Alfredo Catalani was an Italian opera composer of the late Romantic period, born in Lucca and trained at the Milan Conservatory, where he later taught. Working in an era dominated by the emerging verismo movement, he instead cultivated a lyrical, Wagner-influenced style across a small output of operas, most notably Loreley (1890) and his masterpiece La Wally (1892). He died of tuberculosis in Milan in 1893 at the age of 39.

Although most of Catalani’s operas fell out of the repertoire after his early death, La Wally has endured as a repertory staple, its aria “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana” gaining wide popular recognition after its use in the 1981 film Diva. He is regarded as a transitional figure who resisted verismo trends in favor of a more restrained, orchestrally rich lyricism.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Catalani