Franco Riccardi

After his 1947 debut as Pinkerton at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, he sang lyrical main roles for a few years, then he switched to the comprimario repertory – and became very successful. He was a fixture at La Scala from 1954 to 1978, but he sang also most everywhere else in Italy: at the San Carlo, in Rome, Torino, Trieste, Genova, Bari, Florence, Palermo, Catania, Brescia, at the Arena di Verona, the Martina Franca festival... with a few excursions abroad (Monte Carlo, Nancy, Dallas). He sang into the 1980s.

Riccardi had almost every possible comprimario role in his repertory: David, Monostatos, Misail, Bardolfo, Abate (Adriana Lecouvreur), both Arturo and Normanno in Lucia di Lammermoor, Shujskij, Borsa, Cassio, Pang, Goro, Incredibile, the Messenger in Aida, Lampionaio, Malcolm, Malatestino, Spoletta, Bardolfo...

Reference: Kutsch & Riemens