Franco Capuana

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Franco Capuana (born September 29, 1894 in Fano , † December 10, 1969 in Naples ) was an Italian conductor and composer.

Like his sisters Maria , who became known as a singer, and Celeste , a pianist, Franco Capuana, the son of the writer Luigi Capuana , began his musical education very early and was admitted to study composition at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in 1905 in Naples. Since the composition course was overcrowded, he took two years of horn lessons with Eduardo de Angelis and then studied harmony with Camillo de Nardis . He also studied piano with Alessando Longo , music history with Nicola D'Arienzo and musical aesthetics with Fausto Torrefranca . As a student, he composed the operetta La piccola irredenta in 1915 , which premiered with Florica Cristoforeanu in the leading role.

In the same year he was hired as assistant to the conductor Franco Ghione to Reggio Emilia. After several stops, Pietro Mascagni invited him to La Specia for a performance of his opera Lodoletta in 1917 . In 1918 he did his military service and was then in the 1918-19 season first deputy of Mascagni at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. In 1919 he received his first contract as director of a production of Madama Butterfly in Voghera.

In 1921 Capuana won a composition competition in the city of Milan with four songs based on texts by Giosuè Carducci and Giovanni Pascoli . After engagements at various opera houses in Italy, including Cremona, Carpi, Finale Ligure, Correggio, Piacenza, Brescia, Osimo and Modena, he was invited to the Teatro Olympia in Madrid in 1926 for a performance of Il Piccolo Marat . The success led to a tour of the great theaters of Spain. In the 1926-27 season he worked in Cairo and Alexandria, where he directed successful performances of Verdi's Aida , Arrigo Boitos Nerone , Richard Strauss ' Salome , Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande and the premiere of Puccini's La rondine .

In 1930 Capuana became chief conductor of the Teatro San Carlo in Milan. There he performed Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and Meyerbeer's Huguenots , Guido Laccetti's Hoffmann , Francesco Cileas Gloria and Gustave Charpentier's Louisa . In 1937 he conducted Enrique Granados ' opera Goyescas at the Teatro alla Scala , the following year the world premiere of Licinio Refeices Margherita da Cortona and in 1939 Ildebrando Pizzetti's Fedra . In 1949 he was appointed music director of La Scala.

Outside Italy, Capuana has conducted in London, Bordeaux, Vienna, Athens, Lisbon, Lausanne, Berlin, Tokyo, Budapest, Zagreb, Madrid and Monaco, among others. In 1955 he received the Grand Prix du Disque for a performance of La Sonnambula . In 1962 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic as a Grand Officer, in the following year he received the Premio Illica .

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personal data
SURNAME Capuana, Franco
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian conductor and composer
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Fano (brands)
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1969
Place of death Naples