Arditi, Luigi (EN)

Arditi Luigi, *22 July 1822 Crescentino (near Vercelli), †1 May 1903 Howe (Sussex), Italian violinist, conductor and composer. From 1836, he studied at the Milan Conservatory under B. Ferrara, A. Rolle and N. Vaccaj. Initially, he worked as a violinist, and from 1843 as a conductor. In 1846, he left for Havana, where he staged his opera Il corsaro. He then conducted in the USA, Constantinople and Dublin. In 1858, he settled in London, where he was conductor at Her Majesty’s Theatre. He went on concert tours to Hamburg, Berlin and Vienna, and in 1871 and 1873 he conducted in St Petersburg; in 1874–77 and 1885 and 1889 he conducted concerts at Covent Garden in London. He conducted, among others, the English premieres of A. Boito’s opera Mefistofele (1880) and P. Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (1891).

Literature: L. Arditi My Reminiscences, London 1896.