Franco Faccio

Francesco (Franco) Antonio Faccio (8 March 1840 – 21 July 1891) was an Italian composer and conductor. Born in Verona, he studied music at the Milan Conservatory from 1855 where he was a pupil of Stefano Ronchetti-Monteviti and, as scholar William Ashbrook notes, “where he struck up a lifelong friendship with Arrigo Boito, two years his junior” and with whom he was to collaborate in many ways. Initially, he became known as the composer of two operas and, in his years (1871–1889) as music director of the Teatro alla Scala opera house, Faccio became known as a conductor of Verdi’s music at La Scala, in different parts of Italy, and abroad. Professional career After finishing his studies he began his career as a composer. His first collaboration with Boito was on a patriotic cantata, Il quattro giugno in 1860 when Boito also wrote some of the music as well as the text, Faccio’s second opera, Amleto, one of the many operas based on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, was written for Genoa’s Teatro Carlo Felice and was given its première on 30 May 1865. The cast included some of the finest singers of the day. As Ashbrook notes, while its “innovatory libretto” was written by Boito, there was "