Marcos Portugal

Marcos António da Fonseca Portugal (24 March 1762 – 17 February 1830), also known as Marco Portogallo in Italian, was a Portuguese-Brazilian classical composer, who achieved great international fame for his operas. Biography Marcos António da Fonseca Portugal was born in Lisbon. He studied music at the Patriarchal Seminary in Lisbon where, as a 14-year-old student, he wrote his first work, a Miserere. He later worked as composer and organist at the Patriarchal See, and was maestro at the Theatre of Salitre in Lisbon from c. 1784. He lived in Italy from late 1792 to 1800, possibly funded by the prince regent D. John, the later King John VI of Portugal. He wrote 21 operas for various Italian theatres. The first, I due gobbi (also known as Confusioni della Somiglianza), premiered in Florence in the spring of 1793. His version of The Marriage of Figaro, titled La pazza giornata, ovvero Il matrimonio di Figaro (The Crazy Day, or The Marriage of Figaro), to a libretto by Gaetano Rossi, premiered in Venice in 1799. Like most theatre composers of the time, Portugal set several librettos that had proven successful for earlier operas, such as Metastasio’s Demofoonte (premièred at La Scala, M