Catterino Cavos

Italian composer (1775–1840)

Catterino Albertovich Cavos (; Катерино Альбертович Кавос; October 30, 1775 – May 10 1840 [O. S. April 28 1840]) was an Italian composer, organist and conductor who settled in Russia. He played an important role in the history of Russian opera and was the father of Alberto Cavos. Cavos is celebrated in Russian musical history as the man who composed the opera Ivan Susanin in 1815, 20 years before Mikhail Glinka's opera of the same name. The plot, based on an episode from Russian history, tells the story of the Russian peasant and patriotic hero Ivan Susanin who sacrifices his life for the Tsar by leading astray a group of marauding Poles who were hunting him.

Cavos was born in Venice, Italy, on October 30, 1775. His father, Alberto Giovanni Cavos, was the Primo Ballerino Assoluto (lead male ballet dancer) and director of the La Fenice theatre in Venice. At the age of twelve, Cavos composed a cantata to celebrate Leopold II's arrival in Venice. At fourteen he was offered the post of organist to St Mark's Basilica, but refused the position, allowing the post to be given to an older, impoverished musician.

In his early twenties, Cavos accepted a position as conductor of the Italian operatic company Astariti, and traveled with the company to St. Petersburg in 1797. In 1803, Emperor Alexander I appointed Cavos as Kapellmeister of Italian and Russian opera, placing him in charge of the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre. He also contributed to the second part of the opera tetralogy Rusalka (1803 1807). The Cossack as Poet, a one act vaudeville (1812),

Viktor Korshikov (Vitaly Peskov’s stepson) is full of sarcasm: "Shakhovskoy changed the finale: his Susanin not die the death of the hero, and wanders with the Polish detachment through the woods from tree to tree in different parts of the scene and waits, when comes Russian detachment kill poles and frees him. Susanin of Shakhovskoy himself explains his feat along the way to fellow villagers : „I will walk with the guests, and you call Russian soldiers, they will come, will kill all enemies and they'll take me at home". And Susanin was walking with very friendly polite enemies across the expanses of the scene. Of course, such a naive interpretation of images and heroes and enemies could not satisfy the sense of Patriotic consciousness, it did not reach the expected tragic pathos. Therefore, a new musical creation on the same topic was required"

But both critics celebrate the musical successes of the opera, especially in the chorus melodies. Both opera with one plot – of Cavos and of Glinka – were included in the repertoire of the Bolshoi Kamenny theater in St. Petersburg for many years simultaneously. Singer Osip Petrov (a pupil of Catterino Cavos) sang the role of Ivan Susanin in both operas (the first singer of Ivan Susanin in the Cavos opera was a pupil of Catterino Cavos Piotr Zlov). Cavos acquainted the Russian public with the operas of Luigi Cherubini, Étienne Méhul, Carl Maria von Weber, and others. Cavos spent more than forty years in Russia and died in St Petersburg.

Orlando Figes says of him:In 1803 the Emperor Alexander took control of the public theatres and placed Cavos in charge of the Bolshoi Kamenny, until then the only public opera house and exclusively reserved for Italian opera. Cavos built the Bolshoi Kamenny into a stronghold of Russian opera. He wrote works such as Ilya Bogatyr (1807) on heroic national themes with librettos in Russian, and his music was strongly influenced by Russian and Ukrainian folk songs. Much of Glinka's operatic music, which the nationalists would champion as the foundation of the Russian tradition, was in fact anticipated by Cavos. The 'national character' of Russian music was thus first developed by a foreigner. Cavos' wife, Camilla Baglioni (1773 1832), was a coloratura soprano who gained fame as an opera singer in the late 18th century. Opera was in Camilla's blood; three of her sisters and two of her brothers also had careers as opera singers. Arguably, the most successful member of the Baglioni family was Camilla's brother, Antonio Baglioni. Antonio served for nearly a decade (1787 1795/6) as the leading tenor in Domenico Guardasoni's opera troupe. Cavos' daughter, Stefanida, taught music at the Smolny Institute from 1822 to 1837, before marrying an Italian named Corrinini, and settling in Venice.

The Golden Age of Russian Guitar, Vol.2CD: Ovchinnikov, Oleg Timofeyev, D. Kushenov Dmitrievsky, Andrei Osipovich Sychra, Catterino Cavos