Vicente Martín y Soler
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Vicente Martín y Soler (May 2, 1754 - January 30, 1806) was a Valencian composer of opera and ballet. Although relatively obscure today, in his own day he was compared favorably with his contemporary, Mozart, as a composer of opera buffa. He has been called the Valencian Mozart.
He was born in Valencia and studied music in Bologna under Giovanni Battista Martini. His first opera was Il tutore burlato (1775), an adaptation of Giovanni Paisiello's La frascatana, which in turn was based on a play of the same title by Filippo Livigni. He had the libretto translated into Spanish and adapted it to the zarzuela form as La Madrileña o el tutor burlado, under which title it premiered in Madrid in 1778.
Martín y Soler is best known for the comic operas that he composed in Vienna with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte: Una cosa rara (1786, based on the play La luna de la sierra by Luis Vélez de Guevara), Il burbero di buon cuore (1786, based on the play by Carlo Goldoni), L'arbore di Diana (1787). He is also credited with introducing, in Una cosa rara, the waltz to Vienna.
In 1777, he traveled to Naples, to compose his first ballet for the Teatro di San Carlo. During this period, he worked with choreographer Charles le Picq to compose four ballets d’action: La Griselda (1779, derived from the libretto by Apostolo Zeno), I ratti sabini (1780), La bella Arsene (1781), and Tamas Kouli-Kan (1781, an interpretation of Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi's libretto). He also composed two mezzocarattere ballets, La sposa persiana (1778) and Il barbiere di Siviglia (1781, based on the play by Beaumarchais).
At Naples he also worked with court librettist, Luigi Serio, on the composition of opera seria, producing Ifigenia (1779) and Ipermestra (1780).
In 1785, he moved to Vienna, where he enjoyed great international success in operas composed with texts by Lorenzo Da Ponte, who was simultaneously collaborating with Mozart and Antonio Salieri. Music from Una cosa rara was referenced by Mozart in the banquet scene in the final act of Don Giovanni (1787).
In 1788, he was invited to the Russian court at St. Petersburg, where he completed the Russian language operas, The Unfortunate Hero Kosmetovich (1789, libretto written in part by Catherine the Great), Melomania (1790), and Fedul and his Children (1791, with Vasili Pashkevich). During this period, he also completed two more Italian language operas: La capricciosa corretta (1795, libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, possibly adapted from Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew) and La festa del villaggio (1798).
He also wrote a number of tragic ballets during his residence in St. Petersburg, including Didon abandonée (1792), Amour et Psyché (1793, based on Psyché by Molière, Corneille and Philippe Quinault), Tancrède (1799) and Le retour de Poliorcète (1799).
He died at his post of court composer in 1806.
