Franz von Suppé

Franz von Suppé or Francesco Suppé Demelli (18 April 1819 – 21 May 1895) was an Austrian composer of light operas from the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now part of Croatia). A composer and conductor of the Romantic period, he is notable for his four dozen operettas.

Franz von Suppé's parents named him Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Cavaliere di Suppé-Demelli when he was born on 18 April 1819 in Spalato, now Split, Dalmatia, Austrian Empire. His Belgian ancestors may have emigrated there in the 18th century. His father – a man of Italian and Belgian ancestry – was a civil servant in the service of the Austrian Empire, as was his father before him; Suppé's mother was Viennese by birth. He was a distant relative of Gaetano Donizetti. He simplified and Germanized his name when in Vienna, and changed "cavaliere di" to "von". Outside Germanic circles, his name may appear on programmes as Francesco Suppé-Demelli.

He spent his childhood in Zara, now Zadar, where he had his first music lessons and began to compose at an early age. As a boy he had no encouragement in music from his father, but was helped by a local bandmaster and by the Spalato cathedral choirmaster. His Missa dalmatica dates from this early period. As a teenager in Cremona, Suppé studied flute and harmony. His first extant composition is a Roman Catholic mass, which premiered at a Franciscan church in Zara in 1832. At the age of 16, he moved to Padua to study law – a field of study not chosen by him – but continued to study music. Suppé was also a singer, making his debut as a basso profundo in the role of Dulcamara in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore at the Sopron theatre in 1842.

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