Benedetto Ferrari

Librettist, composer, and instrumentalist who played the theorbo. Ferrari was considered an exceptional, perhaps virtuostic, theorbo performer. He composed the first opera to which the paying Italian public was allowed to attend, "Andromeda". Modena was the center of most of his activities although Ferrari also journeyed to Parma, Bologna, and Vienna. Genres of his compositions included operas, dramatic works, vocal chamber music (comprised of his "Musiche varie"), and poetic writings and correspondence. The collection incorporated recitatives with flacid, triple time arias. One innovation to operatic characterizations by Ferrari was the interjection of a comic governess, something that was the inspiration for a bevy of similar later characters. ~ Keith Johnson