Ferdinando Bertoni

Ferdinando Gasparo Bertoni (15 August 1725 – 1 December 1813) was an Italian composer and organist.

He was born in Salò, Republic of Venice, and began his music studies in Brescia, not far from his birthplace.

Back to Venice in 1784, he succeeded Baldassare Galuppi in 1785 as Kapellmeister of San Marco and preserved this position until his retirement in 1808.

[2] A prolific writer of church music, Bertoni also composed 70 operas which fell into oblivion, except Orfeo[3] (Venice, Teatro San Benedetto, 1776), based on the same libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi for the work of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Orfeo ed Euridice (Burgtheater, Vienna, 1762).

Bertoni generally ignored Gluck's reforms and composed the work in the old style of opera seria.

Scene from the production of Orfeo by Bampton Classical Opera in 2014, with Anna Starushkevych in the title role