Gian Carlo Menotti, renowned and beloved opera composer, died Thursday, February 1st, 2007, at the age of 95. Although born in Italy, Menotti is considered an American composer and studied with Rosario Scalera at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where he graduated with honors in 1933. Some of his most well-known works are The Medium, The Old Maid and the Thief, Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Telephone, The Saint of Bleeker Street, and The Consul, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1955. In 1958 Menotti founded the prestigious summer opera festival, Festival dei Due Mondi (Festival of Two Worlds), in Spoleto, Italy, and opened its American counterpart in Charleston, South Carolina in 1977. (See theSpoleto Festival USA.) For more information see articles in the London Daily Telegraph, The Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

Music by Gian Carlo Menotti can be heard via streaming audio from Classical Music Library, and Ruckus.com.

Click here for a listing of works by Menotti held by Temple University Libraries.

Books about Menotti and his music in Temple University’s Paley Library include:

Ardoin, John. The Stages of Menotti. Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1985. Paley Stacks ML410.M52A85 1985

Grieb, Lyndal. The Operas of Gian Carlo Menotti, 1937-1972; a selective bibliography. Paley Stacks ML134.M533G7

Gruen, John. Menotti : a biography. New York : Macmillan, c1978. Paley Stacks ML410.M52G8

Hixon, Donald L. Gian Carlo Menotti : a bio-bibliography. Westport, CT : Greenwood Press, 2000. Paley Stacks ML134.M533 H59 2000

Tricoire, Robert. Gian Carlo Menotti, l’homme et son Oeuvre: Catalogue des oeuvres, discographie, illustrations. Paris, Seghers, 1966. Paley Stacks ML410.M52T7

Wlaschin, Ken. Gian Carlo Menotti on Screen : opera, dance, and choral works on film, television, and video. Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Company, c1999. Paley Stacks ML410.M52 W6 1999

-Anne Harlow