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:"Poor Ponchielli! Such a good man, such a
fine musician." —Giuseppe Verdi,
1886
Amilcare Ponchielli (August 31, 1834 –
January 17, 1886) was an Italy|Italian composer,
largely of operas.

Born in Paderno Fasolaro, now Paderno Ponchielli,
near Cremona, Ponchielli won a scholarship at the
age of nine to study music at the
Conservatoire|Milan Conservatory, writing his
first symphony by the time he was ten years old.
Two years after leaving the conservatory he wrote
his first opera, I promessi sposi (1856), based on
Alessandro Manzoni's novel, and it was as an opera
composer that he eventually found fame. His best
known opera, La Gioconda (opera)|La Gioconda,
which his librettist Arrigo Boito adapted from a
play by Victor Hugo, was produced in 1876.

His early career was disappointing. Maneuvered out
of a professorship at the Milan Conservatory that
he had won in a competition, he took small-time
jobs in small cities. The turning point was the
success of his revised version of I promessi sposi
in 1872, which brought him a contract with the
music publisher Ricordi and the musical
establishment at the Conservatory and at La Scala.
A successful ballet in 1873 Le due gemelle
confirmed his success.

After Gioconda his musical invention seemed to
fail and his later operas did not meet with the
same success. In 1881, Ponchielli was appointed
maestro di cappella of the Bergamo Cathedral, and
from 1883 he was a professor of composition at the
Milan Conservatory, where among his students were
Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni.

He died in Milan and was interred there in the
Cimitero Monumentale.

Although in his lifetime Ponchielli was very
popular and influential, in introducing an
enlarged orchestra and more complex orchestration,
the only one of his operas regularly performed
today is La Gioconda. It contains the soprano
set-piece "Suicidio!" and the ballet music "The
Dance of the Hours", known even to the non-musical
from its use in Walt Disney's Fantasia
(movie)|Fantasia (1940), and its burlesque in the
1963 Allan Sherman novelty song, "Hello Muddah,
Hello Fadduh" and, to a lesser degree, the 1966
Perrey and Kingsley song, "Countdown To 6."

Ponchielli's  operas:
*Il sindaco Babbeo (a student project)
*Bertrando de Bornio (scheduled for Turin but not
performed)
*I promessi sposi Cremona, 1856. Ignored by the
press. 
*La Savoiarda, 1861; revised as Lina, 1877
*Roderico, re dei Goti, 1863
*La stella del monte, 1867 
*Il parlatore eterno a monologue for baritone
*I promessi sposi, Milan 1872. Success in a
revised version.
*I Lituani, 1874; revised as Alduna (Aldona?
Alguna?), 1884/5 
*La gioconda Milan, 1876; revised version 1880
*Il figliuol prodigo 1880 
*Marion Delorme 1885
*I Mori di Valenza (left incomplete; completed by
Ponchielli's son and A. Cadora and premiered in
1914)

==External links==
*http://opera.stanford.edu/Ponchielli/ List of
operas with further details 
*http://www.operaitaliana.com/autori/biografia.asp
?ID=3 Opera Italiana: Amilcare Ponchielli (in
English)