Gian Carlo Menotti

Gian Carlo Menotti (born July 7, 1911) is an Americann composer who was born in Italy who wrote the classic Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors and founded the noted Spoleto Music Festival in 1958.

He initially studied at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan, but emigrated to America with his mother after the death of his father, and began study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Fellow students at Curtis included Leonard Bernstein, and Samuel Barber, who became Menotti's partner in life and in work, with Menotti crafting the libretto for Barber's most famous opera, Vanessa, which was commissioned to open the new Metropolitan Opera. His most successful works were composed in the 1940s and 1950s.

Menotti also had a long intimate relationship with the conductor Thomas Schippers.

His works include:

• Amelia Goes to the Ball
• The Telephone
• The Medium
• The Consul
• The Saint of Bleeker Street
• Amahl and the Night Visitors
• Maria Golovin
• The Last Savage
• Goya
• The Singing Child