The American composer Dominick Argento has died.
Argento, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his song cycle “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf” in 1975, is remembered principally for his 14 operas, including “Postcard from Morocco,” “The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe,” “Miss Havisham’s Fire,” “Casanova’s Homecoming,” “The Aspern Papers,” and “The Dream of Valentino.”
Another song cycle, “Casa Guidi,” on texts of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, received a Grammy Award in 2004 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.
Though he was born in York, PA, to Sicilian immigrant parents, he flourished in Minneapolis, where he was a professor of music at the University of Minnesota and one of the founders of what is now Minnesota Opera.
Argento died yesterday at the age of 91.
