Francesco Feo

Francesco Feo (1691 – 28 January 1761) was an Italian composer, known chiefly for his operas. He was born and died in Naples, where most of his operas were premièred.

Life

Feo studied music at the Conservatorio di Santa Maria della Pietà in Naples, starting on 3 September 1704. Among the other composers he met there were Leonardo Leo, Giuseppe de Majo (who would later marry his niece), and Niccolò Jommelli. His first teacher was Andrea Basso, and after 1705 Nicola Fago, who had only just been appointed. Feo remained at the conservatory until some time around 1712.

In 1713 he presented his first opera, L’amor tirannico, ossia Zenobia (Tyrannical Love, or Zenobia), and for carnival 1714 Il martirio di Santa Caterina (The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Egypt), an oratorio. His fame began to increase with sacred works for local churches, such as his Missa defunctorum (

With his increasing popularity, Feo was appointed as a teacher in the Conservatorio di Sant'Onofrio a Porta Capuana, where he worked alongside Gabriele Prota and took over from Nicola Grillo. In the next sixteen years he became known as one of the most important teachers in Naples. Among his students at Sant'Onofrio were Nicolò Jommelli, Nicola Sabatino, Matteo Capranica, and Gennaro Manna. In 1739 he left Sant'Onofrio to teach at the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo, to replace Francesco Durante who had just retired. Feo would stay there until 1743, helped by Alfonso Caggi and later Girolamo Abos. During his time there, he taught Giacomo Insanguine and Gian Francesco de Majo.

Feo wrote most of his oratorios between 1723 and 1743, along with a good portion of his cantatas and much other sacred music. His best-known

In 1743, the Poveri di Gesù Cristo was abolished and converted into a seminary. Feo retired from teaching, but continued to compose sacred music for Neapolitan churches, including the

Works

Operas:

• L'amor tirannico, ossia Zenobia (1713)
• Lucio Papirio (1717)
• La forza della virtù (1719)
• Teuzzone (1720)
• Siface, re di Numidia (1723)
• Morano e Rosina (1723)
• Don Chisciotte della Mancia (1726)
• Coriando lo speciale (1726)
• Ipermestra (1728)
• Arianna (1728)
• Tamese (1729)
• Il vedovo (1729)
• Andromaca (1730)
• L'Issipile (1733)
• Oreste (1738)
• Polinice (1738)
• Arsace (1740)

Oratorios:

• San Francesco di Sales (1734)

Sacred:

• Passio secundum Joannem (St. John Passion).^[1]
• Mass. Confitebor a 5.^[2]

References

Sources

• The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack and Ewan West (1992), 782 pages,
  ISBN 0-19-869164-5

• Free scores by Francesco Feo at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)