Biography
Franco Alfano was born in 1875 in Posillipo, near Naples, and studied first at the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory in Naples, then from 1895 at the Leipzig Conservatory, where he met Edvard Grieg, whom he admired throughout his life. His opera Risurrezione, based on Tolstoy and premiered in Turin in 1904, made him famous overnight; further operas followed, including Cyrano de Bergerac (1936). He became internationally known above all because Arturo Toscanini commissioned him to complete Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot, left unfinished at the composer's death in 1924, from Puccini's sketches; this completed version premiered at Milan's La Scala in 1926. Alfano directed the Conservatorio Verdi in Turin (1923–1939) and the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, among other posts, before retiring to Sanremo, where he died in 1954.
On Stagelog
Loading stats...