After leaving Glyndebourne he went straight to Salzburg, where he sang the title role of Donizetti's Don Pasquale. Later that year he sang his first Mozart Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro for Netherlands Opera. Early in 1953 he returned to La Scala for Leporello in Don Giovanni and Tadeo in Rossini's L'italiana in Alger?ack at Glyndebourne that summer he repeated his wonderfully comic and elegant Dandini, and returned to Don Alfonso. In June he and Sena Jurinac were married in Lewes, appearing in Cos?an tutte the same evening. They also sang together in the prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, with Jurinac as the Composer and Bruscantini as the Music Master, an unusual excursion into German opera – he sang Papageno in The Magic Flute, but only in Italian. His marriage to Jurinac was at first a great success, but later they grew apart and the marriage was dissolved – with great difficulty on Bruscantini's side.In the summer of 1954 he sang Rossini's Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia at Glyndebourne, and with the company in Edinburgh took on Raimbaud in Rossini's Le Comte Ory. Meanwhile he was appearing in Genoa, Venice, Naples, Rome, Bologna and Lisbon.
At Glyndebourne in 1955 he sang both Mozart's and Rossini's Figaro, demonstrating his ability to bring a character to vibrant life. He felt that the mainspring of Rossini's Figaro was money and that of Mozart's was love; a third Figaro, in Paisiello's Il barbiere, which was also in his repertory, was the only one motivated, like the Beaumarchais original, by revolutionary politics. Bruscantini gained another baritone role in Malatesta in Don Pasquale at Genoa in 1958, but early the following year reverted to Pasquale at La Scala.In 1959 he appeared at the Royal Festival Hall in London with the Virtuosi di Roma in three 18th-century comic operas, as Uberto in Pergolesi's La serva padrona, as Don Bucefalo in Fioravanti's Le cantatrici villane and in the title role of Il maestro di cappella by Cimarosa, a one-man show that peopled the stage with imaginary characters and always brought the house down.Nineteen-sixty was a milestone in Bruscantini's career. In February and March he sang the four baritone villains in Les Contes d'Hoffmann and Marcello in La boh? at the San Carlo, Naples.
Then at Glyndebourne in the summer he took on his first Verdi baritone role, Ford in Falstaff. He repeated Ford at Edinburgh and in Turin, then in November he made his US d?t in Chicago as Rossini's Figaro.In 1962 he sang his first Posa in Verdi's Don Carlos at Trieste. Other high baritone roles followed, and in 1965 another new Verdi role, Renato in Un ballo in maschera, at Florence. This was followed by Giorgio Germont in La traviata at Genoa in 1966. The elder Germont was perhaps Bruscantini's finest baritone characterisation. He sang it in Madrid, Chicago, Palermo and Parma, during the 1960s, and at Marseilles in 1971, with Renata Scotto as Violetta. The depth of feeling he brought to the role was unique in my experience, and he evoked enormous sympathy for a personage who is often taken to be unsympathetic.Bruscantini made a very belated Covent Garden d?t in 1971 as Rossini's Figaro.
He returned to London in 1974 as Malatesta in Don Pasquale, which was very well received. In 1976 his fine rendering of Simon Boccanegra in the original, 1857 version of Verdi's opera was broadcast by the BBC on New Year's Day, and the following month he sang his first Falstaff with Scottish Opera in Glasgow. Though he made the fat knight a lonely, rather sad old man, he lit the performance with many sly touches of humour.In 1977 Bruscantini made the first of three visits to the Wexford Festival, during which he directed the operas as well as singing in them. A triple bill of Il maestro di cappella, La serva padrona and Ricci's La serva e l'ussero was followed in 1979 by Crispino e la comare by the Ricci brothers, and in 1981 by Verdi's Un giorno di regno, in which Bruscantini sang Baron Kelbar, exactly 30 years after singing the role for Radio Italiana. In 1980 the 60-year-old Bruscantini made his d?t at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, as Taddeo in L'italiana, followed by Dr Dulcamara in L'elisir d'amore.He continued to sing throughout the 1980s, appearing at Salzburg three years running as Don Alfonso in Cos?an tutte At Houston he took on Dr Bartolo in Il barbiere He returned to Glyndebourne in 1985 as Don Magnifico. In 1986 he sang Iago (never one of his best roles) at Dallas in an emergency and obtained a new Rossini role at Bordeaux, Asdrubale in La pietra del paragone.
