"Bottesini. In 1853 she created the leading soprano role of Leonora in Giuseppe Verdi's hugely successful opera ""Il trovatore"". She had appeared in Trieste the previous year as Azucena in ""Il trovatore"" by Francesco Cortesi, based on the same Spanish play as Verdi's opera. Verdi prized her for her combination of vocal agility with fervid dramatic commitment. The composer recommended her for the leading soprano roles of his subsequent operas ""La traviata"" and ""Un ballo in maschera"", saying that Penco had lots of spirit and a good stage presence. She subsequently appeared as Amelia in ""Un ballo in maschera"" at"
"operas such as ""Il cantore di Venezia"" by Virginio Marchi (1835), ""Stradella"" by Louis Niedermeyer (Paris, 1837), ""Stradella"" by César Franck (1841, unfinihed), ""Alessandro Stradella"" by Friedrich von Flotow (Hamburg, 1844), ""Alessandro Stradella"" by Adolf Schimon (1846), ""Stradella il trovatore"" by Vincenzo Moscuzza (1850), ""Alessandro Stradella"" by Giuseppe Sinico (1864). American novelist F. Marion Crawford also produced a highly romanticized novel of Stradella's affair and flight from Venice, titled ""Stradella"" (Macmillan 1909). Alessandro Stradella Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella (Bologna, 3 July 1643 – Genoa, 25 February 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque period. He enjoyed a dazzling"
"working on the completion of ""Aroldo"" and beginning to prepare a libretto with Piave for what would become ""Simon Boccanegra"", he encountered some legal difficulties in dealing with Toribio Calzado, the impresario of the Théâtre des Italiens, and, with his contacts with the Opėra, agreed to prepare a French version of ""Trovatore"" on 22 September 1855. A translation of Cammarano's libretto was made by librettist Émilien Pacini under the title of ""Le trouvère"" and it was first performed at La Monnaie in Brussels on 20 May 1856. There followed the production at the Paris Opera's Salle Le Peletier on 12"
"laments her loss, and the chorus comment that an angel missing from heaven has now returned there. Notes Sources Elena da Feltre Elena da Feltre is an opera in three acts by 19th-century Italian composer Saverio Mercadante from a libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, well known as librettist of Donizetti's ""Lucia di Lammermoor"" and Verdi's ""Il trovatore"". The premiere took place at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 1 January 1839 as part of the Carnival Season. While not successful at the time, the opera was revived at La Scala in 1843 with twenty performances. When composing ""Elena da Feltre"""
"Gioachino Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (; 29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as some sacred music, songs, chamber music, and piano pieces. He was a precocious composer of operas, and he made his debut at age 18 with ""La cambiale di matrimonio"". His best-known operas include the Italian comedies ""The Barber of Seville"" (""Il barbiere di Siviglia""), ""The Italian Girl in Algiers"" (""L'italiana in Algeri""), and ""Cinderella"" (""La Cenerentola""). He also wrote a string of serious operas in Italian, including works such as ""Tancredi"", ""Otello"", and ""Semiramide"". ""The Thieving"
"Giovanni Guicciardi Giovanni Guicciardi (12 January 1819 – 4 October 1883) was an Italian opera singer who sang leading baritone roles in the opera houses of Italy and Portugal. He is most remembered today for having created the role of Count di Luna in Verdi's ""Il trovatore"", although he created several other leading roles in operas by lesser known Italian composers. He accumulated a considerable fortune during the course of his career. After his retirement from the stage, he taught without payment in music schools in his native city, Reggio Emilia, and presided over a charity for orphaned musicians. He"
"died in San Polo d'Enza at the age of 64. Giovanni Guicciardi Giovanni Guicciardi (12 January 1819 – 4 October 1883) was an Italian opera singer who sang leading baritone roles in the opera houses of Italy and Portugal. He is most remembered today for having created the role of Count di Luna in Verdi's ""Il trovatore"", although he created several other leading roles in operas by lesser known Italian composers. He accumulated a considerable fortune during the course of his career. After his retirement from the stage, he taught without payment in music schools in his native city, Reggio"
"1758. Giuseppe Ferdinando Brivio Giuseppe Ferdinando Brivio (c. 1699, Milan – c. 1758, Milan) was an Italian composer, conductor, violinist, and singing teacher who is chiefly known for his operas. His work displays a natural expression and uses figurations similar to that of Antonio Vivaldi. He was born in Milan. The earliest record of Brivio was in a court document indicating his postition as a violinist at the Royal Palace of Milan in 1720. He soon after to become the music director at the Royal Palace's theatre where he remained until October 13, 1732. He later returned to the theater"
