Elsa Respighi

Elsa Respighi (; 24 March 1894 – 19 March 1996) was an Italian mezzo-soprano singer and composer. She was the wife and former pupil of Ottorino Respighi. Respighi created a ballet and completed her husband’s opera, but also composed a significant number of her own works after his death, including operas and choral works. She published a biography of her husband, and established the Fondo Respighi in Venice to promote music education in Italy. Biography Respighi was born Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo on 24 March 1894 in Rome. She studied solfege and piano privately, and then from 1905 at the Istituto Nazionale di Musica in Rome. As a mezzo-soprano singer and composer herself, Elsa Respighi created ballets out of her husband’s Ancient Airs and Dances suites, and completed his final opera Lucrezia in 1937. Throughout her long life she championed her husband’s work unfailingly. In 1955 she produced a memoir of her encounters with some of the most influential cultural figures of the early twentieth century. She also published a biography of Respighi in 1962. Since then, several of her own works, chiefly for solo voice with accompaniment, have been given their premiere. Respighi is considered