page_title: Fabio Campana
section_title: Life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Fabio Campana / Life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: Adelina Patti (19 February 1843 – 27 September 1919) was a highly acclaimed 19th-century opera singer. Here she is shown as Esmeralda circa 1870.
context_page_description: Fabio Campana was an Italian composer, opera director, conductor, and singing teacher who composed eight operas which premiered between 1838 and 1869. He was born in Livorno, the city where his first two operas premiered, but in the early 1850s he settled in London. There he opened a famous singing school, conducted concerts, and continued his reputation as a prolific and popular composer of art songs and concert arias. His last opera, Esmeralda, premiered in Saint Petersburg in 1869, followed by London performances in 1870 with Adelina Patti in the title role. Campana died in London at the age of 63. Although his operas are no longer performed, his art songs can be heard on several modern recordings.
context_section_description: Campana was born in Livorno and initially studied music there with Bernardo Nucci before going on to further studies at the Naples Conservatory and finally at the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna. His first opera Caterina di Guisa, set to a libretto by Felice Romani, premiered while he was still a student.  It was first performed on 14 August 1838 at the Teatro degli Avvalorati in Livorno, with Verdi's future wife Giuseppina Strepponi in the title role. The opera was warmly received as was his next opera Giulio d'Este which premiered at the same theatre in 1841. Campana also directed several operas at the theatre, including Mercadante's Il giuramento (1839), Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (1840), Meyerbeer's Il crociato in Egitto (1840), and Bellini's Il pirata (1840). 
   In addition to conducting the premiere of his own opera, Vannina d'Ornano at the Teatro della Pergola in  Florence (1842), he conducted a series of concerts in Rome, including a performance of Rossini's Stabat Mater. His last opera to be premiered in Italy was Mazeppa, with a libretto based on Byron's narrative poem, Mazeppa. It was first performed at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna on 6 November 1850 with the tenor Settimio Malvezzi in the title role. 
  In 1850 Campana had gone to Paris, armed with a letter of recommendation from Rossini to seek a position at the Théâtre des Italiens which at that time was run by Benjamin Lumley. He was unsuccessful, however, and returned to Italy. Then on the suggestion of Lord Ward, a principal benefactor of Her Majesty's Theatre, he went to London where he was to live for the rest of his life. There he opened a famous singing school, conducted concerts, and continued his reputation as a prolific and popular composer of art songs. The first of his "Grand Matinee Musicale" concerts took place in 1854 under the patronage of Lord Ward, and featured his latest compositions. The 1860s saw the premieres of his last two operas. Almina premiered in London at Her Majesty's Theatre on 26 April 1860 conducted by Luigi Arditi with Marietta Piccolomini in the title role. The critical reaction was tepid. The Musical World criticised its lack of "dramatic fire", but also went on to note that the audience did not appear to share that view:
  Taking applause as a criterion, the success of Almina was triumphant. After the first act, the principal singers were recalled, and then Signor Campana was compelled to appear, when he was not merely received with tumultuous acclamations, but fêted with bouquets and laurel-wreaths. At the fall of the curtain, too, he was summoned to the foot-lights twice, when the demonstrations were renewed, and no doubt the composer left the theatre perfectly satisfied that his opera had achieved a great and legitimate triumph. First nights, however, are not always precedents—the Barbiere of Rossini to witness.
  Campana's final opera Esmeralda, based on Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, premiered in Russia at the Saint Petersburg Imperial Italian Opera on 20 December 1869. The title role had been written expressly for Adelina Patti, but she could not make the Saint Petersburg premiere and the role was sung by Carolina Volpi instead. In June of the following year, it was mounted in London at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden this time with Adelina Patti as Esmeralda. The French journal Le Ménestrel reporting on the Saint Petersburg premiere praised the opera for its beautiful melodies and orchestration. The English critics' reaction to the London premiere was scathing. Henry Lunn, writing in The Musical Times, called it "a feeble work" with "commonplace" music, rescued only by the singing of Patti. The critic for The Saturday Review pronounced it "irredeemably bad". However, in his review of the London performance for Le Ménestrel, Joseph Tagliafico (writing under his pseudonym "De Retz") took exception to the vehemence of the English critics' reaction finding it inexplicable. He concluded his review:
  They say of Campana's opera that it is [simply] a new Album of Songs by the composer. Bah! Could not one als
caption: Adelina Patti as Esmeralda in Campana's last opera, London 1870
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