Francesco Bianchi

Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi (1752 – 27 November 1810) was an Italian opera composer. Born in Cremona, Lombardy, he studied with Pasquale Cafaro and Niccolò Jommelli, and worked mainly in London, Paris and in all the major Italian operatic centers of Venice, Naples, Rome, Milan, Turin, Florence.

He wrote at least 78 operas of all genres, mainly in the field of the Italian opera, but in the French opera too. These included the drammi per musica (opera seria) Castore e Polluce (Florence 1779), Arbace and Zemira (both Naples, 1781), Alonso e Cora (Venice, 1786), Calto and La morte di Cesare (both Venice, 1788), and Seleuco, re di Siria (Venice, 1791), and the opera giocosa La villanella rapita (Süttör, 1784).

Bianchi committed suicide in Hammersmith, London, in 1810, probably out of family troubles. He was buried alongside his daughter in the churchyard of the old Kensington Church, now St Mary Abbots, Kensington.His widow published parts of his “theoretical work” in the Quarterly Music Review for 1820/1821.

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