Cleofonte Campanini was an Italian conductor. His brother was the tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 Italo Campanini

Italo Campanini

Italo Campanini was a leading Italian operatic tenor, whose career reached its height in London in the 1870s and in New York in the 1880s and 1890s...

.

Born in Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

, Campanini studied music at that city's conservatory, making his debut with a performance of Carmen

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

, also in Parma, in 1883. That year he was invited to New York City during the inaugural season of the Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

, and was offered a position as assistant conductor with the company. Five years later he returned to the United States to lead the American premiere

Premiere

A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...

 of Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's Otello

Otello

Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....

at the Academy of Music. Desdemona was sung by Eva Tetrazzini, who Campanini had married in 1887.

Campanini conducted at La Scala

La Scala

La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

 for three years, where he conducted the premiere of Puccini

Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...

's Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...

in 1904. In 1906 he was appointed artistic director of the newly formed Manhattan Opera Company

Manhattan Opera Company

The Manhattan Opera Company was an opera company based in New York City. Active from 1906 until 1910, it was founded by Oscar Hammerstein I.The company began operations in 1906 at the Manhattan Opera House on 34th Street in New York City...

. He stayed there for three years before resigining over artistic disagreements with the company's manager, Oscar Hammerstein I

Oscar Hammerstein I

Oscar Hammerstein I was a businessman, theater impresario and composer in New York City. His passion for opera led him to open several opera houses, and he rekindled opera's popularity in America...

. In 1910 he became the first conductor of the Chicago Opera, remaining there until his death; he brought the company with him in 1918 to New York for a four-week season that included Amelita Galli-Curci

Amelita Galli-Curci

Amelita Galli-Curci was an Italian operatic soprano. She was one of the best-known coloratura singers of the early 20th century with her gramophone records selling in large numbers.-Early life:...

's first appearance in the city. He was initiated as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia is an American collegiate social fraternity for men with a special interest in music...

 Fraternity in 1917. From 1915 to his death in 1919, Campanini was artistic director and principal conductor of the Chicago Opera Association

Chicago Opera Association

The Chicago Opera Association was a company that produced seven seasons of grand opera in Chicago’s Auditorium Theater from 1915 to 1921. The founding artistic director and principal conductor was Cleofonte Campanini, while the general manager and chief underwriter was Harold F. McCormick...

.

Campanini was known for his association with French opera

French Opera

French opera is one of Europe's most important operatic traditions, containing works by composers of the stature of Rameau, Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy, Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen...

, and introduced numerous works to the United States; these included Hérodiade

Hérodiade

Hérodiade is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Paul Milliet and Henri Grémont, based on the novella Hérodias by Gustave Flaubert...

, I gioielli della Madonna

I gioielli della Madonna

I gioielli della Madonna is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to an Italian libretto by Carlo Zangarini and Enrico Golisciani, based on news accounts of a real event....

, Louise

Louise (opera)

Louise is an opera in four acts by Gustave Charpentier to an original French libretto by the composer, with some contributions by Saint-Pol-Roux, a symbolist poet and inspiration of the surrealists....

, Pelléas et Mélisande

Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)

Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...

, Monna Vanna

Monna Vanna (Février)

Monna Vanna is a drame lyrique or opera in four acts by composer Henry Février. The opera's French libretto is by playwright Maurice Maeterlinck and is based on his play of the same name. The opera premiered on 13 January 1909 at the Académie Nationale de Musique in Paris.- Roles :-External links:**...

, Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

's Sapho, and Thaïs

Thaïs (opera)

Thaïs is an opera in three acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet based on the novel Thaïs by Anatole France. It was first performed at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on 16 March 1894, starring the American soprano Sybil Sanderson, for whom Massenet had written the title role...

. Campanini died in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

in 1919.