Michele Benedetti was an Italian bass particularly associated with Rossini roles.

Career

Benedetti sang in the world premiere of Giuseppe Farinelli

Giuseppe Farinelli

Giuseppe Farinelli was an Italian composer active at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century who excelled in writing opera buffas...

's Calliroe

Calliroe (Farinelli)

Calliroe is a melodramma eroico or opera in 2 acts and 23 scenes by composer Giuseppe Farinelli. The work uses an Italian language libretto by Gaetano Rossi. The work premiered at La Fenice in Venice on 3 January 1808 in a double bill with the house premiere of Urbano Garzia's ballet Il...

in 1808 and at the Italian premiere of Spontini's La vestale

La vestale

La vestale is an opera composed by Gaspare Spontini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy. It was first performed at the Paris Opéra in Paris on December 15, 1807 and is regarded as Spontini's masterpiece...

 in 1811, both in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, where his career was based.

He created several Rossini roles in Naples, notably: Elmiro in Otello

Otello (Rossini)

Otello is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsi, based on Shakespeare's play Othello....

, Idraote in Armida

Armida (Rossini)

Armida is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Schmidt, based on scenes from Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso.-Performance history:...

, the title role in Mosè in Egitto

Mosè in Egitto

Mosè in Egitto is a three-act opera written by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, which was based on a play by Francesco Ringhieri, L'Osiride, of 1760....

, Ircano in Ricciardo e Zoraide

Ricciardo e Zoraide

Ricciardo e Zoraide is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Berio de Salsa...

, Fenicio in Ermione

Ermione

Ermione is a tragic opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on the play Andromaque by Jean Racine.- Performance history :...

, Douglas in La donna del lago

La donna del lago

La donna del lago is an opera by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on The Lady of the Lake, a poem by Sir Walter Scott.This opera was the first to be based on Scott's romantic works...

, Leucippo in Zelmira

Zelmira

Zelmira is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. Based on the French play, Zelmire by de Belloy, it was the last of the composer's Neapolitan operas...

.

For Donizetti, he created the roles of Atkins in Alfredo il grande

Alfredo il Grande

Alfredo il grande is a melodramma serio or serious opera in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Andrea Leone Tottola wrote the Italian libretto, which may have been derived from Johann Simon Mayr's 1818 opera of the same name...

(1823) and the King in Gianni di Calais

Gianni di Calais

Gianni di Calais is a melodramma semiserio, a "semi-serious" opera in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti , from a libretto by Domenico Gilardoni, based on Jean de Paris by Louis-Charles Caignes....

(1828), and for Bellini

Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...

 in 1826 the role of Clemente in Bianca e Gernando.

He also sang in Paris and London, and appeared in premieres of operas by Mayr, Pacini

Giovanni Pacini

Giovanni Pacini was an Italian composer, best known for his operas. Pacini was born in Catania, Sicily, the son of the buffo Luigi Pacini, who was to appear in the premieres of many of Giovanni's operas...

, and Mercadante

Saverio Mercadante

Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as impressive a number of works as either; and his development of...

.

Stendhal

Stendhal

Marie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...

 wrote an enthusiastic critique of his interpretation of Mosè.

Sources

• Roland Mancini and Jean-Jacques Rouveroux, (orig. H. Rosenthal and J. Warrack, French edition), Guide de l’opéra, Les indispensables de la musique (Fayard, 1995). ISBN 2-213-01563-6
• article by Elizabeth Forbes in