Emilio Usiglio

Emilio Usiglio (18 January 1841 – 7 July 1910) was an Italian composer and conductor. Life and career Usiglio was born on 18 January 1841 in Parma. He studied music in Parma, first with Giuseppe Barbacini and then with Giovanni Rossi, before continuing his education in Pisa with Carlo Romani and in Florence with Teodulo Mabellini. At the age of 20 he began his operatic career with some success with La locandiera. He wrote exclusively opere buffe, his most famous being 1879’s Le donne curiose after the play by Carlo Goldoni. As a conductor, Usiglio led the premiere, in 1875, of the new version of Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele in Bologna, and in 1877 he conducted the Italian premiere of Georges Bizet’s Carmen in Naples and of Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas in Venice. In 1889 he led the first Modena performances of Fosca by Antonio Gomes. Due primarily to his increasing alcoholism, Usiglio was forced to retire as a conductor in 1897. He died in Milan on 7 July 1910. His wife was the soprano Clementina Brusa. Works Operas *La locandiera, libretto by Giuseppe Barilli (Turin, Teatro Vittorio Emanuele, 5 September 1861) *Un’eredità in Corsica, libretto by Raffaello Berninzone (Milan, Teatro di Sa