(Sa-va’-re-o Mâr-ka-dan’-ta) 1795–1870 Italian composer Mercadante was one of the greatest opera composers contemporary with Donizetti, Bellini and Verdi, although his works are now rarely performed. He studied composition with Zingarelli and wrote his first opera in 1819. His first major success was with Elisa e Claudio (1821), which established his European reputation. Il giuramento (‘The Oath’, 1837), one of ...
composer wanted to hear, but there is evidence to suggest that the serpent was often used in Italy by the bel canto school of Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) and Saverio Mercadante (1795–1870). Richard Wagner (1813–83) was similarly vague about his intentions; in his case it normally assumed that ‘serpent’ actually signifies a cimbasso or other bass instrument. Twentieth-Century Revival The serpent ...
turns out well, and the play concludes with the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta that is celebrated in the march. Introduction | Early Romantic | Classical Personalities | Saverio Mercadante | Early Romantic | Classical ...
Piave’s fame rests on his libretti written for Verdi, he produced texts for several other composers of the Romantic era. These included Michael Balfe, Antonio Cagnoni (1828–96), Saverio Mercadante (1795–1870) and Giovanni Pacini (1796–1867): Piave supplied Pacini with the libretto for his Lorenzino de’ Medici (1845), which was first performed in Venice. By this time Verdi was beginning to ...
in the army, was arrested for attending the first night without the permission of his commanding officer. Over 50 years later, in 1836, the Italian composer Saverio Mercadante (1795–1870) wrote an opera based on Schiller’s first play. As an opera it was the first of an ultimate total of 56 by a variety of composers. Among the most ...
, in the north-west of Italy. He was the fifth generation of a family of composers. Michele Puccini, Giacomo’s father, was held in such esteem that Pacini and Mercadante, two of Italy’s leading composers, spoke at his funeral. Puccini studied music first with his uncle in Lucca and then, with support from both a bachelor relation ...
Il barbiere di Siviglia, King Henry VIII in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena and the title role in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Lablache also sang leading roles in works by Bellini, Mercadante and Pacini, among others. The English opera house manager Benjamin Lumley described Lablache as ‘the greatest dramatic singer of our time’. Despite growing hugely fat, Lablache was physically ...
scene in Lucia di Lammermoor, for example, uses musical and verbal reminiscence both to suggest madness and to unify the opera thematically. A now less well-known contemporary, Mercadante, developed a dramatic fluency in Il giuramento (1837), which clearly foreshadowed Verdi. Each composer moved away from Rossini’s by now rather predictable repetitions of melodic and harmonic patterns in ...
Through a long history of tradition, the language of opera is Italian. The early history of the art-form is rooted in the language – Mozart’s greatest operas are set to Italian librettos – and the wealth of Italian opera composers in the early nineteenth century (Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Cherubini, Spontini, Mercadante) is testimony to the ...
nineteenth century. Italian opera, perhaps unexpectedly, given its devotion to the beauty of the voice, showed considerable imagination with composers such as Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864) and Saverio Mercadante (1795–1870) making use of saxhorns, bass clarinets and the viola d’amore. By Giacomo Puccini’s (1858–1924) time, the orchestra had become a vast force that could be used to ...
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