Salvadore Cammarano

Salvadore Cammarano was the most important Italian librettist of the generation after Felice Romani. Born in Naples into a theatrical family, he trained as a painter and sculptor and wrote plays before turning to opera, and by the mid-1830s was poet and stage director of the royal theatres. He made his name with Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), was Donizetti's only librettist until the composer left Naples in 1838, and also wrote for Mercadante and Pacini. For Verdi he wrote Alzira, La battaglia di Legnano, Luisa Miller and Il trovatore, on which he was still working when he died.