Enrico Giordani

Enrico Giordani was an Italian comprimario tenor, a specialist in the small sharply drawn parts that hold a cast together. From the mid-1880s he sang in Genoa, Milan, Naples, Venice, Rome, Florence, Monte Carlo and Paris, and latterly in New York and Boston. Two composers went to him for premieres: he created both the Abate and the Incredibile in Giordano's Andrea Chénier in 1896, and Spoletta in Tosca four years later. His last engagement was a season at the Metropolitan Opera, ending in February 1905. He died in Bologna that April, by his own hand.