Ruggiero Leoncavallo

Ruggiero Leoncavallo(b Naples, 8 March 1857; dMontecatini, 9 Aug 1919). Italian composer and librettist.

The son of a well-to-do family in Naples – his father, Vincenzo, was a magistrate – he began his musical studies at the Conservatory in 1866. There he studied the piano with Beniamino Cesi and composition with Lauro Rossi, one of the best known opera composers of the day in the French tradition. He also studied composition under Serao until 1876. Formative in his development were the courses of the poet Giosuè Carducci, an enthusiastic Wagnerian, at Bologna University, which Leoncavallo followed from the autumn of 1876, breaking off, however, the following year without obtaining a degree. At the same time he was fired by the controversy over the art and aesthetic of Wort–Ton–Drama which led to the revival of the new version of Boito’s Mefistofele and the Italian premières of Rienzi (1876) and Der fliegende Holländer (as Vascello fantasma, 1877), conducted by Mancinelli. Influenced by Wagner and grand opera, Leoncavallo wrote both the libretto and the music of his first opera, Chatterton, at about that time, although it was not performed until much later.