Vincenzo Federici

Vincenzo Federici (Pesaro, 1764 – Milan, 26 September 1826) was an Italian composer who spent much of his career as a writer of opere serie and as a teacher in London and Milan. Although his family intended him to study law, he also trained as a harpsichordist, and his career brought him a prominent place in the musical life of both cities at the turn of the century.

At the age of sixteen he left Italy, passing through Livorno before settling in London, where he gave music lessons and taught himself composition. A set of his sonatas was published there in 1786. His first opera, L'olimpiade, was staged in Turin in 1789. That same year his association with the Italian opera in London began to take shape as maestro al cembalo; in 1790 he premiered L'usurpator innocente at the Little Haymarket Theatre, an adaptation of Metastasio's Demofoonte, with the castrato Luigi Marchesi in the cast, and he held that post at the King's Theatre until at least 1800, also contributing pasticcios and works by other composers.

In 1802 he settled in Milan. His Castore e Polluce was performed at La Scala in 1803 and was revived in Venice, Turin and Naples. For years he presented a new opera seria each carnival season at La Scala or in Turin, with a single exception, until 1809. From 1808 he taught at the Milan Conservatory, where he became professor of composition in 1824 and acting director in 1825.

His legacy raises some questions of attribution: the successful opera Zaira (Palermo, 1799) is often credited to him but is probably the work of Francesco Federici, and the authorship of the azione lirica Pigmalione remains uncertain. Nevertheless, his operas and his teaching in Milan place him as a representative figure of Italian opera seria in the early nineteenth century.