Giuseppe Cremonini

An Italian tenor who created Des Grieux in Puccini's Manon Lescaut (1893). Born Giuseppe Bianchi in Cremona, he took his stage name from the city and studied at La Scala's singing school in Milan, where he was Giuseppe Cima's favourite pupil. He made his debut in 1889 and sang at Covent Garden from 1892, in Buenos Aires, Madrid and Rome, and as Cavaradossi in the first American Tosca, at the Metropolitan Opera in 1901. He made no recordings, and died in Cremona at 36, days after singing Massenet's Manon there.