Carlo Evasio Soliva

Carlo Evasio Soliva (27 November 1791 – 20 December 1853) was a Swiss-Italian composer of opera, chamber music, and sacred choral works. Soliva was born in Casale Monferrato, Piedmont to a family of Swiss chocolatiers who had emigrated from the canton of Ticino. He studied pianoforte and composition at the Milan Conservatory.

A contemporary of Gioacchino Rossini, he is best known for his 1816 opera La testa di bronzo ("The head of bronze"), which prompted Stendhal’s immediate enthusiasm: “Ce petit Soliva a la figure chétive d'un homme de génie.” (“That little Soliva has the scanty figure of a man of genius.”) After a life spent composing, teaching, and conducting in Italy, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, and France, he died in Paris at the age of 62.

The "Carlo Evasio Soliva Competition for Piano and Chamber Music," organized by the Istituto Musicale Soliva, is held annually in the town of his birth.

At the Milan Conservatory, he was at the top of his class. He soon became a conductor at La Scala and "drew inspiration for his music from Mozart, whose music was then fashionable in Milan," his operas being performed frequently from 1807 onwards. When La Scala organized a competition for new librettists in April 1816, the jury gave the top prize to Felice Romani but chose the novice Carlo Soliva to compose the music. His work was in Mozart's style and was well received by local audiences. The following year his first opera, La testa di bronzo o sia La capanna solitaria, was an immediate and resounding success, but it marked the apex of his popularity. The opera received a record 47 performances in the 1816-1817 season. In 1817 his second opera, Berenice d'Armenia, received its premiere in Turin, and his third, La zingara delle Asturie, played at La Scala. Neither was received with great warmth, but in 1818 Giulia e Sesto Pompeo was a fiasco at La Scala.

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