Titta Ruffo autographed

Titta Ruffo
(Ruffo Titta Cafiero)
1877-1953
Italian Baritone

Studied voice with several teachers .Debut in 1898 at the Teatro Constanzi in Rome as the Herald in Wagner's Lohengrin .His other major debuts occurred in the following venues and years: Buenos Aires (1902), London (1903), Milan (1904), Lisbon (1907), the Paris Opéra (1911) and São Paulo [Teatro Municipal] (1911). Ruffo made his American debut in Philadelphia in 1912 and sang extensively in Chicago. He reached the New York Metropolitan Opera relatively late in his career, in 1922, as Figaro in The Barber of Seville, having enlisted in the Italian army during World War I. He would give a total of 46 performances at the Met from 1922 through to 1929.
His repertoire included most of the major baritone roles in French and Italian opera, including among others Rigoletto, Di Luna, Amonasro, Germont, Tonio, Rossini's Figaro, Valentin, Iago, Carlo (in both Ernani and La forza del destino), Nabucco, Vasco, Don Giovanni, Barnaba, Scarpia, Marcello, and Renato in Un ballo in maschera. He was also renowned for his interpretations of several baritone parts in operas that are largely forgotten today, namely, the title roles in Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet and Franchetti's Cristoforo Colombo plus Cathcart in Leoncavallo's Zazà and Neri in Giordano's La cena delle beffe.