Despite achieving immediate success, he chose not to stay long at the Paris Opéra. With the splendid quality of his singing and his dashing stage presence, he hoped to perform in other places. In 1839, he first sang in London, achieving instant success in Donizetti's "Lucrezia Borgia". There he met the famous Italian soprano Giulia Grisi. Then he joined the Théâtre Italien, where Grisi and such illustrious singers as Maria Malibran, Henriette Sontag, Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani, Giovanni Battista Rubini, Antonio Tamburini, and Luigi Lablache regularly performed. His first appearance there was as "Nemorino" in Donizetti's "L'elisir d'amore".