Sílvio Barbato

Silvio Barbato (11 May 1959, Candeias, Minas Gerais — 1 June 2009, Atlantic Ocean) was an Italian-Brazilian opera conductor and composer. He was an artistic director of the Teatro Nacional Cláudio Santoro in Brasília, Brazil, in 1989–92 and 1999–2006, and an orchestra director at Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro and Sala Palestrina's musical director at Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome, Italy. Barbato tragically died, aged 50, in a plane crash aboard Air France's Flight 447. (The catastrophe had no survivors, claiming the lives of 12 crew members and 216 passengers, including Fatma Ceren Necipoğlu (1973—2009), a renowned Turkish harpist and music educator.) Barbato was born in Brazil to a noble Bonaccorsi family (originating from Fornaci di Barga commune in Italy, Silvio's ancestors emigrated to Latin America in the late XIX century). He graduated from the University of Brasília after studying conducting and composition under the renowned Claudio Santoro. Silvio continued his education in Italy, trained by Azio Corghi at the Milan Conservatory. In 1984, Silvio Barbato earned his merit degree from the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Tuscany. The same year, he made a stage debut, conducting Giacomo Puccini's Tosca at Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. In 1985, Barbato graduated from the Milan Conservatory with the "High Conducting" gold medal — only the second Brazilian who earned this honor since Antônio Carlos Gomes. Silvio Barbato further studied with Franco Ferrara and served as Romano Gandolfi's assistant director at Teatro alla Scala, Milano. In later years, he traveled to the United States, graduating from Philip Gossett's master class in "Italian Opera" at the University of Chicago. Barbato had a prolific career as a conductor, performing at most major Italian cities and metropolitan areas, from Rome and San Remo to Florence and Palermo. Numerous prominent opera vocalists appeared under Silvio's baton, including Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Montserrat Caballé and Placido Domingo. As a composer, Silvio Barbato authored Terra Brasilis ballet in 2003, followed by two full-length operas, O Cientista (2006) and Carlos Chagas (2008), both based on the lives of prominent Brazilian scientists, Oswaldo Gonçalves Cruz (1872—1917) and Carlos Chagas Filho (1910—2000). Barbato's last opera, Simon Bolivar, remained incomplete. On 1 June 2009, Silvio Barbato, traveling to Kyiv, Ukraine, for a scheduled performance and masterclasses, boarded an Airbus A330 passenger jet serving an Air France Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Shortly before 11PM, about a third-way through the 11-hours+ flight, the plane went through a turbulence zone, and ice crystals clogged up the jet's "pitot tubes," sensors used for detecting the plane's airspeed and altitude. (Subsequent investigation uncovered that specific make and model of pitot tubes from US Manufacturer Goodrich Sensors & Integrated Systems had already been recalled since 2001, as this "icing malfunction" was already detected; due to some bureaucratic mishaps, the recall notice wasn't mandatory, though, and Barbato's A330 still had the deprecated equipment.) Frozen sensors led to inconsistent speed readings and the plane's autopilot disengagement. Flight 447 had three pilots on duty; however, the captain rested during the initial accident, with the least experienced pilot operating the aircraft. Following the misleading panel readings, he began climbing to adjust for the supposed loss of altitude, forcing the Airbus to stall with its nose pointing upwards. When the panicking pilots finally summoned the commander to the deck, and he eventually noticed the junior pilot's critical mistake, it was too late: Airbus A330 crashed directly into the ocean surface, killing 228 people in the extreme impact trauma. Flight 447 crash became the deadliest in the history of Air France and the A330 aircraft (considered one of the safest and most reliable passenger jets).