Gomes, Antônio Carlos (1836–1896)

Antônio Carlos Gomes (b. 11 July 1836; d. 16 September 1896), the first Brazilian musician to achieve considerable success in Italy as a composer of operas. Son of a bandmaster whose most notable achievement appears to have been fathering twenty-six children, Tonico (as Antônio Carlos was called as a boy) learned the fundamentals of music and an elementary knowledge of several instruments from his father at an early age. His Hino acadêmico, an early composition, was well received, and he went to Rio de Janeiro in order to enroll in the Imperial Conservatory of Music. His conservatory studies in composition with Joaquim Giannini reinforced his interest in opera, and two works, A noite do castelo, produced in 1861, and Joana de Flandres, in 1863, met considerable success, resulting in a government subsidy for study in Italy. The greatest success of Gomes's career was the performance of his opera Il Guarany at La Scala, in Milan, on 19 March 1870. Il Guarany was followed by Fosca, Salvator Rosa, Maria Tudor, Lo schiavo, and Condor, his last opera, but none of the later works achieved the success of Il Guarany.

Gomes chose Brazilian subjects for some of his operas, but his style of writing and approach was Italian at a time of rising musical nationalism in Brazil. Expecting unqualified and enthusiastic acceptance in his native country during a time of rising republican sentiments, he was instead considered an aristocrat out of touch with political realities. The fact that his family sought to forbid performances of his operas in the Portuguese language, insisting on Italian, did nothing to allay the suspicions of adherents of the new nationalist sentiments.

See alsoMusic: Art Music.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Revista brasileira de música, vol. 3 (1936).

Luis Heitor Correa De Azevedo, 150 anos de música no Brasil (1800–1950) (1956).

Additional Bibliography

Béhague, Gerard. "Gomes, (António) Carlos." New Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 2. New York: Grove's Dictionaries of Music, 1992.

Volpe, Maria Alice. "Remaking the Brazilian Myth of National Foundation: Il Guarany." Latin American Music Review 23 (Fall/Winter 2002): 179-194.

                                  David P. Appleby