Everything about Michael Costa Conductor totally explained
Sir Michael Andrew Angus Costa (
February 14,
1808 -
April 29,
1884) was an
Italian-born
conductor and
composer. He was born in
Naples as Michaele Andrea Agniello Costa, to a family, according to some, of
Sephardic stock. He studied in Naples with his father, at the Real Collegio di Musica, and later with
Zingarelli.
In his youth, as throughout his life, he wrote a great quantity of music, including operas, symphonies and cantatas, all of which has long since passed into oblivion. In 1829 he visited
Birmingham to conduct Zingarelli's
Cantata Sacra, a setting of some verses from
Isaiah ch. xii. However, the festival committee wouldn't allow him to conduct and instead he appeared (unsuccessfully) as a
tenor soloist. Nonetheless he decided to settle in England.
In 1830 he arrived in
London, working at
His Majesty's Theatre. Costa exerted real influence for change as a conductor at Her Majesty's and, later, at
Covent Garden theatre, to which he seceded in 1847 after disagreements with the manager of Her Majesty's,
Benjamin Lumley. His concern for discipline, accuracy and ensemble was a novelty in its time and earned him the admiration both of
Meyerbeer and
Verdi. Despite this, he couldn't be claimed as a purist: his re-scoring of
Handel's
Messiah includes a part for
cymbals.
Costa became a naturalized Englishman and received a
knighthood in 1869. He was conductor of the
Philharmonic Society from 1846 to 1854, of the Sacred Harmonic Society from 1848, and of the
Birmingham Triennial Music Festival from 1849. He conducted at the
Bradford (1853) and
Handel festivals (1857-1880), and the
Leeds Festivals from 1874 to 1880.
He died in 1884 in
Hove and was buried at
Kensal Green.
Works
Amongst the works of Costa's maturity may be listed his
ballets
Kenilworth (1831),
Une Heure à Naples (1832),
Sir Huon (composed for
Taglioni) in 1833 and the ballet
Alma (1844. Later revived as
La fille du marbre). His
opera Malek Adhel was produced in
Paris in 1837 and in London in 1844, as was his opera
Don Carlos.
In 1855 Costa wrote the
oratorio Eli, and in 1864
Naaman, both for Birmingham.
Rossini's comment on the former was: "The good Costa has sent me an oratorio score and a Stilton cheese. The cheese was very good".
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