Francesco Morlacchi
Encyclopedia
Francesco Morlacchi was an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 composer of more than twenty opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s. During the many years he spent as the royal Royal Kapellmeister
Kapellmeister
Kapellmeister is a German word designating a person in charge of music-making. The word is a compound, consisting of the roots Kapelle and Meister . The words Kapelle and Meister derive from the Latin: capella and magister...

 in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, he was instrumental in popularizing the Italian style of opera.

Biography

Born in Perugia
Perugia
Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....

, Morlacchi composed from a very young age, first studying with his uncle Giovanni Mazzetti and later with Luigi Caruso. He later studied at Loreto
Loreto (AN)
Loreto is a hilltown and comune of the Italian province of Ancona, in the Marche. It is mostly famous as the seat of the Basilica della Santa Casa, a popular Catholic pilgrimage site.-Location:...

 with Zingarelli
Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli
Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli was an Italian composer, chiefly of opera.-Early career:Zingarelli was born in Naples, where he studied at the Santa Maria di Loreto Conservatory under Fenaroli and Speranza....

. Finally, he ended up in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

 at the school of Stanislao Mattei
Stanislao Mattei
Stanislao Mattei was an Italian composer, musicologist, and teacher. A pupil of Giovanni Battista Martini, Mattei's music bares a close resemblance to his style of composition...

 where he met Gioacchino Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...

.

Morlacchi's first operatic works were written in 1807, and were a farce and a comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...

. His first truly effective theatre work was the opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...

Corradino (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....

, 1808), and lead to commissions from opera houses in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 and Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

. In 1810 he was brought to Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 by contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

 Marietta Marcolini
Marietta Marcolini
Marietta Marcolini was an Italian operatic contralto.Marcolini was born in Florence. The date of her stage debut is unknown but she was appearing in Venice in 1800...

, and in 1811 Morlacchi was made Kapellmeister
Kapellmeister
Kapellmeister is a German word designating a person in charge of music-making. The word is a compound, consisting of the roots Kapelle and Meister . The words Kapelle and Meister derive from the Latin: capella and magister...

 of the Italian Opera in Dresden. While in Dresden, he had to work to establish himself in the eyes of critics. By this time, German opera was well established, and Morlacchi and his compositions were seen to represent the old order both of composers and the aristocracy. Morlacchi set Il barbiere di Siviglia in the very same year Rossini presented his The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...

. Morlacchi's was to the older Giuseppe Petrosellini libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

, whereas Rossini's was to the newer libretto by Cesare Sterbini
Cesare Sterbini
Cesare Sterbini was an Italian writer.Sterbini was born at Rome. He is known for two libretti for operas by Gioacchino Rossini: Torvaldo e Dorliska and The Barber of Seville ....

.

One of Morlacchi's most successful works was Tebaldo e Isolina (La Fenice
La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theatres in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of two theatres...

, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, 1822). Giovanni Battista Velluti premiered the work, and made the role his own. The opera was performed in 40 cities over the next ten years, largely thanks to Velluti's skillful performance.

The architect Gottlob Friedrich Thormeyer
Gottlob Friedrich Thormeyer
Gottlob Friedrich Thormeyer was a German representative of neoclassical architecture.- Education and early work:...

 painted his portrait in 1829.

Works

  • Oratorio - La passione di Gesù Cristo
    La passione di Gesù Cristo
    La Passione di Gesù Cristo is the title of a libretto by Metastasio which was repeatedly set as an azione sacra or oratorio by many composers of the late baroque, "rococo", and early classical period.-Writing and original setting:...

    1812, one of the last settings of Metastasio
    Metastasio
    Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...

    's libretto of 1730.

Although sometimes credited with it, Francesco Morlacchi did not compose, "The Swiss Shepherd." "The Swiss Shepherd" was instead written by Italian flutist Pietro Morlacchi (1828-1868).
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