Antonio Baglioni, Mozart’s First Don Ottavio and Tito, in Italy and Prague JOHN A. RICE One of the few singers for whom Mozart wrote more than one important operatic role, Antonio Baglioni created the roles of Don Ottavio and, four years later, Tito. His achievement reflects the length of his engagement in Domenico Guardasoni’s opera troupe – he served for slightly less than a decade, from 1787 to 1795 (or early 1796), as Guardasoni’s leading tenor in Prague, Leipzig, and Warsaw. The length of Baglioni’s involvement with the Guardasoni company, the quantity and importance of the roles with which he was entrusted and of the music he sang, and especially the difficulty of the music that Mozart wrote for him, might lead us to conclude that he was a first-rate singer. Yet critical appraisals of Baglioni by his contemporaries were mixed; and he never seems to have reached the highest rank in his profession, either as a mezzo carattere tenor – the singer who typically portrayed the serious young lover in comic operas – or as a tenor in opera seria. One listener appreciated Baglioni’s singing enough to write poetry for him. In Warsaw (where the Guardasoni troupe performed from 1789 to 1791) one Antonio Carpaccio published in 1790 a sonnet addressed to »Signor Baglioni, il quale sostiene con universale applauso la parte di mezzo carattere nell’opera italiana«: Al ritornar della Stagion novella Quando natura con ridente viso Sparge sul Mondo la letizia, e il riso, Cacciato in bando il verno e la procella. De pinti augelli in questa parte, e in quella Il canto a noi dischiude il Paradiso, E sull’alto dell’aere l’Eco assiso Ripete il suono ai venti in sua favella. Sei vaga Primavera, ma l’eterno Volger degl’anni, e d’astri, e d’elementi A noi ti toglie con suo corso alterno. Sol di tua voce agli armoniosi accenti Anco nel tempestoso orrido verno La ridente stagione a noi rammenti. 1 A discussion of the Guardasoni company published in 1792 contains more useful praise of Baglioni’s »armoniosi accenti«, singling out a particular mezzo carattere role in which excelled: Herr Baglioni. Erster Tenorist. Wie sehr er sich in Gesang und Spiel seit den 4 Jahren, daß wir ihn nicht gesehen haben, vervollkommt hat, kann man nicht besser beurtheilen, als wenn er in Rollen auftritt, die er schon damals spielte. Gewiß verdient er mit Recht Beyfall. Seine Stimme hat sich ausgebildet, ist wohlklingend, rein und voll Ausdruck, so daß wenig Theaters sich eines solchen Tenoristen werden rühmen können. Wir haben seit lan- 24