Francesco Bianchi

Who was Francesco Bianchi?

Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi was an Italian opera composer. Born at Cremona, Lombardy, he studied with Pasquale Cafaro and Niccolò Jommelli, and worked mainly in London, Paris and in all the major Italian operatic centres 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 Castore e Polluce, Arbace and Zemira, Alonso e Cora, Calto and La morte di Cesare, and Seleuco, re di Siria, and the opera giocosa La villanella rapita.

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.