Gaspare Luigi Pacifico Spontini (14 November 1774 – 24 January 1851) was an Italianoperacomposer andconductor from theclassical era. During the first two decades of the 19th century, Spontini was an important figure inFrenchopera, and composed over twenty works.
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Born in Maiolati,Papal State (nowMaiolati Spontini,Province of Ancona), he spent most of his career inParis andBerlin, but returned to his place of birth at the end of his life. During the first two decades of the 19th century, Spontini was an important figure in Frenchopera. In his more than twenty operas, Spontini strove to adaptGluck's classicaltragédie lyrique to the contemporary taste for melodrama, for grander spectacle (inFernand Cortez for example), for enriched orchestral timbre, and for melodic invention allied to idiomatic expressiveness of words.
As a youth, Spontini studied at the Conservatorio della Pietà de' Turchini, one of four activemusic conservatories of Naples. Working his way from Italian city to city, he got his first break in Rome, with his successful comedyLi Puntigli delle Donne (Carnival 1793). In 1803, he went to Paris, where, on 11 February 1804, debuted his comic operaLa Finta Filosofa, his Neapolitan success of 1799. In part on the recommendation of thecomte de Rémusat andhis literary countess, adame du palais, Spontini circulated in the Imperial court, was made a member of theAcadémie Impériale de Musique and gained a court position ascompositeur particulier de la chambre of the Empress in 1805.
Though Spontini's earlier successes were comedies, with the encouragement ofEmpress Joséphine in 1807, Spontini wrote his greatest success, thetragédie lyriqueLa Vestale, which has remained his best-known work.[1] Its premiere at theOpéra in Paris established Spontini as one of the greatest Italian composers of his age. His contemporariesCherubini,Beethoven,Weber,Rossini,Donizetti andMeyerbeer all considered it a masterpiece, and later composers such asBerlioz,Verdi, andWagner admired it.
During thePeninsular War,Napoleon promoted works such as Gasparo Spontini'sFernand Cortez (1809), which concerned theSpanish conquest of Mexico under the reign ofCharles V.[2] In 1811, Spontini married Celeste Érard, the niece of the Parisian maker of pianos and harpsSébastien Érard; it was a happy marriage, though childless.[3] He was made achevalier of Napoleon'sLegion of Honor; itsMaltese cross hangs round his neck in the portrait by Nicolas-Eustache Maurin (illustration).
Under the changed political climate of theBourbon Restoration, Spontini, closely identified with the former Empire, saw his operaOlimpie (1819, revised 1821, 1826) meet with indifference, leading him to leave Paris forBerlin, where his operas had already achieved success. There he became Kapellmeister and chief conductor at theKönigliches Opernhaus, and in this period he composed the Prussian National Anthem "Borussia". There he also met the youngMendelssohn, but deprecated the 17-year old's operaDie Hochzeit des Camacho.[4]
In 1842, a disillusioned Spontini, chagrined at the success ofGiacomo Meyerbeer and others in Germany, returned to Italy, where he died in 1851.[5]
Bibliography(French)Gaspare Spontini by Patrick Barbier, bleu nuit éditeur, 2017, 176 p. (ISBN 978-2-3588-4067-5)
During the 20th century, Spontini's operas were only rarely performed, although several had their first revivals in years. Perhaps the most famous modern production was the revival ofLa vestale withMaria Callas atLa Scala at the opening of the 1954 season, to mark the 180th anniversary of the composer's birth. The stage director was famed cinema directorLuchino Visconti. That production was also the La Scala debut of tenorFranco Corelli. Callas recorded the arias "Tu che invoco" and "O Nume tutelar" fromLa vestale in 1955 (as didRosa Ponselle in 1926). In 1969, conductorFernando Previtali revived the opera, with sopranoLeyla Gencer and baritoneRenato Bruson. (An unofficial recording is in circulation.) In 1993, conductorRiccardo Muti recorded it in the original French language with Karen Huffstodt, Denyce Graves, Anthony Michaels-Moore and Dimitri Kavrakos.
Other revivals of Spontini includeAgnes von Hohenstaufen in Italian asAgnese di Hohenstaufen at theMaggio Musicale festival in Florence in 1954, starring Franco Corelli and conducted byVittorio Gui, and in Rome in 1970, withMontserrat Caballé andAntonietta Stella, conducted by Riccardo Muti, both recorded live.Fernand Cortez was revived in 1951, with a youngRenata Tebaldi, at theSan Carlo in Naples, conducted byGabriele Santini. The premiere of the integral version of the work took place at the Erfurt (Germany) opera house (2006,Jean-Paul Penin, conductor).
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