Francesca di Foix
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Francesca di Foix |
Title page of the libretto, Naples 1831 |
|
| Shape: | "Melodramma" in one act |
| Original language: | Italian |
| Music: | Gaetano Donizetti |
| Libretto : | Domenico Gilardoni |
| Premiere: | May 30, 1831 |
| Place of premiere: | Teatro San Carlo , Naples |
| Playing time: | 1 ¼ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | France, early 16th century |
| people | |
Francesca di Foix is a semiseria opera (original name: "Melo-dramma") by Gaetano Donizetti based on a libretto by Domenico Gilardoni , based on the farce Ninette à la cour by C.-S. Favart and Saint-Amans. The opera, which premiered May 30, 1831 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, has only one act.
action
The extremely jealous Count hides his beautiful wife from society, arguing that she is so ugly that he cannot introduce her. The king and the duke cause the countess to appear at the king's court without the count's knowledge. There everyone is overwhelmed by its beauty and it is immediately wooed. The count has to allow it because he cannot admit that the unknown beauty is his supposedly ugly wife. The king wants to hold a tournament, the winner of which can marry the unknown beauty. Now the count can't stand it any longer and he admits that he lied about the countess. The king speaks to the count's conscience and everything will be fine.
Work history
The world premiere on May 30, 1831 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples was conducted by Nicola Festa. The set was designed by Pasquale Canna, Luigi Gentile and Nicola "Nicoletto" Pellandi. The singers were Luigia Boccabadati (Francesca di Foix), Giovanni Battista Campagnoli (Il conte), Antonio Tamburini (Il re di Francia), Marietta Gioja Tamburini (Edmondo) and Lorenzo Bonfigli (Il duca).
The opera, which was only moderately successful at the premiere, is one of Donizetti's almost forgotten operas. What is unusual for an opera by Donizetti is that the characters do not have names, but status titles such as ("the Duke" or "the Count"). Donizetti later used material from Francesca di Foix in his more successful operas L'elisir d'amore (1832) and Lucrezia Borgia (1833), among others .
Discography
- 1982; David Parry ; Gillian Sullivan, Lynne Smythe, Della Jones , Donald Maxwell, Gordon Christie; Opera Rara
- 2004; Antonello Allemandi; Annick Massis , Pietro Spagnoli, Jennifer Larmore , Alfonso Antoniozzi, Bruce Ford ; London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Geoffrey Mitchell Choir, Audio CD: Opera Rara
literature
- William Ashbrook: Donizetti and his Operas. Cambridge 1982.
- Jeremy Commons: Francesca di Foix. In: Francesca di Foix. Supplement to the CD by Opera Rara, pp. 9–30
- Robert Steiner-Isenmann: Gaetano Donizetti. His life and his operas. Bern 1982.
Web links
- Francesca di Foix : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Libretto (Italian), Naples 1831. Digitized at Google Books
- Full text libretto at italianopera.org
- Francesca di Foix (Gaetano Donizetti) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna
- Discography on Francesca di Foix at Operadis
- Review of Opera Rara CD on musikansich.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ May 30, 1831: "Francesca di Foix". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ., Accessed on August 7, 2019.
- ^ Robert Steiner-Isenmann: Gaetano Donizetti. His life and his operas. Bern 1982, p. 133.