Salvatore Viganò

Salvatore Viganò (March 25 1769 – August 10 1821), was an Italian choreographer, dancer and composer. [ [http://opera.stanford.edu/composers/V.html Opera Glass] ]

He was born in Naples. He studied composition with Luigi Boccherini (his uncle) and by the mid-1780s was composing original music. In 1788 he appeared as a dancer on the stage in Venice. He performed in the coronation festivities of Charles IV of Spain in 1789. He became a pupil of the French dancer and choreographer Jean Dauberval. In 1791 he and his wife achieved success as a dancing team in Venice, where he choreographed his first ballet, "Raoul de Créqui". He was ballet master in Vienna and collaborated with Beethoven on the ballet "Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus". He returned to Italy in 1804 and became the ballet master of "La Scala" ballet school in Milan. He is considered the father of a new kind of performance called "coreodramma" where the pantomime served the dance and the ensembles where very significant. He died in Milan.

Major works

* "La vedova scoperta", 1783 (opera)
* "Le Creature di Prometeo ", (1801) (mus. L.V. Beethoven)
* "Coriolano", 1804 (mus. Josef Weigl)
* "Gli Strelizzi", (1809) (various artists)
*"Il noce di Benevento", 1812 (mus. Franz Xavier Süssmayr)
* "Il Prometeo", 1813, pantomime ballet. (mus. Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn , Viganò)
* "Numa Pompilio", 1815
* "Mirra", 1817
*"Otello", 1818 (various artists, among the others Gioacchino Rossini, Paolo Brambilla and Michele Carafa)
* "Dedalo", 1818
*"La Vestale", 1818 (various artists)
*"I Titani" , 1819 (mus. Johann Caspar Ayblinger and Viganò)
*"Giovanna d'Arco" 1821
* "Didone", 1821. Finished by Vigano's brother, Giulio as Salvatore died before completing it.

References