Sacrati, Francesco
- Thomas Walker
- , revised by Lorenzo Bianconi
Extract
(b Parma, bap. Sept 17, 1605; d ?Modena, May 20, 1650). Italian composer. He was active in Venice as an opera composer during the early 1640s, always in collaboration with the scenographer Giacomo Torelli. He may subsequently have belonged to the Accademici Discordati, an itinerant troupe which performed one of his operas in Bologna and possibly elsewhere. He was maestro di cappella of the ‘musici di Bologna’, who in March 1648 were invited to perform his opera La finta pazza in Reggio nell'Emilia. Sacrati spent part of that year at the Villa Malvasia at Panzano near Bologna, where he composed L’isola di Alcina. In 1649 he became maestro di cappella of Modena Cathedral. Sacrati was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, including Prince Mattias de’ Medici, a close acquaintance, and the librettist Giacomo Badoaro in L’Ulisse errante likened him to Monteverdi as the moon to the sun. La finta pazza...
