Righini, Vincenzo (1756-1812)

Italian composer and singer. He made his stage debut in Parma and went as a singer to Prague, where his Don Giovanni was produced in 1776, 11 years before Mozart's opera on the same subject.

He was a chorister at San Petronio in Bologna and pupil of Padre Martini. Appointed director of the opera buffa in Vienna in 1780, he was in the service of the court at Mainz 1787-92, and from 1793 was court kapellmeister in Berlin.

Works Opera Il convitato di pietra (Don Giovanni), La vedova scaltra (1778), Demogorgone (1786), Alcide al bivio (1790), Enea nel Lazio, Il trionfo d'Arianna (1793), Ariadne, Tigrane (1800), La selva incantata, Gerusalemme liberata (both after Tasso, 1803, 1799), and others.

Choral oratorio Der Tod Jesu; cantatas and other pieces; Missa solemnis, Requiem, Te Deum, and other church music.

Other chamber music, keyboard music, songs.