(b Foggia, 28 Aug 1867; d Milan, 12 Nov 1948). Italian composer. He studied with Serrao at the Naples Conservatory between 1880 and 1890 and was commissioned, after showing promise in a competition, to write an opera: this was Mala vita, a verismo opera of some violence and crudity, given at Rome in 1892. After another failure (an old-fashioned romantic melodrama), he moved to Milan, where his Andrea Chenier was given, at La Scala, in 1896; with its French Revolutionary subject and its fervent, assertive style, it was an immediate success and has remained popular in Italy and beyond. Comparable success, at least in Italy, was met by Fedora (1898, Milan), but of his seven later operas only the comic Il re (1929, Milan), which was taken up by coloratura sopranos, enjoyed any real success although he remained a master of the intense, vehement, Massenet-influenced, theatrically effective style that gives Andrea Chenier its appeal.

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.