Amilcare Ponchielli

After the first version of I promessi sposi in 1856, Amilcare Ponchielli — a Milan Conservatory pupil since childhood — spent years as a bandmaster in Piacenza and Cremona, writing for wind band. The revised I promessi sposi succeeded in Milan in 1872, and La Gioconda, staged at La Scala in 1876 to a libretto Arrigo Boito published under the anagram Tobia Gorrio, brought him international recognition. Its ballet includes the Dance of the Hours. Appointed professor of composition at the Conservatory he had entered as a boy, he taught both Puccini and Mascagni. He died in 1886, at fifty-one. He was born at Paderno Fasolaro near Cremona and took up his conservatory place on a scholarship at nine, setting Manzoni's novel for the first time in 1856; the revision's success brought with it a contract from the publisher Ricordi. The biblical melodrama Il figliuol prodigo was given in Milan in 1880 and Marion Delorme, after another play of Hugo's, at La Scala five years later.