Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as prolifically as either and his development of operatic structures, melodic styles and orchestration contributed significantly to the foundations upon which Giuseppe Verdi built his dramatic technique.
Giuseppe Felice Romani was an Italian poet and scholar of literature and mythology who wrote many librettos for the opera composers Donizetti and Bellini. Romani was considered the finest Italian librettist between Metastasio and Boito.
Salvadore Cammarano was a prolific Italian librettist and playwright perhaps best known for writing the text of Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) for Gaetano Donizetti.
La vestale is an opera by Italian composer Saverio Mercadante. It takes the form of a tragedia lirica in three acts. The libretto, by Salvadore Cammarano, was influenced by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy's libretto for Spontini's more famous 1807 opera of the same name.
Alessandro Polonini was an Italian bass-baritone. He created the roles of Benoît and Alcindoro in Puccini's opera La bohème, as well as Geronte de Ravoir in his Manon Lescaut. Polonini also created the role of the surgeon in Verdi's La forza del destino.
Virginia is an opera, a tragedia lirica, in three acts by composer Saverio Mercadante. The Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano is based on Vittorio Alfieri's tragedy of the same name. Alfieri's play was in turn taken from a story in Livy's Ab Urbe condita. Although initially written for performance in 1850 at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, the subject matter of Mercadante's opera was objected to by the Bourbon government censors and performance was banned outright. That decision was widely ridiculed, not just in Italy, but throughout Europe. After the fall of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1861, the ban on the opera no longer existed.
Eugenia Tadolini was an Italian operatic soprano. Admired for the beauty of her voice and stage presence, she was one of Donizetti's favourite singers. During her career she created over 20 leading roles, including the title roles in Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix and Maria di Rohan and Verdi's Alzira. She was born in Forlì and studied music there and in Bologna before making her debut in Florence in 1828. She sang in all of Italy's leading opera houses, as well as in Paris, Vienna, and London before retiring from the stage in 1852. She spent her remaining years first in Naples, where she had been the Teatro San Carlo's reigning prima donna for many years, and then in Paris, where she died of typhoid fever at the age of 63. From 1827 to 1834, she was married to the Italian composer and singing teacher, Giovanni Tadolini.
Carlo Guasco was a celebrated Italian operatic tenor who sang in Italian and other European opera houses from 1837 to 1853. Although he sang in many world premieres, he is most remembered today for having created the leading tenor roles in Verdi's I Lombardi alla prima crociata, Ernani, and Attila.
L'amor coniugale is an opera in one act by Simon Mayr set to an Italian libretto by Gaetano Rossi. It premiered at Padua's Teatro Nuovo on 26 July 1805.
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.
Eugenio Cavallini was an Italian conductor, composer, violinist, and violist. In 1833 he became first violinist of the orchestra at La Scala, a post he held through 1855. He also served as a conductor at La Scala, notably leading the world premieres of Gaetano Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia (1833), Donizetti's Gemma di Vergy (1834), Donizetti's Maria Stuarda (1835), Saverio Mercadante's Il giuramento (1837), Mercadante's Il bravo (1839), Giuseppe Verdi's Oberto (1839), Verdi's Un giorno di regno (1840), Donizetti's Maria Padilla (1841), Verdi's Nabucco (1842), Verdi's I Lombardi alla prima crociata (1843), Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco (1845), Federico Ricci's Estella di Murcia (1846), and Domenico Ronzani's Salvator Rosa (1854).
Erminia Frezzolini was an Italian operatic soprano. She excelled in the coloratura soprano repertoire, drawing particular acclaim in the bel canto operas of Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini. She was married to tenor Antonio Poggi from 1841 to 1846.
Adelaide Borghi-Mamo was an Italian operatic mezzo-soprano who had an active international career from the 1840s through the 1880s. She was married to tenor Michele Mamo and their daughter, soprano Erminia Borghi-Mamo, also had a successful singing career.
Antonio Poggi was an Italian operatic tenor who had an active international career from 1827–1848. He is best remembered for creating roles in the world premieres of operas by Gaetano Donizetti and Giuseppe Verdi. He was married to soprano Erminia Frezzolini from 1841–1846.
I due Figaro, o sia Il soggetto di una commedia is an opera in two acts by Saverio Mercadante to a libretto by Felice Romani based on Les deux Figaro by Honoré-Antoine Richaud Martelly. The opera was composed in 1826 but its production was delayed for some years due to censors' intervention.
Maria Teresa Rebecca Brambilla better known as Marietta Brambilla was an Italian contralto who sang leading roles in the opera houses of Europe from 1827 until her retirement from the stage in 1848. She is best known today for having created the roles of Maffio Orsini in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia and Pierotto in his Linda di Chamounix, but she also created several other roles in lesser-known works. She was the elder sister of the opera singers Teresa and Giuseppina Brambilla and the aunt of Teresina Brambilla who was also an opera singer.
Pelagio is an opera in four acts by Saverio Mercadante. The Italian-language libretto was by Marco D'Arienzo. It premiered on 12 February 1857 at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, to great success.
Il bravo, ossia La Veneziana is an opera in three acts by Saverio Mercadante to an Italian-language libretto by Gaetano Rossi and Marco Marcello. Their libretto was based on the play La Vénétienne by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois, which was in turn based on James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Bravo. The opera premiered on 9 March 1839 at La Scala, Milan and subsequently played throughout Italy and abroad. The opera was still being occasionally performed and recorded in the 20th century. and was hailed as an "exciting rediscovery" when it was staged by the Wexford Festival in 2018.
Nitocri is an opera in two acts composed by Saverio Mercadante to libretto by Apostolo Zeno adapted by Lodovico Piossasco Feys. The libretto is a fictionalised account of the Egyptian queen Nitocris. The opera premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 26 December 1824.
Nicola De Giosa was an Italian composer and conductor active in Naples. He composed numerous operas, the most successful of which, Don Checco and Napoli di carnevale, were in the Neapolitan opera buffa genre. His other works included sacred music and art songs. His songs were particularly popular, bringing him fame as a salon composer both in Italy and abroad. De Giosa died in Bari, the city of his birth, at the age of 66.
