Antonio Carlos Gomes

Though today obscure, Gomes once seemed to be at the forefront of the post-Verdi generation of Italian opera composers. While he occasionally incorporated elements of Brazilian music -- particularly rhythmic patterns and echoes of traditional melodic lines -- he mastered the Italian style so deftly and enjoyed his greatest successes in Italy where his works are generally considered part of the Italian school rather than a Brazilian one. His father, a bandmaster, taught him how to play several instruments and provided the foundations of composition. By the time he was 18, he composed a mass and his father was including his music in band performances. Some musicologists consider his dance for piano, A Caiumba, a seminal Afro-Brazilian crossover. Gomes, with the help of his brother, conductor Jose, went to Rio de Janiero where he favorably impressed the emperor Don Pedro with his potential and entered the Imperial Conservatory there. He studied under Joaquin Giannini, who introduced him to the Italian opera canon, and so impressed the instructors that Jose Amat, the director of the Opera Lirica Nacional, gave him a libretto, A noite do castelo, and premiered the opera at the theater in 1861. It, and his second opera Joana de Flandres (1863), both in the Italian style, established him as a rising star and the emperor arranged for him to receive a grant to study in Italy at the Milan Conservatory, where he studied under Alberto Mazzucato and Lauro Rossi. After graduating in 1866, he wrote two comedies, Se sa ninga and Nella luna, both of which were well-received. But it was his 1870 grand opera Il Guarany (also known as O Guarani), that made him a sensation and evoked comparisons to Verdi; he was even named a Cavaliere of the Italian Crown. Gomes briefly returned to Brazil to supervise the production of Il Guarany as part of the festivities for the emperor's birthday and wrote an operetta, Telegrafo electrico, but returned to Italy soon thereafter. His next opera, Fosca, premiered in 1873 and was a disappointment after Guarany's success (though the 1878 revision was a success and today is considered by many to be his masterpiece), though his 1874 Salvator Rosa was another triumph. He was invited to represent Brazil for the 1876 Exhibition in Philadelphia and wrote a cantata, Il saluto del Brasile. Another operatic disappointment came in Maria Tudor (1879) and Gomes' pace of composing slowed; he began Lo Schiavo in 1883, but it wasn't premiered until 1889 in Rio de Janiero to great success. His last opera, Condor, premiered at La Scala in 1891, where it was disappointingly received. He had been invited to write the national anthem for the new republic after the overthrow of the emperor, a sign of his national status in Brazil, but he declined due to his personal gratitude to the emperor. Economically struggling, he returned to Brazil, where he wrote his last major work, the oratorio Colombo (1892). In 1895, he was named director of the Belem Conservatory, but died shortly thereafter.
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