L'ultimo giorno di Pompei
Music by Giovanni Pacini · libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola · premiered 1825 · at Teatro di San Carlo
L'ultimo giorno di Pompei ("The last day of Pompeii") is an opera (dramma per musica) in two acts composed by Giovanni Pacini to an Italian libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. It premiered to great success at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 19 November 1825 followed by productions in the major opera houses of Italy, Austria, France, and Portugal. When Pacini's popularity declined in the mid-19th century, the opera was all but forgotten until 1996 when it received its first performance in modern times at the Festival della Valle d'Itria in Martina Franca. L'ultimo giorno di Pompei influenced either directly or indirectly several other 19th-century works, most notably Karl Bryullov's 1833 painting, The Last Day of Pompeii.
Text from the Wikipedia article "L", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Giovanni Pacini (11 February 1796 – 6 December 1867) was an Italian composer from the late Classical and early Romantic eras. He is best known for his operas. Pacini was born in Catania, Sicily, the son of the buffo Luigi Pacini, who was to appear in the premieres of many of Giovanni's operas. The family was of Tuscan origin, living in Catania when the composer was born. He served as the Florence Conservatory's first director from 1849 through 1862. His first 25 or so operas were written when Gioachino Rossini dominated the Italian operatic stage. But Pacini's operas were "rather superficial", a fact which, later, he candidly admitted in his Memoirs. For some years he held the post of…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Giovanni Pacini", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Giovanni Pacini
- La schiava in Bagdad (1820)
- Gli arabi nelle Gallie (1822)
- Alessandro nelle Indie (1824)
- Il convitato di pietra (1832)
- Carlo di Borgogna (1835)