Word: buffo
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Manhattan has seen many of them but last week it recognized the first good one in a long time. Nearly every classic Italian comic opera has a basso buffo, a comic bass. He wears a false nose, false belly, or both, and is not expected to have much of a voice. Fourteen years ago, when Arturo Toscanini conducted Milan's great La Scala opera, he asked one of his young bassos, Salvatore Baccaloni, to specialize in buffo roles, so that La Scala need not rely on rickety-voiced oldsters...
Besides Soprano Pons and a competent though none too handsome tenor, French-Canadian Raoul Jobin, The Daughter of the Regiment boasts, in the role of Sergeant Sulpice who foster-fathers Marie, a notable new singer, Italian Basso Buffo Salvatore Baccaloni. The Met's production ends with everyone singing La Marseillaise*-an idea contributed by Mme. Pons's band-leading husband, Andre ("Kosty") Kostelanetz...