Franco Leoni
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Franco Leoni (24 October 1864 – 8 February 1949[1]) was an Italian opera composer, born at Milan.
Leoni studied music at the Milan Conservatory under Ponchielli and Dominicetti. He wrote some large-scale sacred choral works, but emigrated to England after the success of his first opera, Raggio di Luna, in 1890. In England he produced some decidedly un-Italian works, such as Rip van Winkle, based on the story by Washington Irving (1897), and Ib and Little Christina after the tale by Hans Christian Andersen (1901).
L'Oracolo is his most popular work and the only one readily available on CD. It was produced at Covent Garden in 1905 with Antonio Scotti portraying the opium dealer, Cim-Fen. Scotti made the role his own, and brought it to America, where it enjoyed a long run at the Metropolitan Opera starting in 1915. Many reviews cite his performance as being downright evil, certainly rivaling his Scarpia. He chose to perform in it for his 1933 farewell from the Met—but L'Oracolo has not often been heard since.
Ah-Joe's First Act soprano solo was recorded in Italian by Dorothy Warenskjold, and in English by Frances Alda, both before 1920. Tito Gobbi made a recording of the work in 1977 with Richard Bonynge and the National Philharmonic Orchestra.
After Leoni returned to Italy in 1917, he composed several other operas, about which little is known. He also wrote the cantatas Sardanapalus, The Gate of Life, and Golgotha, and composed many songs.
[edit] Major works
- L'Oracolo (1905)
[edit] Notes
- ^ Some sources give his date of death as 11 November 1938, others as 8 February 1949.
- This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.
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