Alfredo Catalani

Born in Lucca to a family of musicians and taught first by his father, Alfredo Catalani went on to Paris and then to the Milan Conservatory under Antonio Bazzini, and fell in with the Scapigliatura. Elda, remade later as Loreley, was followed by Dejanice, Edmea and finally La Wally, given at La Scala in 1892 to a libretto by Luigi Illica. Its aria "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana" has led a long life of its own, well beyond the opera it belongs to. He died in Milan in 1893, at thirty-nine. He held a professorship at the Milan Conservatory. Tuberculosis was what killed him, and his grave is in the Sant'Anna cemetery in Lucca. Toscanini named one of his daughters Wally.