Marc’Antonio Sportonio

Marc'Antonio Sportonio, known as ‘il Bolognese’, was an Italian castrato of the soprano register and also a composer. His life unfolded between Rome, Paris and, above all, Palermo, where he spent most of his career. The dates of his birth and death are not documented with certainty: his birth is placed around 1631 in Bologna and his death in Palermo after 1696, although both dates are cited with reservations.

His training began in Rome, where from July 1644 he was a pupil of Giacomo Carissimi at the Collegio Germanico. In 1645 he nominally entered the service of the Duke of Modena as a mezzo-soprano. In that capacity he accompanied Venanzio Leopardi to Paris at the end of 1646, to take part in the premiere of Luigi Rossi's Orfeo, and afterwards remained in the service of the Queen Regent of France.

From 1653 he settled in Palermo. That same year he sang in the ‘attione tragica’ Costantino, with incidental music by G. B. Fasolo, at the Jesuits' Collegio Massimo. In 1655 he co-founded, with other singers of the city, the ‘Musici accademici sconcertati’, the ensemble that staged the first opera performance in Palermo, Cavalli's Giasone, in which he performed the comic role of Delfa. He was a central figure in the city's public theatrical life and a member of the viceroy's Cappella Palatina from 1655 at the latest. His documented fees appear as contralto in 1655 and 1656, and as soprano in several later years.

As a composer, his best-known work in the documentation is the opera La Fiordispina (1678), of local origin and with a libretto by Antonio Salamone, which was revived at court in 1680 and at the Teatro San Bartolomeo in Naples during the Carnival of 1683. He also signed the libretto of Caligola in 1675. He was among the first members of the Palermitan ‘Unione dei musici’ in 1679–80. Two of his cantatas or arias survive today in manuscript. His importance lies above all in having promoted musical theatre in Palermo and in having forged links with the Scarlatti family.