BIOGRAPHY

One of the 25 children of a band conductor in Campinas — interior of São Paulo —, he begun to study at an early age, having performed his first mass for the first time at 18. Against his father’s will, he left for the Imperial Conservatory in Rio de Janeiro and, at 21, founded the National Opera, where he conducted the orchestra and performed Night at the Castle for the first time. His opera Joana de Flandres granted him a scholarship from the Brazilian government to study in Italy. After some of his small pieces were performed in Milan, at the age of 29 he saw II Guarany triumph at La Scala. He reached international acknowledgement and composed, during the following years, Fosca e Salvator Rosa. Throughout his life he wrote songs and popular music, but, above all, he was an opera composer. He is also the composer of Maria Tudor, Lo Schiavo, Condor and the oratorio Colombo. Back to Brazil, he accepted, from the republican government, the position of director of the Conservatory of Belém, where he died some months later.