Francesco Dominici

A Cuban-born Italian tenor who turned from lyric to comic roles. He studied in Havana and in Italy, and made his debut in 1914 as Fernando in La favorita. He created Prunier in La rondine at Monte Carlo in 1917 and sang it across Italy. A gifted actor, he moved into tenor buffo parts, and from 1921, when he sang Dr Caius at the reopening of La Scala under Toscanini, spent a decade there as David, Monostatos and Filipeto in I quattro rusteghi, creating the Emperor Altoum in Turandot in 1926. In 1931 he returned to Havana to teach.