Gian Carlo Menotti, Italian born, American Opera composer, died at the age of 95 in Monaco. The Pulizer Prize winner was also the founder of the Spoleto festival.
2-time Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Gian Carlo Menotti, died today in a hospital in Monaco. Peter Gelb, general manager of New York's Metropolitan Opera, told the Associated Press: "Gian Carlo Menotti introduced a generation of Americans to opera. He was one of America's greatest composers."
Menotti was the founder of both the Spoleto festivals in Italy and the United States. As an opera composer, Menotti was well known for works such as Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Consul, and The Saint of Bleecker Street. Menotti’s works also include several ballets, chamber works, and art songs. He also was worked with American Composer, Samuel Barber, both in composition of ballet music for one of his operas, but as a librettist.
Born in 1911 in Italy, he began his musical training at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan, and then continued his formal musical training at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. In 1984 he was awarded the Kennedy Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts, and was named Musical America’s Musician of the Year in 1991.
