Carlo Pedrotti

In 1868, Pedrotti moved to Turin, where he had been appointed director of the Liceo Musicale and conductor and director of the Teatro Regio. At the Liceo, his pupils included the composer and orchestral musician Raffaello Squarise and the heroic tenor Francesco Tamagno, who later created the title role in Verdi's penultimate masterpiece, Otello.^[4] At the Regio, as well as improving the quality of opera performances, he inaugurated a series of popular concerts.

Following the death of Gioachino Rossini in November 1868, Pedrotti was one of the composers invited by Verdi to contribute to the Messa per Rossini that was to be performed on the anniversary of Rossini's death. He composed the Tuba mirum section of the Dies Irae, for solo baritone and chorus, but for various reasons the work was never performed in public during his lifetime.

Pedrotti composed only two operas while in Turin, both near the beginning of his tenure. They were Il favorito (1870) and Olema la schiava (1872). The turned out to be his last operas.

During his 14 years in Turin, the Teatro Regio became one of the most important opera houses in Italy. Pedrotti introduced Turin audiences to a number of new French and German operas. These included Meyerbeer's L'Africaine in 1868, Flotow's Martha in 1869, Ambroise Thomas's Mignon in 1876 and his Hamlet in 1881, Massenet's Le roi de Lahore in 1878, Karl Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba in 1879, Bizet's Carmen in 1881 and Gounod's Le tribut de Zamora in 1882.^[5] In preparation for the first Turin performances of Lohengrin in 1876, Pedrotti visited Richard Wagner in Munich; the production proved to be a success.

In 1882, Pedrotti moved to Pesaro as the first director of the Liceo Musicale, for the foundation of which Rossini had left money in his will. Among his students there was the young Alessandro Bonci, who went on to achieve a career as a prominent lyric tenor in Europe and America. He organised the Rossini Centenary celebrations in 1892 but he retired to Verona, citing ill-health, in 1893. In October of that year, he committed suicide by drowning in the Adige.^[1]