As the family lived in Naples, Paris and London, they were in constant touch with musical personalities such as Gioachino Rossini, Angelica Catalani and Giuditta Pasta, among many others. His father, Manuel García the Elder, an extraordinarily brilliant and industrious tenor, composer and professor of singing, introduced the young Manuel to opera and insisted upon him -as well as his sisters- obtaining an all-encompassing musical education, taking lessons from professors such as Giovanni Anzani and Anton Reicha. Both of his younger sisters, María Malibran and Pauline Viardot-García, also followed the family’s musical path and eventually became two of the best known and appreciated professional singers in bel canto Europe.

Manuel Patricio García (Manuel Patricio Rodríguez Sitches 1805-1906), professor of voice at the Conservatoire de Paris and at the Royal Academy of Music (London) and inventor of the laryngoscope, was one of the most relevant personalities in the history of opera. The son of the tenor and composer Manuel del Pópulo García (1775-1832), he was born in Spain, although, having lived in Madrid for nearly a decade, he spent the first quarter of his life travelling around Europe and the Americas, accompanying his parents, both of them professional singers.

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