Salvatore Fighera

Born in Gravina in Puglia, he completed his musical studies at the Conservatorio di Sant'Onofrio a Capuana in Naples and spent several years in Milan after leaving the conservatory in 1783.

[1] The main 19th-century encyclopedia entries for Fighera, e.g. those by Francesco Florimo, François-Joseph Fétis and Giovanni Masutto, give his birth year as 1771.

[2][7] In his 2010 article on Frighera in Operisti di Puglia dall'Ottocento ai giorni nostri, Francesco Scognamiglio points out that if those accounts are true, the 1771 birth year becomes "problematic."

[9] After leaving the conservatory in 1783, Fighera spent time in Milan where his opera buffa La sorpresa premiered at the Teatro della Canobbiana in 1800.

He also wrote Studio di canto, a manuscript for teaching singing based on the principles of the Baroque composer Nicola Porpora.

[7] Most of the extant manuscript scores of Fighera's works are held in the libraries of the Milan Conservatory and the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella and in the archives of the Fondazione Pomarici Santomasi in Gravina in Puglia.

Fighera's portrait painted by Raffaele Armenise in 1899 was one of four large medallions depicting composers from the region of Apulia which decorated the main auditorium of the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari.

Led by the violinist and musicologist Annamaria Bonsante, the project was dedicated to the critical edition and performance of the San Severo monastery scores.