Virgilio Bellatti

An Italian baritone with a long career in Italy and the Americas, admired in character and comic parts. He made his debut at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence in 1892 as Zurga, and in 1901 sang at La Scala in Mascagni's Le maschere and in La bohème with Caruso. He toured Mexico, where sweets were sold bearing his portrait, and the United States with Mascagni's company in 1902. He created Sharpless in the revised Madama Butterfly at Brescia in 1904, and recorded for Columbia. Illness ended his career during a season in Malta in 1917, the year he died.