Vicente Martín y Soler (Valencia, 2 May 1754-St. Petersburg, 30 January 1806) composed over 30 operas and around 20 ballets for the leading theatres in Europe, including the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, the Burgtheater, Vienna, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg and the King’s Theatre, London.
His works were performed by some of the most of the renowned singers of the time (the castrato Luigi Marchesi, the tenors Giovanni Ansani and Michael Kelly, the sopranos Maria Balducci, Luisa Todi and Nancy Storace) and the prestigious choreographers with whom he worked included Charles Lepicq and Domenico Rossi.
He served the most powerful figures of Europe during the Age of Enlightenment: he was the royal favourite of the Emperor Joseph II of Austria, Catherine of Russia and her brother Paul I, as well as Philip, Duke of Parma, and Ferdinand I of Naples.
And if that wasn’t enough, he collaborated with some of the most brilliant librettists from the last quarter of the eighteenth century, from Lorenzo Da Ponte and Luigi Serio to the revolutionary Moretti and Cigna-Santi.
He visited such notable figures as Haydn, Mozart, Salieri, Mariana Martínez, the sculptor Antonio Canova, and Vigée-Lebrun.
Yet today, Martín y Soler remains largely unknown to audiences. |
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