Alfredo Catalani

Italian composer Alfredo Catalani (1854–1893) is author of the popular opera La Wally composed to a libretto by Luigi Illica. His works were among the most significant achievement in Italy before the verismo school. Born in Lucca, Catalani was trained at the Milan Conservatory, where his teachers included Antonio Bazzini. Despite the growing influence of the verismo style of opera during the 1880s and early 1890s, Catalani chose to compose in a more traditional manner, which had traces of Wagner in it. As a result, his operas (La Wally excepted) have largely lost their place in the modern repertoire. Catalani was professor at the Milan Conservatory from 1886. In 1893, upon his premature death from tuberculosis in Milan, Catalani was interred in the Cimitero Monumentale, where Ponchielli and conductor Arturo Toscanini also lie. A passionate admirer of Catalani's music, Toscanini even named one of his daughters Wally.