Carlo Baucardé

... for example, about Il trovatore and the tenor Baucardé, many legends and anecdotes exist that stay vividly alive in the memories of our masses; many still remember those today. I will quote only one. One evening at the Teatro Pagliano in Florence, Baucardé created wild enthusiasm by his intense singing of Ah! Questa infame l'onore ha venduto, so that both the spectators of the parterre and the Gods managed to get a third repeat of the piece; from that sensational tumult, it was feared that a sanguinary episode of the old factions of the Guelfi and Ghibellini was born again. Baucardé was the singer who knew how to genially touch the heart of the people. His art was instinctive, prompting the emotion and expression of a musical phrase to generate powerful effects. One cannot say that he had a beautiful voice. He knew how to modulate it with sweetness, gradually toning it down to a bare thread. His mezza voce was a dream. I remember an old Baucardé, already retired from the stage since 1864, in Milan. One evening at the Café Martini, then the meeting place of all great and small singers, retired or still in activity, he was humming in low voice Spirto gentil from La favorita; suddenly the people in the café turned to him attracted by this soft paradisiacal singing. Since then, I have not heard any tenor capable of singing the famous romance so suavely and bringing tears to one's eye, as it happened on that evening. Another tenor, Giuglini, the suave tenor per excellence, was superior to Baucardé in Spirto gentil. His superiority was in the way Giuglini could bind long held notes in the romance. I can say that the singing of Spirto gentil by Giuglini sounded like the magical bow of Paganini. Well, Baucardé, who could bring tears to the eyes when singing Spirto gentil and Tu che a Dio spiegasti l'ali from Lucia, brought the shiver down the spine of the spectators during the Maledizione of Lucia, and in Trovatore, the impetus of his voice would make the audience quiver in terror. Gino Monaldi: Ricordando Tamberlick e Baucardé. Corriere di Milano, 29 November 1923

At a very young age, he worked at the palace kitchen of the Granddukes of Tuscany, where his talent for singing was discoverd. He started early, as a baritone, in Lisbon and Naples. By 1847, he was already a tenor (singing Carlo in Mercadante's Il bravo in Florence); 1848 to 1850, he sang at the San Carlo in Naples (Lombardi, Poliuto, Masnadieri, Favorite); in 1850, he went to London (where he was particularly successful) and Madrid as a guest. The next centers of his activity were Bologna, Torino and Rome.

He was one of the first tenors to sing Duca di Mantova, and it earned him enormous success, to the extent that Verdi had him sing Manrico in the world premiere of Il trovatore (Rome, Teatro Apollo, 19 January 1853). Baucardé invented the high Cs at the end of "Di quella pira", when repeating the role in Florence, and was also the first Manrico in Paris (Théâtre Italien, 23 Demember 1854). A few years later, however, Verdi dropped him, saying with regard to Baucardé and his wife (the notoriously temperamental soprano Augusta Albertini) that he didn't want to have to do any longer with "those lunatics".

According to a contemporary account, Baucardé destroyed his voice by alcohol abuse; 1859/60, he was on tour in North America unsuccessfully, and as early as 1863, he retired.

Reference 1; reference 2: Kutsch & Riemens

Reference: Carlo Marinelli Roscioni, Tom Kaufman e Giovanni Vitali Carlo Baucardé. Alcune tappe della sua carriera artistica

Reference: Giovanni Vitali Carlo Baucardé Appunti per una biografia