Storace, Stephen

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Storace, Stephen (b London, 1762; d London, 1796). Eng. composer, brother of Anna Storace. Child violinist. Joined his sister in It. when she arrived in 1778 and went with her to Vienna, where 2 of his operas, Gli sposi malcontenti (1785) and Gli equivoci (1786, with lib. by da Ponte), were prod. Friend of Mozart. Returned to Eng. 1787. Wrote series of dialogue-operas in which he incorporated popular airs and adapted other composers’ mus. Among them were The Haunted Tower (1789), No Song, No Supper (1790), The Siege of Belgrade (1791), The Pirates (1792), The Prize (1793), Cherokee (1794), etc. His last full-scale opera, Dido, Queen of Carthage, was prod. at King's Th. in May 1792. Many of his scores were lost in the Drury Lane fire of 1809, but The Pirates was reconstructed in 1975 by Richard Vardigans from vocal score and MS lib. Gli equivoci, based on Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, was revived in London in 1974 and showed that Storace's contemporary reputation was deserved. Also revived at Wexford 1992.

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