Antonio Buzzolla [Buzzola] (02/03/1815 - 20/03/1871), an Italian composer, born in Adria, died in Venice. He wrote some opera's, barcarole, ariette and canzonette.

The life and work of Antonio Buzzolla (Adria 1815 - Venice 1871) come to place at a delicate moment in the history, civilization and culture of Italy and in particular the Veneto. Antonio Buzzolla had the fortune to come into direct contact with all these aspects of civil, cultural and artistic life in the first half of the late nineteenth century in Italy.
He was born in 1815 in Adria, a center then with a good cultural and musical tradition - still more than thriving today - and home to a theater of ancient origins and a cathedral, of which recent studies have revealed a considerable musical heritage. Antonio himself was the son of Angelo Buzzolla, chapel master in the cathedral and director of the Philharmonic Society, promoted in 1806 by well-known and illustrious families of Adrian. After the first paternal teachings (he played the violin, the piano, the organ and other instruments) he moved to Venice to improve and in 1832 he joined the orchestra of the "La Fenice" Theater. In 1837 - he had already composed and performed his first short opera, Il Ferramopndo - he went to Naples, then one of the liveliest musical centers of the peninsula, where he came into contact with Donizetti and Mercadante of whom he was a pupil.
The closeness of the two masters will undoubtedly affect his compositions and especially his chamber arias, even if, as the musicologist Piero Mioli observed, precisely these reveal that Buzzolla must have had a "musical culture with a clear Rossinian bel canto tradition".
In 1841 Buzzolla was back in Venice for the performance of his second opera Mastino I dalla Scala at the S. Gallo S. Benedetto theater; the following year is instead the third (comic) opera, Gli adventurieri, given to the "Fenice". After his operatic debut, Buzzolla embarks on a long journey through Europe (1843), like many of his colleagues, which will take him first to Berlin to direct the orchestra of the Italian Opera and to give singing and piano lessons. to the court princesses, then to Dresden, Poland and Russia. However, he did not interrupt contacts with his hometown: in September 1845 he was in fact found in Adria to take part in the execution of a mass composed by Gio Batta Casellati, his friend and fellow student; the following year he is still in Adria to conduct one of his Mass. In the same year he continued his European tour: he was in fact found in Paris, director of the Italian Opera and then in Berlin. Two years later he is back in Venice, where he settles permanently; here from 1855 he will hold the prestigious position of choirmaster at the Basilica of San Marco, a position he will hold until the moment of his death.
The period around the middle of the century reveals a notable musical ferment in Venice; these are the years in which the lagoon city hosts an illustrious person: Giuseppe Verdi, who had presented the "premieres" of Ernani in 1844, of Attila in 1846, of Rigoletto in 1851, of Traviata in 1853. All these works were given to the “La Fenice” theater, whose historical archive still preserves an extensive documentation on the master's activity. Buzzolla, however, does not seem particularly stimulated by this climate, he partially dealt with the work; in addition to the semi-serious melodrama Ferramondo, Mastino I dalla Scala, and the comic opera Gli adventurieri, he will compose Hamlet in 1848, on the libretto of Peruzzini - who had the opportunity to collaborate with Buzzolla on other occasions - and for the season of carnival 1849-1850 to the "Fenice" the Elisabetta di Valois, on the text of FM Piave.