Giuseppe Sarti

Giuseppe Sarti (also Sardi;[1] baptised 1 December 1729 – 28 July 1802) was an Italian opera composer.
He was born at Feagot. His date of birth is not known, but he was baptised on 1 December 1729. Some earlier sources say he was born on 28 December, but his baptism certificate proves the later date impossible.[2] Already to lead organizt at Faenza, at age 13 he was invited to receive an education by Padre Martini in Bologna.[3] Resigning his appointment in Faenza in 1750, Sarti devoted himself to the study of dramatic music, becoming director of the Faenza theatre in 1752.
In 1752 he produced his first documented opera, Il re pastore (because the date of Pompeo in Armenia is not certain). In 1753 Sarti went to Copenhagen with Pietro Mingotti and in 1755 King Frederick V of Denmark appointed him Hofkapellmeister and director of the opera. Here he produced his Ciro riconosciuto.

In 1765 he travelled to Italy to engage some new singers; meanwhile the death of King Frederick put an end to his engagement for the time being. In 1766 he was appointed choir master at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, a position he held until 1767. In 1769 he went to London, where he could only survive by giving music lessons. In 1779 he was elected maestro di cappella at the cathedral of Milan, where he remained until 1784. Here he exercised his true vocation of composer, in addition to at least twenty of his most successful operas, a vast amount of sacred music for the cathedral, and educating a number of clever pupils, the most distinguished of whom was Cherubini. In 1784 Sarti was invited by the empress Catherine II to St. Petersburg. On his way there he stopped in Vienna, where Emperor Joseph II received him with special favour, in large part due to his opera Due litiganti,[3] and where he made the acquaintance of Mozart. He reached St. Petersburg in 1785 and at once took the direction of the opera, for which he composed many new pieces, besides some very striking sacred music, including a Te Deum for the victory of Ochakov, in which he introduced the firing of real cannons. Sarti founded the Russian Conservatory for Music in 1793.[3] He remained in Russia until 1801, when his health was so broken that he solicited permission to return. The emperor Alexander dismissed him in 1802 with a liberal pension; letters of nobility had been granted to him by empress Catherine. His most successful operas in Russia were Armida e Rinaldo and The Early Reign of Oleg (Nachal'noye upravleniye Olega), for the latter of which the empress herself wrote the libretto. Sarti died in Berlin where he dies shortly after his arrival.[3]

Sarti's opera Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode has been immortalized by Mozart, who introduced an air from it into the supper scene in Don Giovanni. Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro owed a great deal to the influence of this opera, which was performed in Vienna in 1784. The admirable libretto by Da Ponte, author of the libretti of Figaro and Don Giovanni, shows similar situations, and the complicated finale of the first act served as a model to Mozart for the finale of the last act of Figaro.