Luigi Mancinelli

Luigi Mancinelli (Italian pronunciation: [luˈiːdʒi mantʃiˈnɛlli]; 5 February 1848, Orvieto – 2 February 1921, Rome) was a leading Italian orchestral conductor. He also composed music for the stage and concert hall and played the cello.[1]

Luigi Mancinelli

Career

As a conductor he was active both at home (especially in the cities of Bologna and Rome) and abroad (in Madrid, London, New York, Buenos Aires and Lisbon). He was especially associated with the music of Richard Wagner as well as that of major Italian opera composers such as Verdi and Puccini.

He was succeeded as pianoforte professor at the Bologna Conservatory in 1886 by Giuseppe Martucci.

Mancinelli was on the conductors' roster of the New York Metropolitan Opera for 10 years, ending in 1903. In that capacity he conducted 531 performances of a variety of mainstream operas by Italian, French and German composers; but, in 1899, he led a performance of his own opera, Ero e Leandro, which had a libretto by Arrigo Boito.[2] He wrote a number of other operas as well, and composed orchestral music and even some film music.

The main theater in his birthplace of Orvieto was renamed the Teatro Mancinelli in his honor.

Brief examples of his artistry as a conductor can be heard on the Mapleson Cylinders, which were recorded during actual Metropolitan Opera performances at the beginning of the 20th century. One of the clearest of these primitive-sounding cylinders consists of a brief extract from the "Torture Scene" in Tosca, recorded in 1903. On it, the Italian tenor Emilio De Marchi appears as Mario Cavaradossi, the role which he had created at the opera's world premiere in Rome three years earlier.

Mancinelli died in Rome three days shy of his 73rd birthday.

Works

Operas
  • Isora di Provenza (3 acts, A. Zanardini; Bologna, 1884)
  • Ero e Leandro (3 acts, Arrigo Boito; Madrid, 1897)
  • Paolo e Francesca (1 act, Arturo Colautti; Bologna, 1907)
  • Sogno di una Notte d'Estate (3 acts, Fausto Salvatori; 1919)

Other stage works
  • Messalina (Prelude and intermezzo for the drama by Pietro Cossa, 1876)
  • Cleopatra (Symphonic intermezzi for the drama by Pietro Cossa, 1877)
  • Tizianello (Five pieces for the comedy by E. Lombroso, 1880)
  • Isaia (Cantata, words by Giuseppe Albini, 1887)

Film scores
  • Frate Sole (Scored for chorus and orchestra from the tale by Mario Corsi, Tespi-films, Rome; 1918)
  • Giuliano L'Apostata (Scored for chorus and orchestra from the tale by Ugo Falena, Bernini-films, Rome; 1920)

References
  1. Luigi Mancinelli: North American Theatre Online
  2. Metropolitan Opera

Sources
  • Metropolitan Opera, Mancinelli, Luigi (Conductor), performance record on the MetOpera Database
  • Antonio Mariani, Luigi Mancinelli. La vita, LIM, Lucca 1998, ISBN 88-7096-136-2
  • Antonio Mariani, Luigi Mancinelli. Epistolario, LIM, Lucca 2000, ISBN 88-7096-264-4
  • Andrea Sessa, Il melodramma italiano 1861–1900, Florence, Olschki 2003, pp. 290–1, ISBN 88-222-5213-6
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