Il borgomastro di Saardam

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Opera dates
Title: The Mayor of Saardam
Original title: Il borgomastro di Saardam
Title page of the libretto, Naples 1827

Title page of the libretto, Naples 1827

Shape: “Melodramma giocoso” in two acts
Original language: Italian
Music: Gaetano Donizetti
Libretto : Domenico Gilardoni
Literary source: Mélesville , Jean-Toussaint Merle and Eugène Cantiran de Boirie : Le bourgmestre de Saardam ou Les deux Pierre
Premiere: August 19, 1827
Place of premiere: Teatro del Fondo , Naples
Playing time: approx. 1 ¾ hours
Place and time of the action: Netherlands, late 17th century
people
  • Lo Czar (Tsar Peter the Great ) disguised as Pietro Mikailoff ( baritone )
  • Pietro Flimann, a Russian carpenter ( tenor )
  • Timoteo Spaccafronna (in the Milanese version of 1828 Wambett ), Mayor of Saardam ( bass )
  • Marietta, his daughter (in the Milanese version of 1828 Mündel) ( soprano )
  • Carlotta, foster daughter of the mayor (daughter in the Milanese version of 1828) ( mezzo-soprano )
  • Leforte disguised as Filiberto, confidante of the tsar (bass)
  • Ali Mahmed, caretaker (bass)
  • An official (bass)
  • Carpenters, farmers, Dutch and Turkish soldiers ( choir )

Il borgomastro di Saardam (German: The Mayor of Saardam ) is an opera buffa (original name: "melodramma giocoso") in two acts with music by Gaetano Donizetti on a text book by Domenico Gilardoni based on the play Le bourgmestre de Saardam ou Les deux Pierre by Mélesville , Jean-Toussaint Merle and Eugène Cantiran de Boirie (1818). It was premiered on August 19, 1827 at the Teatro del Fondo in Naples.

action

Historical basis

In 1697 Tsar Peter the Great traveled incognito to Zaandam (Saardam) to inspect the Dutch shipbuilding industry. He rented a small house, but his pseudonymity was soon discovered and he had to move to Amsterdam . In 1703 he founded the city of Saint Petersburg . In 1717 he traveled to Holland again and visited Zaandam again.

Content of the opera

Disguised as Pietro Mikailoff, Peter works as a simple carpenter at the shipyard in Saardam. He became a friend of Pietro Flimann, who is also Russian but fled the army to work as a carpenter instead. Flimann has fallen in love with the daughter of Marietta, the mayor of Saarbrücken, but his low status robs him of hope of marrying her, although Mikailoff has promised to help. The mayor is told that the Russian tsar is working incognito at the shipyard and he wants to meet him there. When he receives various answers from the two Russians, who are called Pietro, he wonders whether he has two tsars on his neck. An official from Russia arrives and calls the tsar back to his service. Before he leaves, he promotes Flimann and removes all obstacles for his upcoming wedding to Marietta.

layout

The opera consists of a "meandering" overture and a sequence of musical numbers separated by secco recitatives, most of which are conventional. Charles Osborne described Marietta's Cavatine (“Lungi da te, mio ​​bene”) and Cabaletta (“In seno al contento”) in the first act as “attractive”. The mayor's aria (“Fate largo al Borgomastro”) uses “routine buffo material”, the trio of Timoteo Spaccafronna (Wambett), the Tsar and Pietro are “quite lively” and the finale of the first act “compensates for at least the tempo what it lacks in melodic freshness ”. The orchestral prelude to the second act is a plagiarism of Almaviva's performance scene from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia . Furthermore, the Tsar's aria (“Va, e la nave”) is “somewhat more individual” and the duet Marietta / Borgomastro is “pleasantly appropriate” to the situation.

Work history

Caroline Unger , the singer of Marietta, premiered in 1827
List of persons in the libretto, Milan 1828

Donizetti composed his opera buffa Il borgomastro di Saardam in the summer of 1827. The libretto is by Domenico Gilardoni . It is based on the play Le bourgmestre de Saardam ou Les deux Pierre von Mélesville , Jean-Toussaint Merle and Eugène Cantiran de Boirie (1818), which later also became the basis for Albert Lortzing's opera Zar und Zimmermann (1837). Donizetti had already dealt with the subject in 1819 in his opera Il falegname di Livonia, ossia Pietro il grande .

The world premiere took place just three months after Donizetti's previous opera Otto mesi in due ore . The handwriting of the score shows clear signs of the haste with which it was composed. This rush can also be seen in the often predictable and sequence- based melodies.

