Alfredo Catalani

Despite the growing influence of the verismo style of opera during the 1880s and early 1890s, Catalani chose to compose in a more traditional manner, which had traces of Wagner in it.

As a result, his operas (La Wally excepted) have largely lost their place in the modern repertoire, even compared to those of Massenet and Puccini, whose style his own periodically resembles.

In 1893, upon his premature death from tuberculosis in Milan, Catalani was interred in the Cimitero Monumentale, where Ponchielli and conductor Arturo Toscanini also lie.

Toscanini recorded the prelude to Act IV of La Wally and the "Dance of the Water Nymphs" from Loreley in Carnegie Hall in August 1952 with the NBC Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor.

In 1981, his work was highlighted by the release of Diva, a thriller directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix which employed the aria from La Wally.