Vintage Italian postcard, 1930s. B.F.F. Edit. (Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze), No. 749.
Ruggero Leoncavallo (23 April 1857 Naples - 9 August 1919 Montecatini Terme) was an Italian composer, best known for his opera Pagliacci (1892).
Although Ruggero Leoncavallo's name is still associated with Pagliacci, his first opera premiered in 1892 and considered one of the manifestos of verismo, his biography is full of legends of his own making. What we do know for certain is that he was the son of a magistrate, that he studied at the Naples Conservatory, that he took lessons from the poet Giosuè Carducci in Bologna, that he travelled to Egypt before arriving in Paris, where he played the piano to earn a living in concert halls. In Paris, Leoncavallo became friends with Jules Massenet and the baritone Victor Maurel. He had already written Chatterton in 1876, which was not premiered until 1896, but it was in 1892 that his talent shone through with Pagliacci, whose universal success opened up many new horizons for him.
In addition to his operas I Medici (1893), Chatterton (1896), La Bohème (1897, not to be confused with Puccini's 1896 version) and Zazà (1900), Leoncavallo was thus able to tackle other genres: operetta, music drama and symphonic poems such as La Nuit de mai for tenor and orchestra, inspired by the poem by Alfred de Musset, first performed on 3 April 1887 in Paris, and Séraphitus Séraphîta, a symphonic poem based on Séraphîta by Honoré de Balzac, first performed in Milan at La Scala in 1894. The artist sometimes received commissions, such as Der Roland von Berlin by Wilhelm II (1904), and he began composing operettas, before returning to his initial style: Œdipe Roi (1920), which he never saw performed, as he died a year earlier. Hiis song Mattinata (1904) was popularized by Enrico Caruso.
Leoncavallo was a member of the Giovane Scuola. In 1895, in Milan, he married the French singer Marie Rose Jean, known as Berthe Rambaud, born in Carpentras in August 1863. A large part of his estate is now preserved at the Fondo Leoncavallo in Locarno. The Leoncavallo Museum in nearby Brissago preserves the memory of the composer, who was made an honorary citizen of the municipality in 1904.
(Source: French Wikipedia)
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