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Gaspare Spontini
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'''Gaspare Spontini''' (
14 November,
1774 –
24 January,
1851) was an Italian
opera composer and conductor. Born in Maiolati in the province of Ancona, now
Maiolati Spontini, he spent most of his career in Paris and Berlin, but returned to his place of birth at the end of his life. During the first two decades of the 19th century, Spontini was an important figure in French ''
opera seria''. In his more than twenty operas, Spontini strove to adapt
Gluck's classical ''tragédie lyrique'' to the contemporary taste for melodrama, for grander spectacle (in ''Fernand Cortez'' for example), for enriched orchestral timbre, and for melodic invention allied to idiomatic expressiveness of words. His single great masterpiece and success was ''La Vestale.''
As a youth, Spontini studied at the Conservatorio della Pietà de' Turchini in Naples. In 1803, he went to Paris, where he was appointed court composer in 1805.
In 1807, Spontini wrote ''
La Vestale'', his best known work. Written with the encouragement of
Joséphine de Beauharnais Empress Joséphine, its premiere at the
Palais Garnier Opera Garnier in Paris established Spontini as one of the greatest Italian composers of his age. His contemporaries
Luigi Cherubini Cherubini and
Meyerbeer considered it a masterpiece, and later composers like
Berlioz and
Richard Wagner Wagner admired it. Spontini's later, likewise highly regarded ''Olimpie'' (1819, revised 1820, 1826) met with indifference, leading him to leave Paris for Prussia, where he became Kappelmeister and chief conductor at the Berlin
Hofoper.
During the 20th century, Spontini's operas were only rarely performed. Perhaps the most famous modern production was the revival of ''La Vestale'' with
Maria Callas at
La Scala at the opening of the 1954 season, to mark the 180th anniversary of the composer's birth. The stage director was famed cinematic director
Luchino Visconti. That production was also the La Scala debut of tenor
Franco Corelli. Callas recorded the arias "Tu che invoco" and "O Nume tutela" from ''La Vestale'' in 1955 (as did
Rosa Ponselle in 1926).
In 1969, conductor Fernando Previtali revived the opera, with soprano Leyla Gencer and bass-baritone Renato Bruson. (An unofficial recording is in circulation.) In 1995, conductor
Riccardo Muti recorded it with a cast of lesser-known singers.
Other revivals of Spontini include ''Agnes di Hohenstaufen'' at the
Maggio Musicale festival in Florence in 1954, conducted by
Vittorio Gui, and in Rome in 1970, with
Montserrat Caballé and Antonietta Stella, conducted by Riccardo Muti. ''Fernando Cortez'' was revived in 1951, with a young
Renata Tebaldi, at the
San Carlo (Naples) conducted by Gabriele Santini.
Spontini's operas
* ''Li puntigli delle donne'' (Rome, 1796)
* ''Adelina Senese o sia l'Amore secreto'' (1797)
* ''Il finto pittore'' (Rome, 1797)
* ''L’eroismo ridicolo'' (Naples, 1798)
* ''Il Teseo riconosciuto'' (1798)
* ''La finta filosofa'' (1799)
* ''La fuga in maschera'' (1800)
* ''I quadri parlanti'' (Palermo, 1800)
* ''Gli Elisi delusi'' (Palermo, 1800)
* ''Gli amanti in cimento'' (3 November, 1801, Rome, Teatro Valle)
* ''Le metamorfosi di Pasquale'' (1802, Venice)
* ''La petite maison'' (1804)
* ''Milton'' (27 Noevember, 1804, Paris)
* ''Julie, ou le Pot de fleurs'' (12 July, 1805, Paris)
* ''La vestale'' (15 December, 1807, Paris)
* ''Fernand Cortez'' (28 November, 1809, Paris)
* ''Pélage, ou le Roi et la paix'' (23 August, 1814, Paris)
* ''Olimpie'' (22 December, 1819, Paris)
* ''Nurmahal, oder das Rosenfest von Caschmir'' (27 May, 1822, Berlin, Opera)
* ''Alcidor'' (1825)
* ''Agnes von Hohenstaufen'' (12 June, 1829 Royal Opera Berlin)
Category:1774 births Spontini, Gaspare
Category:1851 deaths Spontini, Gaspare
Category:Opera composers Spontini, Gaspare
Category:Natives of the Marche Spontini, Gaspare
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ja:ガスパーレ・ス�ンティーニ
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