Manuel del Pópulo Vicente García

Manuel del Pópulo Vicente García (January 21, 1775 - June 10, 1832) was a noted Spanish opera singer, composer and singing teacher.

García was born in Seville, Spain. In 1808 he went to Paris with a reputation already gained as a tenor at Madrid and Cadiz. By 1808, when he appeared in the opera "Griselda" in Paris, he was already known as a composer of light operas. He lived in Naples, performing in Rossini's operas, including the première of "Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra", until 1816, when he visited Paris and London. Between 1819 and 1823, he lived in Paris, and sang in "The Barber of Seville", "Otello", "Don Giovanni", and other popular favorites. Until 1824 he was of high repute in London and Paris, and in the following year he visited the United States and toured North America. He recounted in his memoirs that while on the road between Mexico and Vera Cruz, he was robbed of all his money by brigands. He was the creator of the role of Count Almaviva in "The Barber of Seville" (Rome, 1816), and was considered one of the most brilliant tenors of the XIXth century.

Garcia spent his final years in Paris as a teacher of singing, his voice being greatly impaired by age as well as fatigue. His eldest daughter was the celebrated mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran, his second daughter was the famous Pauline Garcia-Viardot, one of the most astonishing musicians of the 19th century. He had a son, Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García, a baritone, who became an even more famous teacher than his father.

Works

*"La Maja y el Majo."

*"La Declaración."

*"El Seductor Arrepentido."

*"Quien Porfía Mucho Alcanza."

*"El Criado Fingido. "

*"El Trapisondista."

*"El Poeta Calculista."

*"El Preso."

*"Los Ripios del Maestro Adán."

*"Il Califfo di Bagdad."

*"Le Prince d’Occasion."

*"Il Fazzoletto."

*"La figlia del Aria."

*"La mort du Tasse."

*"La Meunière."

*"Florestan. "

*"Astuzie e Prudenza."

*"La Buona Famiglia. "

*"Il Lupo d’Ostenda."

*"Tancredi Romeo."

*"Zelmira El Abufar."

*"Semiramis Xaira."

*"El Gitano por Amor. "

*"Don Chisciotte. "

*"El Zapatero de Bagdad. "

*"Los Maridos Solteros."

References

* James Radomski: Manuel García (1775 - 1832); chronicle of the life of a bel canto tenor at the dawn of romanticism. Oxford; New York: Oxford Univ. Press 2000. ISBN 0-19-816373-8

* Teresa Radomski (Ed.): "L'isola disabitata". Partitur. Middleton, Wisc.: A-R Ed., 2006. Serie: Recent researches in the music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; 42. ISBN 0-89579-594-9; ISBN 9-780-89679-594-6.

External links

* [http://www.harmonicorde.com/Manuel%20Garcia%20%281775-1832%29.html Manuel García] Biography and free download of music.