page_title: Francesco Cilea
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Francesco Cilea / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Palmi. Mausoleo dedicato a Francesco Cilea. Fotografia scattata dalla via Salerno
context_page_description: Francesco Cilea was an Italian composer. Today he is particularly known for his operas L'arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur.
context_section_description: Born in Palmi near Reggio di Calabria, Cilea gave early indication of an aptitude for music when at the age of four he heard a performance of Vincenzo Bellini's Norma and was greatly affected by it.  He was sent to study music at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, where he quickly demonstrated his diligence and precocious talent, earning a gold medal from the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione (Department of Education).
  In 1889, for his final examination at the end of his course of study, he submitted his opera Gina, with a libretto by Enrico Golisciani which was adapted from the old French play Catherine, ou La Croix d'or by Baron Anne-Honoré-Joseph Duveyrier de Mélésville (1787–1865). This melodramma idilico was performed in the college theatre, and it attracted the attention of the publishers Sonzogno, who arranged for a second production, in Florence, in 1892.
  Sonzogno also then commissioned from Cilea La Tilda, a verismo opera in three short acts along the lines of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana.  With a libretto by Angelo Zanardini, La Tilda had a successful first performance in April 1892 at the Teatro Pagliano in Florence, and after performances in a number of Italian theatres, it arrived at the Vienna Exhibition on 24 September 1892, alongside other works from the firm of Sonzogno.  The composer never showed much sympathy for this work, the subject of which he reluctantly agreed to set to music in order to please Sonzogno and to avoid throwing away a rare professional opportunity.  The loss of the orchestral score has prevented the modern revival of this work, whose fresh and catchy melodies can nevertheless be discovered in the transcription for voice and piano.
  In 1897 (27 November), the Teatro Lirico in Milan saw the première of Cilea's third opera L'Arlesiana, based on the play by Alphonse Daudet, with a libretto by Leopoldo Marenco.  Among the cast was the young Enrico Caruso, who performed with great success the Lamento di Federico: È la solita storia del pastore, the romance which was to keep alive the memory of the opera even to the present day.  In reality L'Arlesiana was a failure which Cilea, being convinced of the work's value, tried repeatedly to remedy, making drastic and detailed alterations throughout the remainder of his life. In the score which we hear today, it is hard to find a single bar which is completely unchanged from the original.  The revised opera was however still not successful, apart from a brief period in the 1930s when it benefited from political support which the composer established through personal contact with Mussolini.
  Again at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, in 1902 (6 November) and again with Enrico Caruso, the composer won an enthusiastic reception for Adriana Lecouvreur, a 4-act opera with a libretto by Arturo Colautti, set in 18th century Paris and based upon a play by Eugène Scribe.  Adriana Lecouvreur is the opera of Cilea which is best known to international audiences today, and it reveals the spontaneity of a melodic style drawn from the Neapolitan school combined with harmonic and tonal shading influenced by French composers such as Massenet.
  There are a number of extant examples documenting Cilea's modest skills as a performer. At the piano Cilea accompanied (none too elegantly) Caruso in a recording of a part of the duet Non piu nobile and made another recording with the baritone De Luca at the same time (November 1902). In 1904 for the Gramophone (and Typewriter Company) he accompanied the tenor Fernando De Lucia in L'anima ho stanca from Adriana Lecouvreur and in the song Lontananza, an effort which critic Michael Henstock (in his biography of De Lucia) declares is hardly inspired by De Lucia's fine performances. Even given the crude recording techniques of the day Cilea's piano playing (put charitably) seems square and lifeless. (see Henstock).
  Cilea's last opera, premièred at La Scala in Milan on 15 April 1907 under the baton of Arturo Toscanini, was the 3-act tragedy Gloria, again with a libretto by Colautti, based on a play by Victorien Sar
caption: Cilea's mausoleum in Palmi
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