Achille De Bassini was an Italian baritone performer who was born on 5 May 1819 in Milan where he also studied. It is believed that he made his operatic debut in the private houses in Voghera in the northern region of Lombardy. In 1837, records indicated that De Bassini originated the title role in Gaetano Donizetti’s Belisario. Following this De Bassini became one of the leading baritones in Italy and went on to originate the roles in several operas by Giuseppe Verdi including the role of Francesco Foscari in I due Foscari (1844), Pasha Seid in Il Corsaro (1848), Miller in Luisa Miller (1849) and Fra Melitone in La Forza del Destino (1862).

De Bassini gained a reputation for portraying noble, suffering characters, however, Verdi saw the potential for playing humorous roles and wrote the role of Fra Melitone in La Forza del Destino specifically for him. As well as being in demand throughout Italy, De Bassini performed in St. Petersburg, and in 1859 he made his London debut at Covent Garden.

De Bassini married the Italian soprano Rita Gabussi. Their son, Alberto De Bassini followed in his father’s footsteps and was an opera singer, originally as a tenor and later as a baritone. De Bassini died, aged 62 while living in retirement in the city of Cava de’ Tirreni in southern Italy.

Sources/Images
Image of a lithograph of Achille De Bassini, 1854. Image in the Public Domain, part of the University of Milan archives.

Warrack, John and West, Ewan, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).

Contributor
Mark Scott