Carafa (di Colobrano), Michele Enrico (1787-1872)

Italian composer. On the failure of his first opera he enlisted in the bodyguard of Murat, then king of Naples, took part in the Russian campaign in 1812, and was decorated by Napoleon, after whose fall he returned to music. He produced operas not only in Italy but in Vienna, Austria, and Paris, France, where he settled in 1827 and became very popular. He was professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory 1840-58.

Works Opera about 35 operas, including Il fantasma (1805), Il vascello d'occidente, Gabriella di Vergy (1816), Ifigenia, Berenice, Le Solitaire, La Violette (1828), La Fiancée de Lammermoor, and Elisabetta in Derbyshire (after Scott, 1818), Masaniello (competing with Auber's La Muette de Portici, 1827), La Prison d'Edimbourg (after Scott's The Heart of Midlothian), Jeanne d'Arc (after Schiller, 1821).