Il Pigmalione
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Il Pigmalione |
| Shape: | Opera in one act |
| Original language: | Italian |
| Music: | Gaetano Donizetti |
| Libretto : | Antonio Simone Sografi |
| Literary source: | Jean-Jacques Rousseau : Pygmalion |
| Premiere: | October 13, 1960 |
| Place of premiere: | Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo |
| Playing time: | approx. ½ hour |
| Place and time of the action: | In the royal palace on Crete , Greek mythology |
| people | |
Il Pigmalione is an opera (original name: "scena lirica") in one act by Gaetano Donizetti . As a libretto , he used an existing text by Antonio Simone Sografi . The literary basis was the stage works Pygmalion by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Metamorphoses by Ovid . Donizetti composed the work at the age of 19. It was his first opera.
action
King Pigmalione of Crete only wants to devote his life to art and renounces contact with women. He dedicates himself to sculpture and is about to create a statue of Galatea. When this is almost complete, however, because of its beauty and perfection, he again has a strong interest in the female sex. He feels unable to complete the statue, since he now regards it as a living being that he does not want to injure with his tools. Desperate, he calls on the goddess of love Aphrodite and asks her to transform his Galatea sculpture into a living person. Indeed, Aphrodite brings the stone Galatea to life. She immediately falls in love with the king and both swear eternal love.
Performances
Donizetti wrote this opera in 1816, most likely as a student project. The last page of the autograph bears the note that he began work on September 15 and finished on October 1 just before two in the morning. Possibly he wanted his teacher Johann Simon Mayr , who visited him in Bologna in September, to show his progress. Since he could not commission a new libretto for this for financial reasons, he used an existing text by Antonio Simone Sografi for Giambattista Cimador's then much- staged dramatic scene Pimmalione from 1790, which in turn goes back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Pygmalion .
The premiere took place on October 13, 1960 as part of the XVII. Festival del Teatro delle Novità at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo under the direction of the conductor Armando Gatto. Orianna Santunione-Finzi sang Galatea and Doro Antonioli sang Pigmalione. The work was combined with the one-act operas La sentenza by Giacomo Manzoni and L'ammiraglio by Alessandro Andreoli, both of which were also shown for the first time.
Discography (selection)
- 1990, with Paolo Pellegrini, Susanna Rigacci, conductor: Fabio Maestri, Orchestra giovanile “In Canto”, audio CD: Bongiovanni Recordings
Web links
- Pigmalione (Gaetano Donizetti) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna
- Work information and libretto (Italian) on italianopera.org ( Memento from March 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- Discography of Il Pigmalione at Operadis
- donizettiworks - Donizetti Society
- Thread in the Tamino Klassikforum
Individual evidence
- ^ William Ashbrook: Donizetti and his Operas. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, ISBN 0-521-23526-X , pp. 283 f.
- ↑ Pimmalione (Giovanni Battista Cimador) in Corago information system of the University of Bologna , accessed on July 25 of 2019.
- ↑ October 13, 1960: "Il Pigmalione". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ., Accessed on August 8, 2019.