Francesco Zoppis was an Italian

Italian people

The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

 composer.

Biography

Little is known of his artistic beginnings. The first mention of him is from 1739, when the travelling opera company of Pietro Mignotti performed his opera Lucio Papirio ditattore in Graz

Graz

The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

. In 1745 was Zoppis temporarily engaged as the "vice-kapellmeister

Kapellmeister

Kapellmeister is a German word designating a person in charge of music-making. The word is a compound, consisting of the roots Kapelle and Meister . The words Kapelle and Meister derive from the Latin: capella and magister...

" at the court of the kurfürst

Prince-elector

The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...

 Clemens August

Clemens August of Bavaria

Clemens August of Bavaria was a member of the Wittelsbach dynasty of Bavaria and Archbishop-Elector of Cologne.-Biography:...

 in Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

. In 1748 he came to Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, where he joined the Locatelli

Giovanni Battista Locatelli

Giovanni Battista Locatelli was an Italian opera director, impresario and owner of a private opera company.In 1757 he and his troupe were invited to St. Petersburg. They put on an opera every week for the court, and two to three times a week they were allowed to give open public performances. The...

 ensemble. He began to cooperate with e. g. Ch. W. Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...

 and G. M. Rutini

Giovanni Marco Rutini

Giovanni Marco Rutini was an Italian composer.- Biography :He was born in Florence and studied at the Naples conservatory. In 1748 he came to Prague and joined the Locatelli ensemble. In the beginnings of his career he devoted himself mainly to the kapellmeister activities, and composed ...

. Zoppis composed his first Prague opera, Vologeso, in 1753. A year later, in 1754, he introduced another opera - Siroe, re di Persia. The music was written to the libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 of Pietro Metastasio. Zoppis left Prague together with Locatelli, moved to St. Petersburgh, where he conducted the local opera.

Selected works

• Lucio Papirio ditattore - opera, libretto by Apostolo Zeno
  Apostolo Zeno
  Apostolo Zeno was a Venetian poet, librettist, journalist, and man of letters.-Early life:Apostolo Zeno was born of Cretan Greek descent in Venice in 1669...
  
   (1739, Graz)
• Artaserse
  Artaserse
  Artaserse is the name of a number of Italian operas, all based on a text by Metastasio. Artaserse is the Italian form of the name of a Persian king, Artaxerxes....
  
  - libretto by Pietro Metastasio (1748, Bonn)
• Il Vologeso - opera, libretto by Apostolo Zeno (1753, Prague)
• Siroe, re di Persia - opera (1754)
• Endimione - pastoral serenade (1754)
• Il sacrificio d´Abramo - opera (1756)
• Didone abbandonata - libretto by Pietro Metastasio (1758, St. Petersburg)
• La Galatea - libretto by Pietro Metastasio (1760, St. Petersburg)
• Ouverture by Zoppis Veneziano (in Catalogue de J.-P. Masson de Meslay, c. 1790)

External links

• http://www.operone.de/komponist/zoppis.html