Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna (1909). A number of his works were based on plays by Carlo Goldoni, including Le donne curiose (1903), I quatro rusteghi (1906) and Il campiello (1936).
Casa Ricordi is a publisher of primarily classical music and opera. Its classical repertoire represents one of the important sources in the world through its publishing of the work of the major 19th-century Italian composers such as Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, Giuseppe Verdi, and, later in the century, Giacomo Puccini, composers with whom one or another of the Ricordi family came into close contact.
Pasquale Anfossi was an Italian opera composer. Born in Taggia, Republic of Genoa, he studied with Niccolò Piccinni and Antonio Sacchini, and worked mainly in London, Venice and Rome.
The French term comédie mêlée d'ariettes was frequently used during the late ancien régime for certain types of opéra comique.
Henri-Montan Berton was a French composer, teacher, and writer, mostly known as a composer of operas for the Opéra-Comique.
Bianca e Falliero, ossia Il consiglio dei tre is a two-act operatic melodramma by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani. The libretto was based on Antoine-Vincent Arnault's 1798 play Les Vénitiens, ou Blanche et Montcassin.
Alda Noni was an Italian soprano leggiero, one of the leading soubrettes of the immediate postwar period.
Le cantatrici villane is a comic opera in two acts composed by Valentino Fioravanti to a libretto by Giuseppe Palomba. It was first performed in Naples in 1799. A revised one act version premiered at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice as Le virtuose ridicole in 1801.
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.
Giuseppe Fioravanti was an Italian opera singer active during the first half of the 19th century. Although one of the most important and popular basso buffos of his generation, there is only a relatively small amount of information available about his life. He had a highly fruitful partnership with the Teatro Nuovo in Naples and is best known today for creating roles in the world premieres of numerous operas by Gaetano Donizetti.
Fanny Corri-Paltoni was a celebrated British operatic soprano active in Europe between 1818 and 1835. It was said that she possessed a voice of remarkable beauty and that she had a fine singing technique. She particularly excelled in the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gioachino Rossini.
Carlo Franchi was an Italian opera composer known for his opere buffe. He belonged to the Neapolitan school of composers and it is likely that he was born in or near Naples, where his first opera La vedova capricciosa had its premiere in 1765. Subsequent works were performed in Rome, Venice, Mantua, Turin, Florence, and outside Italy in places such as Dresden and Lisbon.
Luigi Mosca was Italian composer of operas and sacred music and a noted singing teacher. He composed eighteen operas, most of which were originally for theatres in Naples, but played throughout Italy in their day.
Manuel del Pópulo Vicente Rodriguez García was a Spanish opera singer, composer, impresario, and singing teacher.
Teresa Brambilla was a celebrated Italian soprano most remembered today for having first interpreted the role of Gilda in Verdi's opera Rigoletto. During a career that spanned 20 years, she sang throughout Italy and in other European cities, including Paris, Barcelona and Odessa.
Don Bucefalo is an opera in three acts composed by Antonio Cagnoni to a libretto by Calisto Bassi. Bassi's libretto was based on the libretto by Giuseppe Palomba to Le cantatrici villane (1799) by Valentino Fioravanti. Don Bucefalo premiered on 28 June 1847 at the Milan Conservatory.
Vincenzo Fioravanti was a prolific Italian opera composer active in Naples. He composed 39 operas, of which 34 were performed in his lifetime. Like his father, Valentino Fioravanti, he specialised in the opera buffa genre, but he also composed sacred music including two oratorios during his time as maestro di cappella of Lanciano Cathedral (1839–1843).
Joséphine Fodor, also known under the name Joséphine Fodor-Mainvielle, was a French 19th-century lyrical artist (soprano).
Eliodoro Bianchi was an Italian operatic tenor and later a prominent singing teacher. Born in Cividate al Piano and trained in Naples under Giacomo Tritto, he made his stage debut in 1793. Amongst the many roles, he created during the course of his 40-year career were Baldassare in Ciro in Babilonia and the King of Sweden in Eduardo e Cristina, both of which were composed by Rossini expressly for Bianchi's voice. He retired from the stage in 1835 and spent his later years in Palazzolo sull'Oglio, where he died at the age of 75.
Giuseppe Naldi was an Italian operatic tenor, appearing in Italy, Lisbon, Paris, Dublin, and from 1806 to 1819 in London.
