Gaetano Coronaro

Gaetano Coronaro (Vicenza, 1852 – Milan, 1908) was a composer, conductor and pedagogue, active chiefly in Milan, where he built much of his career at the Conservatory and in the theatre. The brother of Antonio Coronaro, he began his studies with a view to the humanities, but soon turned to music, training in piano, harmony and counterpoint with Francesco Canneti in his native city.

In 1871 he entered the Milan Conservatory to study composition with Franco Faccio. He graduated in 1873 with the eclogue Un tramonto, to a libretto by Boito, a friend and admirer of his work. The piece enjoyed considerable success: it was performed as far afield as Moscow and Chicago, and it won the Giovannina Lucca prize, worth 200 gold lire. Thanks to that prize he travelled abroad and, in Germany, discovered the music of Wagner, which left a profound mark on him.

Back in Milan in 1876, his career developed along three fronts: teaching, conducting and composition. In 1879 he took up the chair of harmony and counterpoint at the Conservatory and, in 1894, succeeded Catalani in the composition chair, which he held until his death. In that same year of 1879 he conducted at La Scala, standing in for Faccio.

Although the triumph of Un tramonto encouraged him to write opera, only La creola, with fourteen performances, was favourably received among his five operatic works. Two of them were never staged: La Signora di Challant, with a libretto by Giacosa, and Enoch Arden, dating from 1905, written in collaboration with Fogazzaro. Critics regarded him as an heir to the Verdian tradition, more an assimilator of styles than an original creator, although they valued the originality of La creola, which has verismo traits and a clear Wagnerian, Meyerbeerian and Verdian imprint.