The premiere took place on August 19, 1827 at the Teatro del Fondo in Naples. Donizetti conceived the role of Marietta for the Viennese soprano Caroline Unger . The other singers were Celestino Salvatori (Lo Czar), Berardo Calvari Winter (Pietro Flimann), Carlo or Raffaele Casaccia (Timoteo Spaccafronna), Almerinda Manzocchi (Carlotta), Giovanni Pace (Leforte), Gaetano Chizzola (Ali Mahmed) and Signor Capranica ( Official). The opera was initially only moderately received by the audience. The popularity increased steadily over the course of the year. In February 1828 Donizetti wrote to his teacher Johann Simon Mayr that the work was still in the repertoire after more than 35 performances.

In January 1828 the opera was played at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan - again with Caroline Unger as Marietta, but otherwise with a mediocre cast. This production was such a huge failure that it was canceled after just one performance. After the dress rehearsal (which he himself had not attended), Vincenzo Bellini wrote to his friend, music historian and composer Francesco Florimo , that nothing in the first act and at best a duet would please in the second, but that the work as a whole would be a fiasco . The same thing happened five months later in Rome. There were further productions in 1829 at the Teatre de la Santa Creu in Barcelona, ​​in the autumn of 1833 at the Teatro Carignano in Turin, in 1836 in Vienna, 1837 in Berlin and 1839 in Budapest. The work was then forgotten.

More recently it was not played again until May 1973 in Zaandam. There were a total of nine performances under the direction of Jan Schaap. A recording was published on phonograms.

In February 2003 there was a new production at the Hamburg Chamber Opera in the Allee Theater in a production by Michael Leinert .

In 2017 Il borgomastro di Saardam was played at the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo. For this purpose, Alberto Sonzogni created a critical edition of the score based on the Milanese manuscript.

Recordings

  • 1973 - Jan Schaap (conductor), orchestra and choir of the orchestras of the Zaandam Opera.
    Pieter van den Berg (Lo Czar), Philip Langridge (Pietro Flimann), Renato Capecchi (Mayor), Ans Philippo (Marietta), Let Kiel (Carlotta), Peter Lehmann Bedford (Leforte), Nico Boer (Ali Mahmed).
    Live from Zaanstad.
    Raritas LP: (2 LP), IOR CD: LO 7721-22, MYTO CD: MCD 991.202
  • November 2017 - Roberto Rizzi Brignoli (conductor), Davide Ferrario (director), orchestra and choir of the Donizetti Opera.
    Giorgio Caoduro (Lo Czar), Juan Francisco Gatell (Pietro Flimann), Andrea Concetti (Mayor), Irina Dubrovskaya (Marietta), Aya Wakizono (Carlotta), Pietro Di Bianco (Leforte), Pasquale Scircoli (Ali Mahmed), Alessandro Ravasio ( Official).
    Also video; live from the Donizetti Opera Festival from the Teatro Sociale in Bergamo.
    Dynamic CDS 781202, DVD 37812, BR 57812.

Web links

Commons : Il borgomastro di Saardam  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Complete quote in the original (dated January 2, 1828): “Lunedí si fece la pruova generale dell'opera di Donizetti il Borgomastro, e questa sera và in scena: io non ho inteso nessuna pruova, ma chi fú alla pruova generale mi disse che nel primero atto non v'è niente, che nel 2do vi è un duetto che forse forse piacerà: nel complesso farà fiasco; ma questa sear si vedrà e in ventura di dirò. ”In: Luisa Cambi (Ed.): Vincenzo Bellini, epistolario. Milan 1943, No. 1, p. 31 ( online at Gallica ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e f Charles Osborne : The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini. Amadeus Press, Portland, Oregon, 1994, ISBN 978-0-931340-71-0 , pp. 170-171.
  2. ↑ a b Bergamo - Festival Donizetti 2017 - Teatro Sociale: Il borgomastro di Saardam on operaclick.com, accessed on June 22, 2018.
  3. ^ A b c William Ashbrook: Donizetti and his Operas. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, ISBN 0-521-23526-X .
  4. ^ Record of the performance on August 19, 1827 in the Teatro al Fonde in Naples in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  5. ^ Il borgomastro di Saardam (Gaetano Donizetti) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  6. ↑ Biography of the director Michael Leinert on owen-leinert.com, accessed on June 24, 2018.
  7. ↑ Gaetano Donizetti. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all complete opera recordings (= Zeno.org . Volume 20). Directmedia, Berlin 2005, p. 3689.
  8. ^ Donizetti: Il Borgomastro di Saardam - Giorgio Caoduro, Juan Francisco Gatell, Roberto Rizzi Brignoli. CD information from Allmusic , accessed on June 22, 2018.
  9. ^ Donizetti: Il Borgomastro di Saardam. DVD information at Prestoclassical, accessed June 22, 2018.