Ángel de Saavedra

Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, was a Spanish poet, dramatist, soldier and statesman, condemned to death in absentia in 1824 and in exile for more than ten years. His drama Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino, staged at the Teatro del Príncipe in Madrid on 22 March 1835, was the first Romantic success of the Spanish stage, and the source of Piave's libretto for Verdi's La forza del destino (1862). He was later minister, mayor of Madrid, envoy to Naples and ambassador in Paris, briefly prime minister in 1854 and director of the Real Academia Española.