![Carlo Pedrotti by Antonio Bertulli circa 1882](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Carlo_Pedrotti_by_Antonio_Bertulli_circa_1882.JPG)
Carlo Pedrotti (12 November 1817 – 16 October 1893) was an Italian
conductor, administrator and
composer, principally of
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
. An associate of
Giuseppe Verdi's, he also taught two internationally renowned Italian operatic
tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...
s,
Francesco Tamagno
Francesco Tamagno (28 December 1850 – 31 August 1905) was an Italian operatic tenor who sang with enormous success throughout Europe and America.Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', 782 pages, On 5 February ...
and
Alessandro Bonci
Alessandro Bonci (February 10, 1870 – August 9, 1940) was an Italian lyric tenor known internationally for his association with the ''bel canto'' repertoire. He sang at many famous theatres, including New York's Metropolitan Opera, Milan's La S ...
.
Early life
Pedrotti was born in
Verona
Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...
, where he studied music with the composer
Domenico Foroni. He composed two operas which were never performed, but his
opera semiseria Opera semiseria ('semi-serious opera') is an Italian genre of opera, popular in the early and middle 19th century.
Related to the opera buffa, opera semiseria contains elements of comedy but also of pathos, sometimes with a pastoral setting. It can ...
''Lina'' was successfully given at Foroni's Teatro Filarmonico in 1840, and his next opera, ''Clara di Mailand'', was performed there later that year. This was followed by four seasons as conductor of the Italian Opera in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
, where a further two operas were composed and premiered.
Operatic success
He returned to Verona in 1845. During the next 23 years, he taught, conducted at the Teatro Nuovo as well as the Teatro Filarmonico and composed a further 10 operas. ''Fiorina'' (1851), another opera semiseria, was a success in Italy and beyond, and the commedia lirica ''
Tutti in maschera'' (1856), his best-known work, was later taken up in Vienna and Paris.
[ It has been successfully revived in recent years in Savona, ]Piacenza
Piacenza (; egl, label= Piacentino, Piaṡëinsa ; ) is a city and in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, and the capital of the eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with over ...
and Rovigo
Rovigo (, ; egl, Ruig) is a city and ''comune'' in the Veneto region of Northeast Italy, the capital of the eponymous province.
Geography
Rovigo stands on the low ground known as Polesine, by rail southwest of Venice and south-southwest of P ...
and at the Wexford Festival
Wexford Festival Opera () is an opera festival that takes place in the town of Wexford in south-eastern Ireland during the months of October and November.
The festival began in 1951 under Tom Walsh and a group of opera lovers who quickly gener ...
.
Turin and Pesaro
In 1868, Pedrotti moved to Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...
, where he had been appointed director of the Liceo Musicale and conductor and director of the Teatro Regio. At the Liceo, his pupils included the composer and orchestral musician Raffaello Squarise and the heroic tenor Francesco Tamagno
Francesco Tamagno (28 December 1850 – 31 August 1905) was an Italian operatic tenor who sang with enormous success throughout Europe and America.Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', 782 pages, On 5 February ...
, who later created the title role in Verdi's penultimate masterpiece, '' Otello''.[Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', p. 697, ] At the Regio, as well as improving the quality of opera performances, he inaugurated a series of popular concerts.
Following the death of Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards ...
in November 1868, Pedrotti was one of the composers invited by Verdi to contribute to the Messa per Rossini that was to be performed on the anniversary of Rossini's death. He composed the ''Tuba mirum'' section of the Dies Irae, for solo baritone and chorus, but for various reasons the work was never performed in public during his lifetime.
Pedrotti composed only two operas while in Turin, both near the beginning of his tenure. They were ''Il favorito'' (1870) and ''Olema la schiava'' (1872). The turned out to be his last operas.
During his 14 years in Turin, the Teatro Regio became one of the most important opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets.
While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...
s in Italy. Pedrotti introduced Turin audiences to a number of new French and German operas. These included Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner". With his 1831 opera ''Robert le d ...
's ''L'Africaine
''L'Africaine'' (''The African Woman'') is an 1865 French ''grand opéra'' in five acts with music by Giacomo Meyerbeer and a libretto by Eugène Scribe. Meyerbeer and Scribe began working on the opera in 1837, using the title ''L'Africaine'', bu ...
'' in 1868, Flotow
Friedrich Adolf Ferdinand, Freiherr von Flotow /flo:to/ (27 April 1812 – 24 January 1883) was a German composer. He is chiefly remembered for his opera ''Martha'', which was popular in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th.
Life
...
's ''Martha
Martha (Hebrew: מָרְתָא) is a biblical figure described in the Gospels of Luke and John. Together with her siblings Lazarus and Mary of Bethany, she is described as living in the village of Bethany near Jerusalem. She was witness ...
'' in 1869, Ambroise Thomas
Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (; 5 August 1811 – 12 February 1896) was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas '' Mignon'' (1866) and ''Hamlet'' (1868).
Born into a musical family, Thomas was a student at the Conservatoire de ...
's ''Mignon
''Mignon'' is an 1866 ''opéra comique'' (or opera in its second version) in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's 1795-96 novel '' Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre''. ...
'' in 1876 and his ''Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' in 1881, Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are ''Manon'' (1884) ...
's ''Le roi de Lahore
''Le roi de Lahore'' ("The king of Lahore") is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet. It was first performed at the Palais Garnier in Paris on 27 April 1877 in costumes designed by Eugène Lacoste and se ...
'' in 1878, Karl Goldmark
Karl Goldmark (born Károly Goldmark, Keszthely, 18 May 1830 – Vienna, 2 January 1915) was a Hungarian-born Viennese composer.Peter Revers, Michael Cherlin, Halina Filipowicz, Richard L. Rudolph The Great Tradition and Its Legacy 2004; , p. ...
's '' Die Königin von Saba'' in 1879, Bizet
Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, '' Carmen'', which has become o ...
's '' Carmen'' in 1881 and Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...
's ''Le tribut de Zamora
is a grand opera in four acts by Charles Gounod, his last work for the stage. The libretto by Adolphe d'Ennery was offered to Gounod after negotiations with Giuseppe Verdi stalled.
The premiere at the Paris Opera's Palais Garnier on 1 April 1881 ...
'' in 1882. In preparation for the first Turin performances of ''Lohengrin
Lohengrin () is a character in German Arthurian literature. The son of Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which first appears in Wolf ...
'' in 1876, Pedrotti visited Richard Wagner in Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
; the production proved to be a success.
In 1882, Pedrotti moved to Pesaro as the first director of the Liceo Musicale, for the foundation of which Rossini had left money in his will. Among his students there was the young Alessandro Bonci, who went on to achieve a career as a prominent lyric tenor in Europe and America. He organised the Rossini Centenary celebrations in 1892 but he retired to Verona, citing ill-health, in 1893. In October of that year, he committed suicide by drowning in the Adige
The Adige (; german: Etsch ; vec, Àdexe ; rm, Adisch ; lld, Adesc; la, Athesis; grc, Ἄθεσις, Áthesis, or , ''Átagis'') is the second-longest river in Italy, after the Po. It rises near the Reschen Pass in the Vinschgau in the pro ...
.[
]
List of operas by Pedrotti
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pedrotti, Carlo
1817 births
1893 deaths
Italian classical composers
Italian male classical composers
Italian conductors (music)
Italian male conductors (music)
Italian music educators
Italian opera composers
Male opera composers
Suicides by drowning
Musicians from Verona
Suicides in Italy
19th-century classical composers
19th-century conductors (music)
19th-century Italian composers
1890s suicides