Virgilio Collini

Virgilio Collini was an Italian baritone remembered as one of the great Verdians of his generation, active mainly around his native Mantua. He created Rodrigue in the 1872 Naples Don Carlo, and by the 1864–65 season was already established at Bologna's Teatro Comunale, singing the title role in Guglielmo Tell, Lord Enrico Ashton in Lucia di Lammermoor and Camoens in Donizetti's Don Sebastiano. In 1870 he sang the title role of Don Giovanni at Mantua's Teatro Sociale to acclaim. He died in his native city in 1893; a full study of his career, by Vladimiro Bertazzoni, was published in 2009.