Early Years
Jan Mieczysław Reszke was born into comfortable circumstances in Warsaw, Poland in 1850. Both his parents were Poles; his father was a state official and his mother a capable amateur singer, their house being a recognized musical centre. He sang as a boy in Warsaw's cathedral and later studied law at the city's university; but after a few years he abandoned his legal training and went to Milan in Italy to study voice. The most acclaimed of the pedagogues consulted by the young de Reszke was Antonio Cotogni, an eminent baritone who was a favorite of Giuseppe Verdi's.
In January 1874, he made his debut in Venice as Jan de Reschi (he later changed it to Jean de Reszke), undertaking the baritone part of Alfonso in a production of Donizetti's La favorite . The following April, he sang for the first time in London, performing at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and a little later in Paris, essaying an array of different baritone roles.
De Reszke displayed limitations as a baritone and he withdrew from the stage to allow for a further period of study, this time with Giovanni Sbriglia in Paris. Under Sbirgilia's tutelage, his voice gained remarkably in the freedom of its upper register. Accordingly, when he made his first operatic reappearance in 1879 (in Madrid), it was as a tenor, scoring a success in the title-role of Meyerbeer's Robert le diable. Indeed, the then 29-year-old de Reszke's immense fame as a singer dates from this moment.
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