Francesco Morlacchi

Francesco Morlacchi was an Italian composer born on 14 June 1784 in Perugia. He came from a musical family and received his first training from his uncle and local teachers before studying in Loreto and Bologna. He achieved early success with his opera Corradino in 1808 and went on to write more than twenty operas. In 1811 he became Kapellmeister of the Italian opera in Dresden, where he helped popularise the Italian operatic style across Germany and beyond. One of his most successful works was Tebaldo e Isolina (Venice, 1822), which was performed widely in the following decade. Morlacchi also composed sacred music, cantatas and instrumental works. His career connected the late Classical and early Romantic eras, and although his style followed the Italian tradition, he incorporated elements of the German taste while working in Dresden. He died on 28 October 1841 in Innsbruck.

In his early years he studied not only with Giovanni Mazzetti and Luigi Caruso, but also with Niccolò Zingarelli in Loreto and later at the Bolognese school of Stanislao Mattei, where he encountered Gioacchino Rossini. During this formative period he produced his first compositions, including Via crucis (1802), the cantata Gli angeli al divino sepolcro (1803) and a series of twelve sonatinas for keyboard. He was admitted to the Bologna Accademia Filarmonica in 1805, and by 1806 had written several sacred and instrumental works for the churches of Bologna.

Morlacchi’s early theatrical activity included the operas Il poeta disperato and Il ritratto (both 1807), followed by a series of successful premieres in Rome and Milan. The triumph of Ipermestra in 1810 led directly to his appointment in Dresden, where he also composed Raoul di Créquy (1811), La capricciosa pentita (1816), Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816) and La semplicetta di Pirna (1817). His operas were performed extensively in Italy, including Boadicea, Gianni di Parigi, Donna Aurora, Ilda d’Avenel, I Saraceni in Sicilia and Colombo. Tebaldo e Isolina, with Giovanni Battista Velluti in the title role, became his most acclaimed stage work and was performed in forty cities. He also created one of the last settings of Metastasio’s La passione di Gesù Cristo (1812).

Alongside his operatic activity he conducted charitable concerts in Dresden, promoting the music of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Cherubini and Beethoven. He founded a charitable society in 1826 to support widows of Saxon court musicians. He held memberships in numerous artistic and musical academies in Perugia, Bologna, Florence, Bergamo and Rome, and in 1840 wrote the sacred work Diffusa est gratia to commemorate his admission to the Accademia di Santa Cecilia.

Morlacchi’s personal life included his marriage to Anna Fabrizi, with whom he had a son, as well as a long-term relationship with Augusta Bauer, with whom he had four children. His final journey to Italy in 1841 was cut short by illness, and after his death a solemn requiem service was held in Perugia featuring the Requiem he had composed for Frederick Augustus of Saxony. His legacy endured: in 1874 Perugia’s principal theatre was renamed in his honour, and in 1951 his remains were transferred to the city’s cathedral. His oeuvre ultimately encompassed twenty-five operas, three oratorios, numerous masses, two requiems, cantatas and an extensive body of vocal and instrumental music.

Connections

This figure has 2 connections in the art history graph.