Franz Von Suppe

(pseudonym of Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Suppé Demelli). Born Apr. 18, 1819, in Spalato (now Split), Dalmatia; died May 21, 1895, in Vienna. Austrian composer and conductor. Belgian by birth.

Suppé moved to Vienna in 1835, where he graduated from the conservatory. He composed 31 operettas, which brought him fame as one of the outstanding representatives of the Viennese classical operetta. At the same time he followed the traditions of Italian operatic art and the French classical operetta as represented by the works of J. Offenbach, and he drew extensively upon Viennese urban folklore. His best works, Ganymede and Galatea (1865), Fatinitza (1876), Boccaccio (1879), and Donna Juanita (1880), are distinguished by the vitality and dynamism of the musical speech, bright coloring of the orchestral writing, gentle humor, and fine lyricism. Several of his compositions have plots of a pointed social character (during the Revolution of 1848 he wrote songs for the insurrectionists). One of Suppe’s best operettas, Donna Juanita, is devoted to the people’s struggle for liberation.