Gerhaher. Well-known non-Germanic baritones of recent times have included the Italians
Giorgio Zancanaro and
Leo Nucci, the Frenchman
François le Roux, the Canadians
Gerald Finley and
James Westman and the versatile American
Thomas Hampson, his compatriot
Nathan Gunn and the Englishman
Simon Keenlyside. == Vocal range ==