"Elena da Feltre Elena da Feltre is an opera in three acts by 19th-century Italian composer Saverio Mercadante from a libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, well known as librettist of Donizetti's ""Lucia di Lammermoor"" and Verdi's ""Il trovatore"". The premiere took place at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 1 January 1839 as part of the Carnival Season. While not successful at the time, the opera was revived at La Scala in 1843 with twenty performances. When composing ""Elena da Feltre"" in 1838, Mercadante wrote to Francesco Florimo, laying out his ideas about how opera should be structured, following the"
"Lodovico Graziani Lodovico Graziani (14 November 1820 – 15 May 1885) was an Italian operatic tenor. According to John Warrack and Ewan West, writing in ""The Oxford Dictionary of Opera"": ""His voice was clear and vibrant, but he lacked dramatic gifts."" He is now mainly remembered for having created the role of Alfredo Germont in the world premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's ""La traviata"" in 1853. Graziani was born in Fermo, Italy, into a musical family. Three of his brothers also became professional singers, in particular his younger brother Francesco Graziani, who became a well known baritone and spent much of"
"roles included Lt. Pinkerton in Puccini's ""Madama Butterfly"", Pollione in Bellini's ""Norma"", Cassio in Verdi's ""Otello"", Canio in Leoncavallo's ""Pagliacci"", Ismaele in Verdi's ""Nabucco"", Alfredo in Verdi's ""La traviata"", Don Jose in Bizet's ""Carmen"", Manrico in Verdi's ""Il trovatore"", and Avito in Montemezzi's ""L'amore dei tre re"". Fredericks started the annual Christmas Carolfest on the Music Pier in Ocean City, New Jersey, in the mid-1970s and directed it for several years until his death. Walter Fredericks Walter Fredericks (1916–2000) was an American operatic tenor and concert singer active from the late 1940s until at least the 1980s. A native of"
"his house and the Catholic church of St. Peter, and while in the church, it played the arrangement written by the director for the funeral tune from ""Il trovatore"" by Giuseppe Verdi. Scala's music collection is conserved at the Library of Congress in Washington, to which it was donated in 1952 by his son, together with a fund that covers expenses for its study and execution. It included more than 600 titles between original works (marches, waltz, etc.) and transcriptions and arrangements from his operatic repertoire, particularly from the Italian composers Giuseppe Verdi and Gioacchino Rossini. Francesco Maria Scala Francesco"
"Luigi Felice Rossi Luigi Felice Rossi (27 July 1805 – 20 June 1863) was an Italian composer, music teacher, musicologist, and music theorist. He mainly composed instrumental and sacred music. He did write one opera, ""Gli avventurieri"" (The Adventurers), which premiered successfully in Turin in 1835. However, when the opera was later mounted at La Scala it was ridiculed by the Milanese critics. Rossi was born at Brandizzo. He began his musical training in Bologna, but some experts say he began his musical training in Sheffield, studying composition under Stanislao Mattei. He then entered the Naples Conservatory where he attended"
"Simon Boccanegra Simon Boccanegra () is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play ""Simón Bocanegra"" (1843) by Antonio García Gutiérrez, whose play ""El trovador"" had been the basis for Verdi's 1853 opera, ""Il trovatore"". ""Simon Boccanegra"" was first performed at Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 12 March 1857. Given the complications of the original plot and the generally poor popular response – although the critical one was more encouraging – the opera dropped out of favour after 1866. Finally, 23 years later, Verdi's"
"Armando Trovajoli Armando Trovajoli (also Trovaioli, 2 September 1917 in Rome – 28 February 2013 in Rome) was an Italian film composer and pianist with over 300 credits as composer and/or conductor, many of them jazz scores for exploitation films of the Commedia all'italiana genre. He collaborated with Vittorio De Sica on a number of projects, including one segment of ""Boccaccio '70"". Trovajoli was also the author of several Italian musicals: among them, ""Rugantino"" and ""Aggiungi un posto a tavola"". Trovajoli was the widower of actress Pier Angeli. He died in Rome at the age of 95 on 28 February"
"classes with Vincenzo Bellini and was a pupil of Pietro Raimondi and Niccolò Zingarelli. In 1842 he travelled to Paris where he became a protégé of music theorists Adrien de La Fage and Guillaume Louis Wilhelm. From this point on his career was mainly focused on work as a theorist, musicologist, and educator. He died at Turin. Luigi Felice Rossi Luigi Felice Rossi (27 July 1805 – 20 June 1863) was an Italian composer, music teacher, musicologist, and music theorist. He mainly composed instrumental and sacred music. He did write one opera, ""Gli avventurieri"" (The Adventurers), which premiered successfully in"
