MENOTTI, GIAN CARLO  

Born in Cadegliano, Italy, on 7 July 1911, Gian Carlo Menotti occupies a singular place in twentieth-century music theatre. A graduate of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute in 1933, Menotti’s first opera Amelia Goes to the Ball was presented at the Metropolitan Opera in 1938. In 1947, his tragedy The Medium, which was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, enjoyed a run of 212 performances on Broadway, where it was paired with the almost equally well received comedy The Telephone. 1950 saw the première of his finest opera, The Consul, the success of which was consolidated with the television opera Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951) and The Saint of Bleecker Street (1954). Maria Golovin was less successful when it was staged at the 1958 International Exposition in Brussels. Thereafter Menotti’s energies were directed as much toward administration as composition, notably with the founding of the Spoleto Festival, which took place on an American Air Force Base at Charleston in 1977. He nonetheless broke new ground with the television opera Labyrinth (1963), while his standing among singers was demonstrated in such operas as La Loca (1979), a farewell vehicle for Beverly Sills, and Goya (1986), written for Placido Domingo. Resident for much of the time in Scotland from 1973, Menotti continued an active career in opera (he was habitually his own librettist, as well as director or supervisor of many of his own productions) until his death in Monte Carlo on 1 February 2007.