Vincenzo Battista

His next success was the innovative opera Margherita d'Aragona (1844), at the Teatro di San Carlo[6] with the soprano Fanny Goldberg, the tenor Gaetano Fraschini and the baritone Filippo Coletti.

The Milan based bi-weekly magazine[7] Il Pirata in its review praised each song and each singer and documented how many times Battista was called out by the enthusiastic audience.

[8] However, a long and detailed article in Museo di Scienze e Letteratura was less enthusiastic, claiming that Battista was being inspired by the wrong role models, a possible reference to Verdi.

Marietta Brambilla created the title role in his opera Irene (1847), while the soprano Balbina Steffenone sang in the première of his Giovanna di Castiglia at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1863.

[2] In his last years Battista was living in poverty as interest in his operas waned owing to the increasing popularity of the works of Verdi and the refusal of Casa Ricordi to publish his later scores.