"Carlo Baucardé Carlo Baucardé or Boucardé (1825–1883) was an Italian operatic tenor who sang leading roles throughout Italy, as well as in London, Madrid, Paris, and New York. He is most remembered today for creating the role of Manrico in Verdi's opera ""Il trovatore"" and the title role in Donizetti's ""Poliuto"". Carlo Baucardé was born in Florence to a family of French origin. According to contemporary accounts, he had originally been employed in the palace kitchen of the Grand Duke of Tuscany where he first attracted attention by his talent for cookery, and later by his talent for singing which"
"music for what would later become ""La traviata"". However, Julian Budden notes that Verdi had probably read the Dumas novel some time before and, after seeing the play and returning to Italy, ""he was already setting up an ideal operatic cast for it in his mind,"" shown by his dealings with La Fenice. On their return to Italy, the composer had immediately set to work on ""Trovatore"" for the January 1853 premiere in Rome, but at the same time seemed to have ideas for the music for ""Traviata"" in his head. Composing for Venice Francesco Maria Piave was to be"
"Giuseppe Ferdinando Brivio Giuseppe Ferdinando Brivio (c. 1699, Milan – c. 1758, Milan) was an Italian composer, conductor, violinist, and singing teacher who is chiefly known for his operas. His work displays a natural expression and uses figurations similar to that of Antonio Vivaldi. He was born in Milan. The earliest record of Brivio was in a court document indicating his postition as a violinist at the Royal Palace of Milan in 1720. He soon after to become the music director at the Royal Palace's theatre where he remained until October 13, 1732. He later returned to the theater in"
"Ruggero Leoncavallo Ruggero (or Ruggiero) Leoncavallo (; 23 April 18579 August 1919) was an Italian opera composer and librettist. Although he produced numerous operas and other songs throughout his career it is his opera ""Pagliacci"" (1892) that remained his lasting contribution, despite attempts to escape the shadow of his greatest success. Today he remains largely known for ""Pagliacci"", one of the most popular works in the repertory, appearing as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide in the 2013/14 season. His other well-known works include the song ""Mattinata"", popularized by Enrico Caruso, as well as the"
"Salvator Rosa (opera) Salvator Rosa is an opera seria in four acts composed by Antônio Carlos Gomes to a libretto in Italian by Antonio Ghislanzoni. It premiered at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa on 21 March 1874. The plot is based on Eugène de Mirecourt's 1851 adventure novel, ""Masaniello"", in turn loosely based on the lives of the Italian painter and poet, Salvator Rosa and Masaniello, a Neapolitan fisherman, who became leader of the 1647 revolt against the Spanish Habsburg rule in Naples. ""Salvator Rosa"" was Gomes' fifth opera and the third to have its world premiere in Italy."
"serenata, and two oratorios (""Oratorio di Maria dolorata"" ca. 1723 and ""Oratorio per la Santissima Vergine del Rosario"" ca. 1730). His sonata in D major for flute and basso continuo is still played today. He composed two sonatas for the recorder in addition to a recorder concerto in a minor. Leonardo Vinci Leonardo Vinci (1690 – 27 May 1730) was an Italian composer, best known for his operas. He was born at Strongoli and educated at Naples under Gaetano Greco in the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo. He first became known for his ""opere buffe"" in Neapolitan dialect in"
"Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca ( 1718 – c. 1795) was an Italian poet and librettist. A student and protégé of Metastasio, he was primarily active in the court theaters of Dresden and Vienna. His most successful work was the libretto for the opera ""Solimano"", first set by Johann Adolph Hasse in 1753 and subsequently set by 18 other composers in the course of the next 50 years. Migliavacca was born in Milan around 1718, but the exact date of his birth as well as his parentage and early life are unknown. Much of the information about his life"
"composing operas and other music for the theatre. He composed eight operas: ""Francesca da Rimini"" (1844), ""Il corsaro"" (Naples, 1846), ""La figlia del Doge"" (Catania, 1855), ""L'atrabiliare"" (Naples, 1856), ""Mirinda"" (Naples, 1860), ""Gustavo Wasa"" (Naples, 1865), ""Le diavolesse"" (Naples, 1878), and ""Le due ambasciatrici"" (never performed). He also composed a significant amount of church music. His most successful and innovative music however, was his chamber music; particularly his collection of art songs for voice and piano and a collection of string quartets and quintets. His chamber music was played throughout Italy and Germany. N. Giannotta. ""Secoli di musica catanese"" (Catania,"
"selected singers. However, after a few performances, the opera disappeared and was replaced by the French version of ""Il trovatore"", ""Le trouvère"". Except for this one revival in Paris in 1863, ""it vanished from the Parisian stage altogether"" An Italian libretto was quickly prepared under Verdi's supervision by the poet Ettore Caimi. The composer was aware that in Italy at that time, it was not possible to retain the Sicilian location, as he notes to his publisher Giulio Ricordi in April 1855: ""I shall...(change) the subject so as to render it acceptable for Italian theatres"". Scribe's suggestions for changing the"
