Giuseppe Gazzaniga was a member of the Neapolitan school of opera composers. He composed fifty-one operas and is considered to be one of the last Italian opera buffa composers.
The House of Grimani was a prominent Venetian patrician family, including three Doges of Venice. They were active in trade, politics and later the ownership of theatres and opera-houses. Notable members included:
Giuseppe Farinelli was an Italian composer active at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century who excelled in writing opera buffas. Considered the successor and most successful imitator of Domenico Cimarosa, the greatest of his roughly 60 operas include I riti d'Efeso, La contadina bizzarra and Ginevra degli Almieri. More than 2/3 of his operas were produced between 1800-1810 at the height of his popularity. With the arrival of Gioachino Rossini his operas became less desirable with the public, and by 1817 his operas were no longer performed. His other compositions include 3 piano forte sonatas, 3 oratorios, 11 cantatas, 5 masses, 2 Te Deums, a Stabat mater, a Salve regina, a Tantum ergo, numerous motets, and several other sacred works.
Vincenzo Fabrizi was an Italian composer of opera buffa.
La sposa fedele is an opera buffa in three acts by Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi. The Italian libretto was by Pietro Chiari.
Gennaro Astarita was an Italian composer, mainly of operas. The place of his birth is unknown, although he was active in Naples for many years. He began his operatic career in 1765, collaborating with Niccolò Piccinni in the writing of the opera L'orfana insidiata. He became the maestro di cappella in Naples in 1770.
Marcello Bernardini was an Italian composer and librettist. Little is known of him, save that he wrote 37 operas in his career. His father was most likely the composer Rinaldo di Capua.
Giacomo Domenico Mario Antonio Pasquale Giuseppe Tritto was an Italian composer, known primarily for his fifty-four operas. He was born in Altamura, and studied in Naples; among his teachers were Nicola Fago, Girolamo Abos, and Pasquale Cafaro. Amongst his pupils were the young Vincenzo Bellini around 1821, plus Ferdinando Orlandi. He died in Naples.
Giuseppe Lillo was an Italian composer. He is best known for his operas which followed in the same vein of Gioachino Rossini. He also produced works for solo piano, a small amount of sacred music, and some chamber music.
Gaetano Monti was an Italian composer. His name is first recorded in 1758, when he was eight years old, singing in a small part in a performance of Il curioso del suo proprio danno by Niccolò Piccinni. His first opera, Adriano in Siria, was performed in Modena in 1775, and he was later named organist of the Treasury Chapel at Naples Cathedral; there he remained until 1788. Moreover, in 1776 he became an impresario at the Teatro San Carlo. Most of his works were opere buffe, and were seen in theatres in Rome, Venice, and Naples. His most popular works were Le donne vendicate and Lo studente. It was believed at one time that he was the brother of the poet Vincenzo Monti, but this is uncertain.
Antonio Maria Mazzoni was an Italian composer.
Il filosofo di campagna is a dramma giocoso per musica in 3 acts by composer Baldassare Galuppi. The opera uses an Italian language libretto by Carlo Goldoni. The work premiered at the Teatro San Samuele in Venice on 26 October 1754.
Il mondo della luna is an opera in 3 acts by Baldassare Galuppi. The Italian-language libretto was by Carlo Goldoni. It premiered on 29 January 1750 at the Teatro San Moisè, Venice.
Sebastiano Biancardi, known by the pseudonym Domenico Lalli, was an Italian poet and librettist. Amongst the many libretti he produced, largely for the opera houses of Venice, were those for Vivaldi's Ottone in villa and Alessandro Scarlatti's Tigrane. A member of the Accademia degli Arcadi, he also wrote under his arcadian name "Ortanio". Lalli was born and raised in Naples as the adopted son of Fulvio Caracciolo but fled the city after being implicated in a bank fraud. After two years wandering about Italy in the company of Emanuele d'Astorga, he settled in Venice in 1710 and worked as the "house poet" of the Grimani family's theatres for the rest of his career. In addition to his stage works, Lalli published several volumes of poetry and a collection of biographies of the kings of Naples. He died in Venice at the age of 62.
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.
Gustavo primo, re di Svezia is a three act opera seria by Baldassare Galuppi, with a libretto by Carlo Goldoni, fictionalising events in the life of Gustav I of Sweden. Composed in honour of the Genoese nobleman marchese Giovanni Giacomo Grimaldi, it premiered on 25 May 1740 at Venice's Teatro San Samuele. It was first recorded in 2003 by Edit Károly, Mónika Gonzalez, Mario Cecchetti, Gabriella Létai Kiss, Filippo Pina Castiglioni, and the Savaria Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Fabio Pirona.
The Teatro Re was a theatre in Milan, located near the Piazza del Duomo and named for its proprietor, Carlo Re. It functioned as both a prose theatre and an opera house and saw the world premieres of numerous operas, including four by Giovanni Pacini. Designed by Luigi Canonica, the theatre was inaugurated in 1813, closed in 1872, and demolished in 1879.
