CASELLA, Felicita

French-born Italian composer, originally named Félicie Émilie Anne Trouillon-Lacombe. She studied piano and singing at the Paris Conservatoire. Her compositional output was centred on opera, vocal music, and works for piano.
Casella composed two operas. Haydée, with a Portuguese libretto by Luiz Felipe Leite based on Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, was first performed in Porto in 1849 and presented in a revised version in Lisbon in 1853. Her second opera, Cristoforo Colombo, to a libretto by Felice Romani, was performed at the Théâtre Impérial in Nice in 1865. Her other known compositions include romances for voice and piano, Marcia funebre for piano, written in memory of Queen Maria II of Portugal, and an Ave verum for voices and piano. Some of her music was published by Ricordi.