He was born in Naples and educated at the conservatory. After some years spent teaching and in ineffective attempts to obtain the production of more than one opera, his I Pagliacci was performed in Milan in 1892 with immediate success; today it is the only work by Leoncavallo in the standard operatic repertory. The next year his Medici was also produced in Milan, but neither it nor Chatterton (1896)—both early works—obtained any favour, and it was not until La Bohème was performed in 1897 in Venice that his talent obtained public confirmation. Subsequent operas by Leoncavallo were Zazà (1900), and Der Roland (1904). In all these operas he was his own librettist.
Ruggero Leoncavallo is remembered almost exclusively for his opera I Pagliacci, which -- along with Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana -- has become the hallmark of the late nineteenth century verismo style.
Leoncavallo studied composition at the Naples conservatory and literature at Bologna University; this dual passion for music and poetry would lead the young composer to seek a unity between the two disciplines in the manner of Richard Wagner, whose music would come as a revelation.
In 1897Leoncavallo produced a setting of La Bohème that was meant to rival that of Puccini, but, although it pleased the public somewhat, Puccini's finer and more sophisticated work quickly outstripped Leoncavallo's in popularity.
Feeds |
Contact