ArtistInfo

Benedetto Ferrari

IT, Reggio Emilia
Composer of Classical

Benedetto Ferrari (ca. 1603 – 1681) was an Italian composer, particularly of opera, librettist, and theorbo player.Ferrari was born in Reggio nell'Emilia. He worked in Rome (1617–1618), Parma (1619–1623), and possibly in Modena at some time between 1623 and 1637. He created music and libretti in Venice and Bologna, 1637-1644. Ferrari's Andromeda, with music by Francesco Manelli, was the first Venetian opera performed in a public theatre (in 1637). Subsequently he provided both the text and the music for two operas, both presented in Venice: La maga fulminata (1638) and Il pastor regio (1640). The 1641 Bolognese staging of the latter included, as its final duet, the text "Pur ti miro, pur ti godo," which was later reused, possibly with Ferrari's music, for the final duet in the surviving ma