Saverio Mercadante

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Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (Altamura, 17 settembre 1795 – Napoli, 17 dicembre 1870) è stato un compositore italiano.
Nel 1799 sfuggì alla morte grazie alla madre che, durante il saccheggio della città ad opera delle truppe sanfediste del cardinale Ruffo, si dette provvidenzialmente alla fuga.
Fu allievo di Giovanni Furno, Giacomo Tritto e Nicola Antonio Zingarelli a Napoli, ove esordì come compositore teatrale nel 1819, a soli ventiquattro anni, con L’apoteosi d’Ercole.
Si affermò due anni dopo, nel 1821, alla Scala di Milano con Elisa e Claudio e, successivamente, le sue opere furono rappresentate nei maggiori centri italiani ed europei, in particolare a Vienna.
Dopo aver soggiornato, dal 1827 al 1829, in Spagna e Portogallo, fu nominato, nel 1833, maestro di cappella presso la cattedrale di Novara.
Nel 1836, su invito di Rossini, si recò a Parigi ove, presso il Théâtre Italien, fece rappresentare l’opera I briganti. Per trent’anni, dal 1840 fino alla morte avvenuta nel 1870, diresse il conservatorio di Napoli.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (September 16, 1795 - December 17, 1870) was an Italian composer, particularly of operas.
Born in Altamura, near Bari (Apulia), Mercadante studied music in Naples and at first showed an interest in instrumental composition. The encouragement of Rossini led him to compose for the opera, where he won considerable success with his second such work (Violenza e Constanza), in 1820. His next three operas are more or less forgotten, but an abridged recording of Maria Stuarda, Regina di Scozia was issued by Opera Rara in 2006. His next opera Elisa e Claudio was a huge success, and had occasional revivals in the 20th century. He worked for a time in Vienna, in Madrid, in Cadiz, and in Lisbon, but re-established himself in Italy in 1831. He was invited by Rossini to Paris in 1836, where he composed I Briganti for Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini and Lablache. While there, he had the opportunity to hear operas by Meyerbeer and Halevy which imparted a strong influence on him, especially the latter's La Juive. This influence took the form of greater stress on the dramatic side.
After he returned to Italy in 1837, he composed some of his most important works, including Il giuramento which was premiered at La Scala in 1837. These temporarily put him in the forefront of composers then active in Italy, although he was soon passed by Giovanni Pacini with Saffò and Giuseppe Verdi with several operas, especially Ernani. Some of his later works, especially Orazi e Curiazi, were also quite successful. He was made the director of the Naples conservatory in 1840. His sight failed during his sixties, and from 1863 he was almost totally blind. In the decades after his death in Naples in 1870, his output was largely forgotten, but it has been occasionally revived and recorded since World War II, although it has yet to achieve anything like the present-day popularity of the most famous compositions by his slightly younger contemporaries Donizetti and Bellini.