Bonaventura Bottone

Bottone studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He sang with every possible British opera company: Welsh National Opera (where he made his 1973 debut as Almaviva), Scottish Opera, Glyndebourne (both the festival and the touring company), Opera of North Ireland Belfast, Opera North Leeds, and above all Covent Garden and the English National Opera. Abroad, he appeared in Houston, at the Metropolitan Opera, in Chicago, Santiago de Chile, at the Wexford Festival, in Venice, Munich (Bayerische Staatsoper) and Paris (Opéra Bastille).

He was always praised for his acting abilities, particularly so in comic roles.

Bottone sang a widely and wildly varied repertory of both main and comprimario roles: from Comte Ory to Loge, from Nanki-Poo (in Sullivan's Mikado) to Fernand (in La favorite), from Brighella (in Ariadne auf Naxos) to Pinkerton, from Rodolfo to Bardolfo (in Falstaff). He was still in full activity by the end of the 2010s.

Reference 1 and picture source, reference 2: Kutsch & Riemens