He was a frequent contributor to musical journals and debates and collaborated with Mascagni and Toscanini, who directed Lualdi’s composition Il diavolo nel campanile, based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Devil in the Belfry."
He sang a wide repertoire encompassing material from French composers like Gounod and Massenet to the Italian grand operas of Verdi, the verismo operas of Mascagni, and the German operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.
Throughout her career she participated in several world premieres, including originating the title roles in Puccini's Tosca, Mascagni's Iris, and Catalani's La Wally.
Lázaro created the tenor roles of Mascagni's Parisina (1913, Scala) and Il piccolo Marat (1921, Costanzi), and Romani's Fedra (1915, Costanzi).
Mascagni: Le Maschere (Maria Josè Gallego, Vincenzo La Scola, Amelia Felle, Giuseppe Sabbatini, et al.; Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna).
Bruna Rasa created the roles of Atte in Mascagni's Nerone, Cecilia Sagredo in Franco Vittadini's La Sagredo and Saint Clare in Licinio Refice's 1926 oratorio, Trittico Francescano.
Ancona also undertook roles composed by Leoncavallo (Silvio and Tonio), Puccini (Lescaut and Marcello), Mascagni (Alfio and David in L'amico Fritz), Giordano (Gerard in Andrea Chénier), Mozart (Don Giovanni and Figaro) and Wagner (Wolfram, Telramund and even, on occasion, Hans Sachs).
Positive reviews led to further performances in both Madama Butterfly and Mascagni's Iris in New York, San Francisco and Chicago, before returning to London to work with the Beecham company.
As a member of the Opera Theatre (Minsk), in 1982, Polozov made his successful debut with the Bolshoi Theatre when he performed Alfredo opposite Margarita Voites and Turiddu in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana opposite Makvala Kasrashvili and Elena Obraztsova.
Guglielmo Ratcliff (premiered 1895), a later opera by Pietro Mascagni
Wissembourg formed the setting for the Romantic novel L’ami Fritz (1869) co-written by the team of Erckmann and Chatrian, which provided the material for Mascagni's opera L'Amico Fritz.