Antonio Cotogni (August 1, 1831, Rome - October 15, 1918, Rome) was an Italian baritone of the first magnitude. Regarded internationally as being one of the greatest male opera singers of the 19th century, he was particularly admired by the composer Giuseppe Verdi. Cotogni forged an important second career as a singing teacher after his retirement from the stage in 1898.
A native of Rome, Cotogni was of humble origins. He studied first at the Hospice of San Michele, and afterwards under Faldi, Capocci, Mustafà and Aldega, gaining his first success in the Oratory of the Filippini in the Chiesa Nuova.[1] He also studied with Fontemaggi. He made his debut at Rome's Teatro Metastasio, as Belcore in L'elisir d'amore, in 1852. He sang successfully on the Italian operatic circuit before reaching La Scala, Milan, in 1860. During the ensuing decades, he also appeared at the leading opera houses in Madrid, Lisbon, Paris, London, Moscow and St Petersburg. He became enormously popular with London audiences, performing at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, from 1867 to 1889. He sang at St Petersburg in 26 successive seasons.[2]
Cotogni was an especial favorite of Verdi's, who praised him for the beauty, warmth and strength of his voice, as well as for the emotional intensity which he brought to his musical interpretations. He sang most of the major Verdi baritone roles and took part in the first Italian staging of Don Carlo, in Bologna in 1867, under the supervision of the composer. But his operatic triumphs were not confined to Verdi's compositions. He was also a brilliant exponent of the elegant but technically demanding bel canto music of Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini.
Cotogni retired from the operatic stage in February 1898, having sung an estimated 127 (some sources say 157) roles. They ranged from the major parts in Mozart's Italian operas through to what were, from Cotogni's perspective, cutting-edge modern parts in such verismo works as Pagliacci and Manon Lescaut.[3] His interpretations of the lead baritone characters in Un ballo in maschera, Ernani, Linda di Chamounix, Faust, L'elisir d'amore and Il barbiere di Siviglia were especially admired.[2] Cotogni's final appearance was as Don Pasquale in Donizetti's comic opera of the same name.
In retirement, Cotogni became one of the most celebrated vocal teachers in history. He taught briefly in St Petersburg (at the invitation of Anton Rubinstein) but he had to abandon this post in consequence of a serious illness,[4] subsequently taking up an appointment in 1902 as a professor at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Here he founded what became known as the "Roman School of Singing". Among those who studied under him during this period were the world famous tenors Beniamino Gigli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi and the leading baritones Mario Basiola, Benvenuto Franci and Mariano Stabile. Two other star singers, Jean de Reszke and Mattia Battistini, consulted him as well.
Cotogni ranks with his contemporaries Francesco Graziani, Jean-Baptiste Faure and Sir Charles Santley as the foremost baritone of his star-studded generation. He "had a very brief and scarcely revealing relationship with the gramophone; at the age of 77 ... with the tenor Francesco Marconi, he recorded [the] duet 'I Mulatieri'", writes Michael Scott.[5] "Not surprisingly Marconi gets the better of it. Still, however difficult it is to make out Cotogni's contribution, it is all we have left of a singer who for over 40 years dominated the stages in London, Madrid and Lisbon, St Petersburg and Moscow and throughout Italy."
Cotogni died of old age in Rome less than a month prior to the 1918 armistice which ended World War I.