Francesca da Rimini (Mercadante)

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Opera dates
Title: Francesca da Rimini
Shape: Dramma per musica in two acts
Original language: Italian
Music: Saverio Mercadante
Libretto : Felice Romani
Premiere: July 30, 2016
Place of premiere: Palazzo Ducale , Martina Franca ( Festival della Valle d'Itria )
Playing time: approx. 3 ¼ hours
people
  • Francesca ( soprano )
  • Paolo, Francesca's lover and brother-in-law ( old )
  • Lanciotto, Francesca's husband and Paola's brother ( tenor )
  • Guido, Francesca's father ( bass )
  • Isaura, confidante (soprano)
  • Guelfo, confidante (tenor)

Francesca da Rimini is an opera in two acts by Saverio Mercadante (music) with a libretto by Felice Romani . Although it was completed in 1830/31, it was not performed during the composer's lifetime. After opera was rediscovered in 2011, it was premiered at the Palazzo Ducale in Martina Franca on July 30, 2016 during the Festival della Valle d'Itria .

action

first act

Lanciotto [son of Malatesta , lords of Rimini ] returns from the war [between Rimini and Ravenna ] and meets his sad wife, Francesca. He suspects his brother Paolo that he will punish the traitor. Inspired by the legend of Lancelot and Ginevra [in the Arthurian novel ], Francesca and her brother-in-law Paolo commit adultery . Lanciotto both caught red-handed .

Second act

Francesca and Paolo are thrown into the dungeon and are to be executed. Francesca's father Guido [Lord of Ravenna], who once arranged the wedding, intervenes on behalf of his daughter. She was asked to sign a peace treaty between Rimini and Ravenna and go to the monastery . On the way there she meets the desperate Paolo again, to whom she swears eternal love on Lanciotto's arrival. Francesca is fatally wounded by Paolo's sword during a scuffle between the brothers. Paolo then commits suicide .

Orchestral line-up

Work history

Francesca da Rimini , by William Dyce , oil on canvas, 1837

The Italian opera composer Saverio Mercadante (1795–1870) dealt with Vincenzo Bellini in his works Francesca da Rimini , Zaira and I Normanni a Parigi . He created the opera Francesca da Rimini at the end of his second Spanish creative period in 1830/31, while the librettist Felice Romani (1788–1865) contributed a libretto that had been designed for Giacomo Meyerbeer as early as 1820 and was then censored and later adapted. This was based on the tragic fate of Francesca da Rimini and her lover, which found its way into Dante's Divine Comedy (5th song of the Inferno) in the Middle Ages . Through director and singer rivalries in Madrid a. a. Mercadante's work could not be premiered around the prima donna Adelaide Tosi . In April 1831 he moved back to Italy, where he made plans for a world premiere at La Scala in Milan . Due to fee disputes and the sudden death of the impresario , this project also failed. He lost the score and Francesca da Rimini was practically forgotten for 185 years.

In the course of dealing with Mercadante's stage work since the 1970s, some operas have recently been performed again. In 2011 the manuscript or the autograph of the previously unperformed opera Francesca da Rimini was rediscovered first in Madrid and then in Bologna . Riccardo Muti was supposed to take over the modern premiere of the work, but he decided on I due Figaro at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival . The Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland had to refrain from a planned performance in 2012 due to differences of opinion.

On July 30, 2016, during the 42nd Festival della Valle d'Itria, the premiere took place in the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale in Martina Franca under the musical direction of Fabio Luisi . Pier Luigi Pizzi was in charge of the direction, the set design and the costumes, while Gheorghe Iancu was responsible for the choreography . Leonor Bonilla (Francesca), Aya Wakyzono (Paolo) and Merto Sungu (Lanciotto) sang the main roles. The performance was recorded live by the broadcasting corporation RAI and first recorded on the Dynamic label as a double DVD in 2017 .

Elisabetta Pasquini , music historian at the University of Bologna , published a critical edition of the work in 2015 in a series on the Neapolitan School with Ut Orpheus Edizioni .

Discography

  • Leonor Bonilla, Aya Wakizono, Merto Süngü, Antonio Di Matteo, Larisa Martinez, Ivan Ayon Rivas, Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia, Fabio Luisi, Coro della Filarmonica di Stato "Transilvania" di Cluj-Napoca, Cornel Groza, 2016 (live / world premiere ); released as DVD (2) and CD (3) by Dynamic 2017.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elisabetta Pasquini , unibo.it, accessed November 1, 2018; Mercadante, Saverio: Francesca da Rimini , utorpheus.com, accessed November 1, 2018.