Ferdinando Fontana

Born at Milan, then part of the Austrian Empire, into a family of artists - both his father Carlo and his brother Roberto were painters - he entered a Barnabite school at the age of seven and then went on to study at the Collegio Zambelli.

During that period, he worked in a series of menial jobs before becoming a copy editor for the newspaper Corriere di Milano.

He wrote numerous libretti, including two for Alberto Franchetti (Asrael and Zoroastro) and two for Puccini (Le Villi and Edgar).

He wrote the libretto for Edgar in Caprino Bergamasco, where fellow librettist Antonio Ghislanzoni ran a hotel for artists.

[1] He also translated several operetta libretti for performance in Italy, including Franz Lehár's Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) and Der Graf von Luxemburg (The Count of Luxembourg), Oskar Nedbal's Polenblut (Polish Blood), and Edmund Eysler's Der Frauenfresser (The Woman-Eater).