Il gran Tamerlano
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| Title: | The great Tamerlane |
| Original title: | Il gran Tamerlano |
Title page of the libretto, Milan 1771 |
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| Shape: | Opera seria in three acts |
| Original language: | Italian |
| Music: | Josef Mysliveček |
| Libretto : | Agostino Piovene |
| Literary source: | Jacques Pradon: Tamerlan ou La Mort de Bajazet |
| Premiere: | December 26, 1771 |
| Place of premiere: | Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan |
| Playing time: | about 3 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Asia Minor at the beginning of the 15th century |
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Il gran Tamerlano ( The great Tamerlane ) is an opera seria in three acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček . The libretto by Agostino Piovene was originally written for the opera Tamerlano by Francesco Gasparini (1711). It is based on the tragedy Tamerlane ou La Mort de Bajazet (1675) by Jacques Pradon. The first performance took place on December 26, 1771 at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan.
action
The background to the plot is the Battle of Ankara in 1402, in which the Mongol ruler Tamerlan ( Timur ) defeated the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Bajazet ( Bayezid I ) and put him prisoner. In addition to the sultan, his daughter Asteria is also imprisoned, with whom the Mongol ruler falls in love. Asteria admittedly loves Andronico, who is probably referring to a son Manuel II , who was Prince of Thessaloniki from 1408 to 1425 .
first act
Tamerlano, the victor over the Turkish Sultan Bajazette, falls in love with his daughter Asteria, whom he and her father captured. Andronico, a Greek prince who fought as an ally on the side of Tamerlanos, loves this. Andronico also loves Asteria, of course, which Tamerlano doesn't even know. Tamerlanos had already tried to put pressure on Bajazet to allow him to marry, but it had failed. Now he wants to win Andronico over for it and promises to reward him with his own kingdom and also with Irene, who is actually engaged to him, but now "superfluous", if he can persuade the imprisoned Sultan Bajazette to give him his daughter Asteria as his wife . This announcement brings Irene herself on the scene, of course, who does not allow herself to be scared away, but prefers to fight for her love or for Tamerlano.
Second act
Bajazette strictly refuses to give Tamerlano his daughter in marriage, even when he is threatened with death. His daughter Asteria gives in, supposedly to save her father, but actually with the secret intention of getting close to Tamerlano and killing him, and agrees to the wedding. When her father accuses her of treason, she admits her real plan, which in turn leads Tamerlano to forge plans for revenge.
Third act
As a revenge, Asteria now has to work as a maid for Tamerlano - and her father watch. Bajazette then gives his daughter a poison so that she can "use it bravely". He himself wanted to follow her into death when she had successfully carried out her revenge. Asteria tries to poison Tamerlano with her father's poison, but this is observed by Irene and thwarted by revealing herself to Tamerlan and warning him of the poison attack. So Tamerlano becomes clear who really loves him and he no longer stands in the way of Asteria's marriage to Andronico. Seriously disappointed with himself (that he lost in the battle) and with his daughter - and relentlessly to come to terms with the new circumstances - Tamerlano gives himself his poison and dies.
layout
Instrumentation
The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:
Arias, duets and choirs
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Act |
Second act |
Third act |
libretto
The libretto comes from Agostino Piovene (1671–1721). First performed in Venice in 1711 by Francesco Gasparini , it was set to music many times , often under the original title Tamerlano .
One of the best-known predecessors was Antonio Vivaldi , who performed the libretto under the title Bajazette, albeit as a pasticcio, in Venice in 1735. As with most of the operas of the time, the title hero in Il gran Tamerlano by Mysliveček is a castrato role, and with Bajazet, as with Vivaldi, we have a veritable bass role. In Georg Friedrich Händel , who premiered the same material - albeit based on a libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym - in London as Tamerlano in 1724 and repeatedly performed it again in the years up to 1731, Tamerlano are traditionally also a castrato and Bajazet a tenor.
Work history
Mysliveček's Gran Tamerlano premiered on December 26, 1771 at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan and opened the 1772 Carnival season. The line-up was as follows:
- Tamerlano - Giuseppe Millico
- Bajazette - Giovanni Battista Zonca
- Asteria - Antonia Maria Girelli Aguilar
- Andronico - Giuseppe Cicognani
- Irene - Anna Boselli
- Idaspe - Rosa Polidora
Between the acts and at the end of the opera, the three ballets Gli amanti protetti dell'Amore , Il capitano fortunato che scopre un 'isola e se ne impadronisce and Festeggiamento nelle nozze di Tamerlano by Charles Le Picq and Luigi Paladini were performed.
The first performance was extremely successful and many arias were reused in other operas of the time, such as B. “Di quel amabil ciglio” or the aria “Il caro e solo oggetto.” As Daniel E. Freeman has shown, the opening symphony may have served as the inspiration for Mozart's 9th symphony .
In 1776 the opera was staged again in Pavia.
The first re-performance took place in 1967 in Brno , in what was then Czechoslovakia . Ten years later there was a revival in Prague , albeit in a shortened form.
Web links
- Il gran Tamerlano : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Il gran Tamerlano (Josef Mysliveček) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna
- Libretto (Italian), Milan 1772. Digitized in the Internet Archive
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Helena Havlíkovci: Il gran Tamerlano. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 4: Works. Massine - Piccinni. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-492-02414-9 , pp. 386-388.