later, he once more sailed to Buenos Aires to fulfil a series of singing engagements; but this proved to be his last trans-Atlantic excursion, and he never appeared again in South America. He also avoided North America despite receiving overtures from the management of the New York Metropolitan Opera. In his absence, Battistini's core repertoire was allocated to the Italian baritones Mario Ancona, Giuseppe Campanari, Antonio Scotti and, after 1908, Pasquale Amato. Battistini is said to have developed a permanent horror of oceanic travel due to his adverse experiences on that particularly rough 1888 voyage to Buenos Aires. 1888 was a memorable year for Battistini in another way, however, for it proved to be the year of his début at Italy's foremost opera house—La Scala, Milan. La Scala's audiences acclaimed him, and he was re-engaged for the next season. The Russian years From 1892 onwards, Battistini established himself as an immense favorite with audiences at Russia's two imperial theatres in Saint Petersburg and Moscow: the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi respectively. He returned to Russia regularly, appearing there for 23 seasons in total, and touring extensively elsewhere in eastern Europe, using Warsaw as his stepping-stone. He would journey to Warsaw, Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Odessa like a prince, travelling in his own private rail coach with a retinue of servants and innumerable trunks containing a vast stage wardrobe renowned for its elegance and lavishness. The composer Jules Massenet was prepared to adjust the role of Werther for the baritone range, when Battistini elected to sing it in Saint Petersburg in 1902, such was the singer's prestige. The industrious Battistini also appeared with some regularity in Milan, Lisbon, Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, and Paris (where he sang for the first time in 1907). But his many social connections in Russia, and the favor that he enjoyed with the imperial family and the nobility, ensured that Russia—more than perhaps even Italy—became his artistic home before the outbreak of the First World War, in 1914. The war led to the destruction, by the Bolsheviks in 1917, of the Tsarist regime and the aristocratic society which had enriched touring Italian opera stars like Battistini and his tenor compatriots Francesco Tamagno, Francesco Marconi, and Angelo Masini. This history-shaping political development, coupled with Battistini's refusal to sing in the Americas, meant that his career after the war's conclusion in 1918 was confined to Western Europe.