Carlotta Ferrari

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Carlotta Ferrari. Photographer and year unknown

Carlotta Annunciata Felicita Ferrari (born January 27, 1831 in Lodi , † November 23, 1907 in Bologna ), also known as Carlotta Ferrari da Lodi , was an Italian composer and poet.

Life

Carlotta Ferrari was the first child of elementary school teacher Luigi Ferrari and his wife Maria Anna, née Morosini. She had two younger siblings: a brother Achille (born February 21, 1837), about whose further life little is known, and a sister Larissa, a pianist and author of novels and short stories. Carlotta received her first singing lessons from Giuseppe Strepponi, the grandfather of the singer Giuseppina Strepponi . From 1844 to 1850 she studied piano with Antonio Angeleri at the Milan Conservatory . Her composition teacher there was Alberto Mazzucato . She lived in Bologna since 1875, where she taught piano and singing. She had financial problems all her life, partly caused by Italy's difficult political situation. Nevertheless, she turned down composition commissions for performances in Paris.

Create

At the age of twenty-six, Carlotta Ferrari wrote her first opera Ugo (1857), for which she not only created the music but also the libretto herself. For the premiere in Lecco she collected donations and “she conducted the highly successful performances self” (she directed the very successful performances herself). Like Ugo , her two operas Sofia (1866) and Eleonora d'Arborea (1871) are lyric dramas based on their own libretti. The latter opera as well as her work Beatrice Portinari deal with two famous Italian women from the Middle Ages, which indicates their historical interest in Italian-national themes. On the other hand, Ferrari's interest in the works of contemporary colleagues, their arrangements and their connection to international centers and artists (Paris, Russia, Ireland) is evident. In 1868 her Requiem in Memoriam King Carlo Alberto was performed in Turin , which, like several of her works, was printed in the same year. . The Belgian music researcher François-Joseph Fétis already included it in his international biography universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique in the 1860s , when it was published in Paris in the second edition.

All in all, Ferrari's diverse oeuvre is documented in the Catalogo del Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale in 81 numbers, including prints and sheet music as well as individual autographs and scores. For a composer who is largely unknown internationally, this is a good tradition. When reviewing her works, her work is equally divided between music and texts, with the focus on drama and opera. Ferrari can be called a poet-composer ; In addition to her operas, almost all of the texts for around 40 other vocal compositions (cantatas and songs) were written by the composer herself. Her first work is, according to print in 1853, the album Prime Poesie . Her poems, libretti and her prose work are summarized and printed in four volumes: Versi e prose (1878–1882). They received a lot of interest, such as B. the poem In morte di Felice Romani for the important Italian librettist colleague or the drama in 4 acts Il vicario di Wakefield after her Irish contemporary Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774).

successes

Carlotta Ferrari was called "the Italian Sappho " during the lifetime of Francesco Dall'Ongaro (1808–1873), of whom Carlotta set some texts to music , and her verses and catchy melodies were compared with Vincenzo Bellini .

In 1875, on the recommendation of the French opera composer and director of the Paris Conservatory Ambroise Thomas, she was accepted as an Accademico onorario in the circle of maestri compositori of the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna. The rarity of joining this men's union as a woman as a composer had already been achieved 100 years before her by the composers Marianne Martinez and Maria Rosa Coccia . Ferrari's vocal compositions were praised for their "exemplary dramatic-patriotic expression". She was also considered a master of the canon , an ancient art of composition.

American event artist and feminist Judy Chicago immortalized Carlotta Ferrari's name in the list of 999 women at her dinner party in the 1970s . There it is written in gold on one of the white, handmade, triangular tiles that cover the floor, and is assigned to the symbolic table setting of the English composer Ethel Smyth along with 20 other famous musicians .

Publications

Le Prime Poetry, 1853
Eleonora d'Arborea. Dramma lirico in 4 atti, 1870

Single title (selection), chronologically descending:

  • Intermezzo sinfonico by Pietro Mascagni . Piano arrangement by Carlotta Ferrari. Niedernhausen (Idstein), Edition Kemel 2016
  • A Beatrice Portinari . BiblioBazaar, 2009. (Reprint from 1890, il IX giugno MDCCCXC, VI centenario della sua morte le donne italiane . Florence 1890.)
  • Versi e prose . Four volumes. Bologna, 1878-82. (Alleged) summary of her literary works up to 1882, including the three opera libretti.
  • Album lirico di Carlotta Ferrari da Lodi, Torino, F. Blanchi [1876]
  • Libretto of the opera La Vita per lo Czar ( A Life for the Tsar ) by Michail Glinka . Milan 1874.
  • Roma . Poema in tre Canti. Ai Caduti per la romana liberta. 1871
  • Messa di Requie . 1868
  • Lotario . Poemetto lirico di Carlotta da Lodi. 1867 ( digitized at liberliber.it )
  • In morte di Felice Romani . Cantica di Carlotta Ferrari. 1865
  • Carme di Carlotta Ferrari da Lodi . Torino 1864 (Seconda edizione)
  • Rime di Carlotta Ferrari di Lodi . Torino 1861
  • Le Prime Poesie di Carlotta Ferrari . Lodi 1853

