Garcia as Don Giovanni - Original Lithograph

Hand-colored lithograph engraving of the important Spanish tenor in his leading role in Don Juan (Mozart's Don Giovanni.) Engraved by G. Engelmann. ca. 1820.  Mounted on card with some toning, mounting remnants and notes to the verso of the mount; overall very good. 6 x 10 inches (15 x 25 cm).

The Spanish tenor, composer, director and pedagogue Manuel Garcia started into the opera world at the turn of the nineteenth century, first gaining fame in Spain and then by the 1810s in Naples (where he created the role of Norfolk in Rossini's Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra) and Paris. He sang at the Théâtre Italien in Paris from 1816 and became wildly popular in roles such as Almaviva, Otello, and Don Giovanni (usually a baritone role, which he sang as a low tenor.) His son Manuel Garcia became an equally famous singer and pedagogue, and his two daughters Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot were two of the most celebrated singers in opera history.

Gottfried Engelmann (1788 - 1839) was a well-known German lithograph artist who was a pupil of the inventor of this graphic technique Alois Senefelder in Munich. He was also the first artist to introduce lithography into France. (16251)

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Unsigned Photo/Portrait

Art

Opera

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