Talk:Saverio Mercadante

Birth and baptism
A number of sources say he was born on 16 September 1795, but a number of others say words to the effect of "Although his exact birth date is not known, he was baptized on 17 September 1795". What do the former sources know that the latter ones don't? Is this a case such as happened with Beethoven for a long time, where it has been simply assumed that he was born the day before he was baptised? Or is there something more concrete about 16 September? -- JackofOz (talk) 14:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Further to the above, our sister projects have this to say:
 * Born 16 September: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Russian, Spanish
 * Born 17 September: Dutch, French, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese
 * Baptised 17 September: German, Latin.


 * They can't all be right. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   13:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I have three authoritative sources: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera and The Viking (now Penguin) Opera Guide, and they all say "baptised 17 September", so I think that's what it should say in our article.  A parallel case is Shakespeare, who is popularly supposed to have been born on 23 April, but all we actually know is that he was baptised on the 26th.


 * Thanks, Guillaume. That's pretty much what I thought.  I'll make the change.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   21:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Ipermestra
Is there any evidence that Ipermestra was premiered in Naples in 1825? Francisco Benevides, in O Real Theatro de São Carlos de Lisboa (1883) indicates that this opera was written expressly for Lisbon in 1828, but of course he may be mistaken. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.90.3.15 (talk) 22:03, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Here are the details of the Naples premiere --GuillaumeTell 22:31, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually, I found out that these are two different works. They even have different librettists, being that the Lisbon one uses the Metastasio libretto and is far less innovative. There should be a note on this on the works list, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.90.124.234 (talk) 12:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)