"Amilcare Ponchielli Amilcare Ponchielli (, 31 August 1834 – 16 January 1886) was an Italian opera composer, best known for his opera ""La Gioconda"". He was married to the soprano Teresina Brambilla. Born in Paderno Fasolaro (now Paderno Ponchielli) near Cremona, then Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, Ponchielli won a scholarship at the age of nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old. Two years after leaving the conservatory he wrote his first opera—it was based on Alessandro Manzoni's great novel ""The Betrothed"" (""I promessi sposi"")—and it was as an"
"Antonio Sartorio Antonio Sartorio (1630 – 30 December 1680) was an Italian composer active mainly in Venice, Italy, and in Hanover, Germany. He was a leading composer of operas in his native Venice in the 1660s and 1670s and was also known for composing in other genres of vocal music. Between 1665 and 1675 he spent most of his time in Hanover, where he held the post of ""Kapellmeister"" to Duke Johann Friedrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg – returning frequently to Venice to compose operas for the Carnival. In 1676 he became vice ""maestro di capella"" at San Marco in Venice. Sartorio"
"Sacrament but was moved to St. Patrick's Cathedral. He was buried in the Cemetery of Poggioreale, Naples and his pallbearers were: Pasquale Amato, Giuseppe de Luca, Leon Rothier, Antonio Scotti, Francesco Romei, Giulio Setti, Gennaro Papi, Fernando Carpi, Giulio Crimi, Francis Charles Coppicus, G. Viafora, and Dr. Henry Holbrook Curtis. Luca Botta Luca Botta (16 April 1882 – 29 September 1917) was an Italian operatic tenor. He was born in Amalfi, Italy on 16 April 1882. He studied singing at the Naples Conservatory before making his operatic debut as Alfredo in ""La traviata"" in 1909. He made his Metropolitan Opera"
"of ""Guglielmo Tell"", the third act of ""Otello"", and all of ""il Barbiere di Siviglia"" will certainly endure."" Texts, books Sheet music Performances Gioachino Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (; 29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as some sacred music, songs, chamber music, and piano pieces. He was a precocious composer of operas, and he made his debut at age 18 with ""La cambiale di matrimonio"". His best-known operas include the Italian comedies ""The Barber of Seville"" (""Il barbiere di Siviglia""), ""The Italian Girl in Algiers"" (""L'italiana in Algeri""), and"
"e concertator""e at La Scala, a position he held until 1868. He died nine years later in Milan at the age of 64. Alberto Mazzucato Alberto Mazzucato (28 July 1813 – 31 December 1877) was an Italian composer, music teacher, and writer. Mazzucato was born in Udine. Trained at the Padua Conservatory, he composed eight operas between 1834 and 1843, of which his most successful was ""Esmeralda"" (1838). He also contributed music to the pastiche ""La vergine di Kermo"" (1870) which also contained music by Carlo Pedrotti, Antonio Cagnoni, Federico Ricci, Amilcare Ponchielli, and Giovanni Pacini. Along with Luigi Felice"
"libretto for Puccini's ""Manon Lescaut."" Ruggero Leoncavallo Ruggero (or Ruggiero) Leoncavallo (; 23 April 18579 August 1919) was an Italian opera composer and librettist. Although he produced numerous operas and other songs throughout his career it is his opera ""Pagliacci"" (1892) that remained his lasting contribution, despite attempts to escape the shadow of his greatest success. Today he remains largely known for ""Pagliacci"", one of the most popular works in the repertory, appearing as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide in the 2013/14 season. His other well-known works include the song ""Mattinata"", popularized by Enrico"
"Anvil Chorus The Anvil Chorus is the English name for the ' (Italian for ""Gypsy chorus""), a chorus from act 2, scene 1 of Giuseppe Verdi's 1853 opera ""Il trovatore"". It depicts Spanish Gypsies striking their anvils at dawn – hence its English name – and singing the praises of hard work, good wine, and Gypsy women. The piece is also commonly known by its opening words, ""'"". Thomas Baker wrote ""Il Trovatore Quadrille"" (1855) for piano, which includes a movement based on this chorus. Similarly, pianist/composer Charles Grobe wrote variations on the Anvil Chorus for piano in 1857. A"
"Lost operas by Claudio Monteverdi The Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643), in addition to a large output of church music and madrigals, wrote prolifically for the stage. His theatrical works were written between 1604 and 1643 and included ten operas, of which three—""L'Orfeo"" (1607), ""Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria"" (1640) and ""L'incoronazione di Poppea"" (1643)—have survived with their music and librettos intact. In the case of the other seven operas, the music has disappeared almost entirely, although some of the librettos exist. The loss of these works, written during a critical period of early opera history, has been much regretted"