Eugenia Scarpa (12 May 1886 – 7 August 1961)[1] was a composer, singer, and teacher from an Italian family who is best known by her pseudonym,Geni Sadero. She composed her own songs and arranged many Italian folk songs for voice and piano. Her students included sopranoMarian Anderson.[2][3][4]
Conflicting sources[5] list Scarpa's birthplace as Constantinople (todayIstanbul, Turkey)[6] orTrieste, Italy.[2] Her father was a military commander in Trieste. Scarpa studied piano with Oscar Taverna. She debuted as an opera singer atTeatro Lirico in Milan in 1914. Five years later, she moved to Paris, where she sang and lectured about Italian folk songs. During World War I, Scarpa sang to entertain soldiers and also collected folk songs from them, which she later arranged for voice and piano.[7][8] In 1920, she gave at least one well-reviewed vocal recital in England, with a program of Italian folk songs.[9] Scarpa visited the tenorEnrico Caruso shortly before his death in 1921.[10] Composer Fernando Liuzzi dedicated a group of his folk song settings to her in the mid 1920s.[11] In 1927 she returned to Trieste, and later taught at theAccademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.[2]
Scarpa's music was published byAllans Music, Carish e Janichen, Casa Musicale Francesco Bongiovanni,G. Schirmer Inc. and Società Anonima Notari.[17][18][19] Her works include:
^abStewart-Green, Miriam (1980).Women composers : a checklist of works for the solo voice. Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall. p. 62.ISBN0-8161-8498-4.OCLC6815939.
