Francesco Baglioni

Francesco Baglioni, also known as Carnace, was one of the most popular comic basses of his time and a key figure in the consolidation of opera buffa in the mid-18th century. His activity, documented between 1729 and 1762, places him in northern Italy, where comic opera rapidly gained ground.

His first appearances were in intermezzos performed in Foligno and Pesaro in the late 1720s. His career in the comic genre began in Rome in 1738, with works by Gaetano Latilla and Rinaldo di Capua, and these pieces, together with Rinaldo's La libertà nociva (1740), filled much of the following decade in cities across northern Italy. In 1749 he took part in L'Arcadia in Brenta, in Venice, the first collaboration between Galuppi and Goldoni. He worked with impresarios such as Angelo Mingotti, Eustachio Bambini and Girolamo Medebach. There are indications that he also acted as an impresario, although only a payment from 1744 at the Venetian theatre of San Cassiano is on record.

Several of his daughters performed alongside him; Clementina later created the role of Rosina in Mozart's La finta semplice. His legacy lies in spreading the buffa repertoire.