Paoli, Antonio (real name, Ermogene Imleghi Bascaran)

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Paoli, Antonio (real name, Ermogene Imleghi Bascaran)

Paoli, Antonio (real name, Ermogene Imleghi Bascaran), Puerto Rican tenor; b. Ponce, April 14,1871; d. San Juan, Aug. 24,1946. He studied in Spain and at the Milan Cons. In 1899 he made his operatic debut as Arnold in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell at the Paris Opéra. After appearances in Caracas, Havana, and N.Y. (1901), he toured the U.S. with Mascagni’s opera troupe (1902) and then pursued his career in Europe and South America. From 1928 he taught at the Univ. of Puerto Rico. Among his best roles were Verdi’s Manrico and Otello, Meyerbeer’s Vasco da Gama, and Saint-Saëns’s Samson.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire