Gian Carlo Menotti, the opera composer who had a long, but not always harmonious, association with Scotland, died yesterday aged 95.
Menotti, who came to the Edinburgh Festival in 1955 and made his home in East Lothian, was the founder of music festivals in his native Italy and in the United States.
Probably best known for Amahl and the Night Visitors - based on the Christmas story and a seasonal favourite - Menotti died in hospital in Monte Carlo, where he had one of his homes.
His Scottish residence, the historic Yester House in Gifford, had in the past brought him into conflict with locals and with Historic Scotland over access to his land and the maintenance of the house.
Admirers also suggested that he may not have enjoyed the acclaim of his adopted country that he deserved.
Born in Cadegliano on the shore of Lake Lugano, he left Italy at the age of 17 to study in Philadelphia, establishing a wide reputation for his prodigious output. Amahl and the Night Visitors made him a household name in the US, and two of his works - The Consul and The Saint of Bleecker Street - won Pulitzer prizes.
But it was his role as the impresario of music festivals that Menotti made his mark.
He created the Spoleto Festival in Italy, and its American namesake in North Carolina which provided a launchpad for the careers of Jessye Norman, among others. Jacqueline du Pre gave an early performance as a 16-year-old and some Americans, then completely unknown, also had an impact, such as stage actor Al Pacino and set painter Andy Warhol.
He fell in love with Gifford during a visit in the late 1970s and purchased Yester, built by William and Robert Adam and one of Scotland's most magnificent country houses.
He had hoped to create a music festival there - a Scottish Glyndebourne - but his latter years were marked by conflict with the local community.
In 1988, his adopted son Francis was fined for breaching planning regulations by chopping down 20 trees, some up to 120 years old. There was a row over public access issue to the 12th-century Bothans Chapel, which lies in the Yester House estate.
In 2005, with Yester itself now crumbling and overgrown, he defied appeals from Historic Scotland to allow them access for maintenance.
A full obituary will appear in The Herald.
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