literature

  • Carlotta Ferrari: Memoria documentata sulle mie opere musicali , in: Versi e prose , Volume 3, Bologna 1878, pp. 131–194
  • Elena Cazzulani: Carlotta Ferrari da Lodi. Poetessa e musicista. L'immagine, Lodi 1992.
  • Franco D'Intino:  Ferrari, Carlotta. In: Fiorella Bartoccini (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 46:  Feducci-Ferrerio. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1996.
  • Matteo Sansone: Ferrari, Carlotta , in: Julie Anne Sadie, Rhian Samuel (Eds.): The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers . London: Macmillan, 1996 (1994), p. 167 (lists further literature from 1925 and 1982)
  • Patricia Adkins Chiti : Short biography of the composer (p. 82). In: Italian Art Songs of the Romantic Era. 1994.
  • Pinuccia Carrer: Francesca Nava D'Adda, Carlotta Ferrari da Lodi, Antonietta Banfi: A trio of romantic women composers . In: Fondazione Adkins Chiti: Donne in Musica (ed.): Le lombarde in musica . Colombo, Rome 2009, ISBN 978-88-6263-008-5 , pp. 225 f . (Italian, English).
  • Notiizie artistiche . Gazzetta Piemontese (in Italian). April 27, 1875, p. 1.
  • Lilio Galemi: Carlotta Ferrari . In: Archivio storico per la città e comuni del circondario di Lodi , 26 (1907), pp. 178-186; ( Digitized at internetculturale.it (EVA 184 F9978), Italian)

Web links

Commons : Carlotta Ferrari  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Carlotta Ferrari  - Sources and full texts (Italian)

References and comments

  1. ^ A b Giovanni Antonelli: La data di nascita di Carlotta Ferrari. In: Archivio storico lodigiano 16 (1968), p. 182; Digitized at internetculturale.it (EVA 186 F10206; Italian, with a copy of the baptism entry). The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers as well as MGG 2 , Person Teil, Supplementband 2008 wrongly indicate the year of birth as 1837, the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani as 1830; the Enciclopedia delle donne mentions January 23, 1831.
  2. ^ Franco D'Intino:  Ferrari, Carlotta. In: Fiorella Bartoccini (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 46:  Feducci-Ferrerio. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1996.
  3. ↑ a b MGG 2, personal section, supplement volume 2008, col. 194 f.
  4. ^ Matteo Sansone: Ferrari, Carlotta , in: Julie Anne Sadie, Rhian Samuel (Eds.): The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers . London: Macmillan, 1996 (1994), p. 167
  5. ↑ This title is reminiscent of another opera by Gaetano Donizetti Ugo, conte di Parigi (1832) based on a libretto by Felice Romani.
  6. ↑ See literature by Patricia Adkins Chiti 1994, p. 82.
  7. ↑ See literature by Patricia Adkins Chiti 1994, p. 82.
  8. ↑ See Catalogo del Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale .
  9. ↑ 1788-1865. He is considered the most important Italian librettist of his time.
  10. ↑ Giuseppe Monsagrati:  Dall'Ongaro, Francesco. In: Massimiliano Pavan (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 32:  Dall'Anconata – Da Ronco. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1986.
  11. ↑ "Bellini in Skirts" in: New Grove of Women Composers 1996, p. 167.
  12. ^ Brooklyn Museum: Carlotta Ferrari
  13. ^ Proof , Ferrari da Ladi [sic!], Carlotta.
  14. ↑ Proof in the Opac of the SBN; contains the setting of two poems by Francesco Dell'Ongaro. The date can be found in the surviving manuscript: Evidence in the opac of the SBN.
  15. ^ Carlotta Ferrari as the poetic editor of the libretto translated from Russian by A. De Gortschakoff. Italian first performance Milan 1874: Evidence in the Opac of the SBN; Piero Mioli: Il grande libro dell'opera lirica. I cento migliori libretti della tradizione operistica Roma 2001, pp. 1010-1017 ISBN 88-8289-626-9
  16. ↑ In it, in addition to compositions by well-known contemporaries, 16 songs with piano accompaniment by Carlotta Ferrari. The titles of the 16 songs, a short biography, notes of the 1st song. Its heading Non t'accostare all'urna = 1st line of the lyrics by Jacopo Vittorelli .
personal data
SURNAME Ferrari, Carlotta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian composer and poet
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Lodi
DATE OF DEATH November 23, 1907
Place of death Bologna