Raffaello de Banfield, also known as Raphael Douglas, Baron von Banfield Tripcovich, was a British-born composer.
Family
Raffaello de Banfield was the son of Austro-Hungarian flying aceGottfried von Banfield and the Countess Maria Tripcovich, who acquired a permanent residence in England in 1920. He was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was married to Maria delle Grazie dei Conti dei Brandolini d'Adda on 27 December 1976. The marriage remained childless; Brandolini d'Adda had three children from her first marriage to Count Leonardo Arrivabene Valenti Gonzaga.
Life
Raffaello de Banfield attended the Swiss International "Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz", the "Dante Alighieri" Lyceum in Trieste, the University of Bologna and the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice led by Gian Francesco Malipiero. He studied composition from 1946 to 1949 at the National Conservatory with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In these years he met Herbert von Karajan with whom he had a lifelong friendship, and also with artists such as Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Francis Poulenc. In the United States he belonged to the intellectual circle surrounding the writer and composer Paul Bowles, through which he met Tennessee Williams and Leonard Bernstein. In 1949 through the painter Leonor Fini he was introduced to the choreographer and ballet dancerRoland Petit; out of this grew the ballet Le combat, which had its first original production in London in 1949. This piece, based upon the Tancred and Clorinda episode in Torquato Tasso's poem Gerusalemme liberata, was performed 39 times at the Vienna State Opera in the choreography of Dimitrije Parlic between 1959 and 1973. Until 1958 he spent time between Paris and New York and maintained a friendship also with Maria Callas. After years abroad in Italy, France, England and the United States, where he lived for more than ten years, he was from 1972 to 1996 Director of the Giuseppe Verdi Theatre in Trieste and he comprehensively renovated and modernised the Opera House. From 1978 to 1986 he was Director of the "Festival dei due mondi" in Spoleto, Italy. He became famous for his compositions, which were performed worldwide and received countless honours and recognitions, such as the Italian "Grand Ufficiale"; in 1994, through François Mitterrand, he became a Grand Cavalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He died at his home near the so-called "Rive" in Trieste, Italy.
Selected works
Le combat, ballet, Original production 1949 in London.
