Brief Biography of English composer and opera singer Stephen Storace, whose opera buffa was most popular in 18th-century England.

Stephen Storace was an English composer of the Classical period, brother of Nancy Storace, famous opera singer, and contemporary of Mozart. He is known for his opera The Haunted Tower.

Storace's opera buffa (comic) was most popular in 18th-Century England. He insisted that opera singers continue to act while singing, something new to England that time. There are not many recorded information about him other than some second-hand information from the memoirs of his associate, Irish tenor Michael Kelly, and few other contemporaries.

Stephen Storace was born on April 4, 1762 in St Marylebone Parish to an English mother (nee Elizabeth Trusler, a daughter of the owner of Marylebone Gardens) and Italian father, Stefano, a double bass player (contrabassist) in London who worked in Dublin in 1750 and in London by 1758. Stefano was also a composer and arranger. Stephen Storace had a younger sister Anna Selina (known as Nancy Storace), an opera soprano.

His father taught him the violin very well that at ten years old, young Stephen was already able to play successfully the most difficult music of his time. He first learned the violin and harpsichord before being sent to the San Onofrio Conservatory in Naples to study composition. Since his father was the Musical Director of Vauzhall Gardens, it was inevitable that practically his entire youth was spent in the company of musicians.

It was in Vienna that Stephen and his sister, Nancy Storace, made acquaintance with Mozart. At the premiere of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), Nancy sang the role of Susanna and Michael Kelly, Don Curzio.

Storace presented two Italian operas in Vienna, Gli sposi malcontenti, in 1785, and the Mozart-influenced Gli equivoci, in 1786. Gli equivoci was founded on the Comedy of Errors by Shakespeare.

After a study in Naples and a visit to Vienna, in 1787, he returned to London with his sister Nancy Storace, and became composer to Sheridan’s company at the Drury Lane Theatre.

In 1788 Storace began a successful series of 15 English operas, including:

• The Haunted Tower, 1789
• No Song, No Supper, 1790
• The Pirates, 1792
• Dido, Queen of Carthage, 1792
• The Prize, 1793
• Cherokee, 1974

His opera The Haunted Tower was his first great success, running for 50 nights successively.

No Song, No Supper was considered unusual, with the title having no related meaning with the opera itself.

Dido, Queen of Carthage and The Pirates, his successful full-length operas are considered his English masterpieces. His other works include a ballet Venus and Adonis (1793), canzonets, arias and instrumental pieces.

When he died on March 19, 1796 at 34, his career in the English theatre had only lasted less than eight years and he would have achieved more had he lived longer.

Recommended Resource:

Storace Siblings and 18th -Century English Theatre by Agnes Selby

Suggested CD

Storace, Steven: Seven Songs for High Voice

Sources:

Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie (2000)

Encyclopedia of Music by Max Wade-Matthews & Wendy Thompson (2004)