He was a huge favourite, too, with audiences at New York's Metropolitan Opera during the same era. (His only serious bass rival at the Met and Covent Garden was the elegant French virtuoso Pol Plançon [1851–1914]; but the Frenchman, unlike de Reszke, barely touched Wagnerian opera.) He also sang in Chicago in 1891 and, in 1879–1881, at La Scala, Milan. In 1903, he retired from the stage after his once superlative voice developed technical difficulties and went into a swift decline.