Girolamo Abos Explained

Girolamo Abos, last name also given Avos or d'Avossa and baptized Geronimo Abos (16 November 1715 – May 1760), was a Maltese-Italian composer of both operas and church music.

Born in Valletta, Malta, son of Gian Tommaso Abos, whose father was a Frenchman from Castellane and Rosa Farrugia, Abos studied under Leonardo Leo and Francesco Durante in Naples. In 1756, he became Maestro al Cembalo (Director of Music) at the Italian Theatre in London. In 1758 he returned to Italy as a teacher at the Conservatorio della Pietà de' Turchini in Naples, where Giovanni Paisiello was one of his pupils . He wrote fourteen operas for the opera houses in Naples, Rome, and London, of which Tito Manlio (Naples, 1751) was the most successful. After 1758 he composed a good deal of church music, including seven masses and several litanies. He died in Naples. Many of his sacred works, oratorios, and the opera Pelopida have been edited by the Australian musicologist and conductor Richard Divall, and are freely available.

List of operas composed by Abos

TitleGenreSub­divisionsLibrettoPremière datePlace, theatre
Le due zingare simili Antonio Palomba 1742 Naples, Teatro Nuovo
Il geloso commedia Antonio Palomba
spring 1743 Naples, Teatro dei Fiorentini
Le furberie di Spilletto commedia per musica 3 acts (Première libretto, in Italian) Carnival 1744 Florence, Teatro del Cocomero
La serva padrona opera buffa Gennaro Antonio Federico
Carnival 1744 Naples
La moglie gelosa commedia Antonio Palomba
1745 Naples, Teatro dei Fiorentini
Adriano in Siria Pietro Metastasio
Carnival 1746 Florence, Teatro della Pergola
Artaserse dramma per musica 3 acts Pietro Metastasio
(Première libretto, in Italian)
1746 Venice, Teatro di San Giovanni Crisostomo)
Pelopida dramma per musica 3 acts Gaetano Roccaforte
(Première libretto, in Italian)
Carnival 1747 Rome, Teatro Argentina
Alessandro nelle Indie dramma per musica 3 acts Pietro Metastasio
(Première libretto, in Italian)
July 1747 Ancona, Teatro La Fenice
Arianna e Teseo dramma per musica 3 acts Pietro Pariati
(Première libretto, in Italian)
26 December 1748 Rome, Teatro delle Dame
Tito Manlio dramma per musica Gaetano Roccaforte
30 May 1751 Naples, Teatro San Carlo
Erifile dramma per musica 3 acts Giovanni Battista Neri
(Première libretto, in Italian)
Carnival 1752 Rome, Teatro delle Dame
Lucio Vero o sia Il Vologeso Apostolo Zeno
18 December 1752 Naples, Teatro San Carlo
Il Medo dramma per musica Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni
1753 Turin, Teatro Regio

References