Angelo Mariani (conductor)

He then studied harmony and composition with a nobleman-priest, Girolamo Roberti, and then with a monk named Levrini, a pupil of Stanislao Mattei, at a monastery in Ravenna.

[1] In September 1847 he conducted Giovanni Pacini's music for a performance of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, with a colossal chorus and orchestra.

From there, he went to Constantinople, where he conducted the Italian Theatre for two years, in succession to Giuseppe Donizetti, the well-known composer's brother.

He also composed two dramatic cantatas, and for the visit of Sultan Abdülmecid I to the newly rebuilt Naum Theatre, a new national hymn, the Turkish words of which the Italian singers had learned phonetically.

[5] On 16 August 1857, he conducted the premiere performance of Verdi's Aroldo, a reworking of his earlier opera Stiffelio, at the Teatro Nuovo in Rimini.

[8] Two years later, on 27 October 1867, the Italian premiere of Verdi's Don Carlo was presented at the same theatre with Mariani's involvement.

In late 1868, Verdi asked Mariani to be the conductor for a requiem mass he was planning in honour of Gioachino Rossini, who had died on 13 November.

Mariani agreed to be involved in the organising committee, although he was less than enthusiastic (since he was simultaneously engaged in the commemorative celebrations for Rossini in Pesaro[6]).

Despite Verdi's break with Mariani personally, he still had respect for him as a conductor, and he invited him to conduct the world premiere of Aida in Cairo in December 1871.

On 1 November 1871, Mariani conducted the Italian premiere of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin at the Teatro Communale di Bologna to great acclaim.

[12] In June 1873, aged only 51, Angelo Mariani died of cancer in the attic of the Palazzo Sauli, a house he had long rented from Verdi in Genoa.