Gian Carlo Menotti

about

Gian Carlo Menotti (July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular taste. He won the Pulitzer Prize for two of them, The Consul (1950) and The Saint of Bleecker Street (1955). He founded the noted Festival dei Due Mondi (Festival of the Two Worlds) in 1958 and its American counterpart, Spoleto Festival USA, in 1977. In 1986 he commenced a Melbourne Spoleto Festival in Australia, but he withdrew after three years.Gian Carlo studied composition at Curtis under Rosario Scalero.[3] Fellow students at Curtis included Leonard Bernstein and Samuel Barber. -_Barber became Menotti's lover and partner in life and in work; with Menotti crafting the libretto for Barber's most famous opera, Vanessa, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1958. As a student, Menotti spent much of his time with the Samuel Barber family in West Chester, Pennsylvania. After graduation, the two men bought a house together in Mount Kisco, New York, which they named "Capricorn" and shared for over forty years.[4] It was at Curtis that Menotti wrote his first mature opera, Amelia Goes to the Ball (Amelia al Ballo), to his own Italian text. The Island God (which he suppressed, though its libretto was printed by the Metropolitan Opera and can be found

top songs

albums

Amahl and the Night Visitors

Goya

Menotti: Violin Concerto / Muero Porque No Muero / Oh Llama De Amor Viva / Death of Orpheus

Menotti: Consul (The)

▥

Little Girl Blue From Nina Simone

▥

Menotti: The Medium

▥

Menotti, G.C.: Amahl and the Night Visitors / My Christmas

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major, Op. 100 - Menotti: The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore

The Consul

▥

Menotti: The Consul

▥

Monica's Waltz

▥

The Old Maid and the Thief

similar artists