Alfredo Catalani (19 June 1854 – 7 August 1893) was an Italian operatic composer. He is best remembered for his operas Loreley (1890) and La Wally (1892). La Wally was composed to a libretto by Luigi Illica, and features Catalani's most famous aria "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana." This aria, sung by American soprano Wilhelmenia Fernandez, was at the heart of Jean-Jacques Beineix’s 1981 cult movie Diva. Catalani's other operas were much less successful.
Born in Lucca, Catalani was trained at the Milan Conservatoire, where his teachers included Antonio Bazzini. Despite the growing influence of the verismo style of opera during the 1880s and early 1890s, Catalani chose to compose in a more traditional manner, which had traces of Wagner in it. As a result, his operas (La Wally excepted) have largely lost their place in the modern repertoire, even compared to those of Massenet and Puccini, whose style his own periodically resembles. (Catalani much resented Puccini's emergence and even accused Puccini, falsely, of plagiarism.)
Ebbene? ... N'andrò lontana,
come va l'eco della pia campana,
là, fra la neve bianca;
là, fra le nubi d'or;
là, dov'è la speranza, la speranza
il rimpianto, il rimpianto, e il dolor!
O della madre mia casa gioconda,
la Wally n'andra da te, da te lontana assai,
e forse a te, e forse a te,
non farà mai più ritorno,
nè più la rive drai!
mai più, mai più!
N'andrò sola e lontana,
come l'eco [è] della pia campana,
là, fra la neve bianca;
n'andrò, n'andrò sola e lontana!
e fra le nubi d'or!