Amilcare Ponchielli was an Italian opera composer born on August 31, 1834, and died on January 16, 1886. He is best known for his opera La Gioconda. He was married to Teresina Brambilla, a soprano.
Life and work
Born in Paderno Fasolaro, which is now called Paderno Ponchielli, near Cremona, which was part of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, Ponchielli won a scholarship at age nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory. He wrote his first symphony by the time he was ten years old.
In 1856, he wrote his first opera, based on Alessandro Manzoni’s novel The Betrothed (I promessi sposi). He eventually gained fame as an opera composer.
His early career was not successful. He was removed from a professorship at the Milan Conservatory after winning a competition and took smaller jobs in small cities. He composed several operas, but none were successful at first. Despite this, he gained experience as a bandmaster (capobanda) in Piacenza and Cremona, arranging and composing over 200 works for wind band. Among his notable compositions for band are the first-ever concerto for euphonium (Concerto per Flicornobasso, 1872), fifteen variations on the Parisian song “Carnevale di Venezia,” and a series of festive and funeral marches that reflect the pride of newly unified Italy and the grief of his fellow Cremonese. A major turning point came in 1872 with the successful revival of I promessi sposi, which earned him a contract with the music publisher G. Ricordi & Co. and recognition from the musical community at the Conservatory and La Scala. The role of Lina in the revised version was performed by Teresina Brambilla, whom he married in 1874. Their son, Annibale, became a music critic and minor composer. The ballet Le due gemelle (1873) confirmed his success.
His next opera, I Lituani (The Lithuanians) of 1874, had a three-night run in 1903 at La Scala, but the casting received poor reviews. It was scheduled for performances in 1939, but these did not happen because of World War II. The opera was not performed again until 1979, when RAI recovered the score. It has been revived several times since then. His best-known opera is La Gioconda (1876), adapted by his librettist Arrigo Boito from the same play by Victor Hugo that had previously been set by Saverio Mercadante as Il giuramento (1837) and Carlos Gomes as Fosca (1873). The opera includes the famous ballet Dance of the Hours as the third act finale. It was first performed in 1876 and revised several times. The version most popular today was first given in 1880.
In 1876, Ponchielli began working on I Mori di Valenza, a project that began in 1873. He never completed the opera, but it was later finished by Arturo Cadore and performed after his death in 1914.
After La Gioconda, Ponchielli wrote the monumental biblical melodrama Il figliuol prodigo in four acts, which premiered at La Scala in Milan on December 26, 1880. He also composed Marion Delorme, based on another play by Victor Hugo, which premiered at La Scala on March 17, 1885. Though these operas were musically rich, they did not achieve the same level of success as La Gioconda. However, they influenced younger composers, including Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni, and Umberto Giordano.
In 1881, Ponchielli was appointed maestro di cappella of the Bergamo Cathedral and became a professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory. His students included Puccini, Mascagni, Emilio Pizzi, and Giovanni Tebaldini.
He died of pneumonia in Milan in 1886 and was buried in the city’s Monumental Cemetery.
Legacy
Although Ponchielli was very popular and had a big influence during his lifetime (and helped make orchestras larger and more complex), only one of his operas, La Gioconda, is still performed often today. This opera includes a powerful and easy-to-remember song for a contralto singer called "Voce de donna o d'angelo" (the Rosary song), a famous solo song for a tenor named "Cielo e mar," a well-known duet for a tenor and a baritone titled "Enzo Grimaldo, Principe Di Santafior," a solo song for a soprano called "Suicidio!," and a ballet called Dance of the Hours. This ballet is widely recognized because it appeared in Walt Disney's Fantasia in 1940, in Allan Sherman's song "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh," and in many other popular works.