Il has the paglia di Firenze

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Opera dates
Title: The Florentine straw hat
Original title: Il has the paglia di Firenze
Shape: “Farsa musicale” in four acts
Original language: Italian
Music: Nino Rota
Libretto : Nino and Ernesta Rota
Literary source: Eugène Labiche and Marc Antoine Amédée Michel: Un chapeau de paille d'Italie
Premiere: April 21, 1955
Place of premiere: Teatro Massimo , Palermo
Playing time: about 2 hours
Place and time of the action: Paris around 1850
people
  • Fadinard, a wealthy young man ( tenor )
  • Nonancourt, farmer ( bass )
  • Beaupertuis ( bass baritone )
  • Uncle Vézinet, deaf (tenor)
  • Emilio, Lieutenant ( baritone )
  • Felice, Fadinard's servant (tenor)
  • Achille di Rosalba, Stutzer (tenor)
  • a guard (tenor)
  • Guard Corporal (baritone)
  • Minardi, violinist (speaking role)
  • Elena, Nonancourt's daughter ( soprano )
  • Anaide, Beaupertuis' wife (soprano)
  • the baroness of Champigny ( old )
  • Milliner (soprano)
  • Wedding guests, milliners, guests of the baroness, guards, residents ( choir )

Il cappello di paglia di Firenze (German: Der Florentiner Strohhut , also Der Florentinerhut or Der Florentiner Hut ) is a comical opera (original name: "Farsa musicale") in four acts by Nino Rota (music) with a libretto by Nino and Ernesta Rota after the Vaudeville Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (1851) by Eugène Labiche and Marc Antoine Amédée Michel. It was created in 1944/1945 and was performed for the first time on April 21, 1955 in the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

action

Fadinard and Elena's wedding is imminent. But the groom has had a mishap: his horse has eaten a lady's straw hat, and now he has to find an identical replacement under all circumstances. Always followed by the wedding party, he moves from one turbulent situation to the next.

first act

Salon in Fadinard's house.

In the background a double-leaf entrance door that leads to the stairs. Two doors on the sides in the foreground. Another door to the bridal chamber. Window overlooking the square.

Scene 1. Vézinet, the bride's deaf uncle, enters the room with a hat box which he gives to the servant Felice. Inside is his wedding present. Felice takes the box away.

Scene 2. Fadinard comes in and tells Vézinet about his mishap: On the way home in the coach, a branch had knocked the whip out of his hand. He had to stop and walk back a bit to get her. Meanwhile, his horse took the opportunity to nibble on a straw hat hanging from a branch. He heard a woman scolding and wanted to apologize. But when their military lover stepped in and began to insult him, the horse started running, startled. Fadinard shows his uncle the meager remains of the hat. But Vézinet didn't understand a word. He says goodbye to Fadinard to have a chocolate before dinner and leaves.

Scene 3. Left alone, Fadinard is glad he'll be married in an hour. Then his father-in-law can no longer interfere with him. He opens the door to the bridal chamber and wallows in anticipation of the night ahead. But already the noise announces the approach of the wedding party.

Scene 4. Anaide and her lover Emilio appear in place of the expected relatives. Fadinard immediately recognizes her as the owner of the eaten straw hat. He offers her a chair, notices that he cannot get rid of them so easily and apologizes for the voracity of his horse. Emilio is not so easily appeased, however. In a fit of rage, he throws a chair on the floor and threatens not to leave the apartment until Fadinard has brought in an identical hat. Fadinard calls his servant Felice over, gives him the rag and sends him to the fashion store to buy a new hat. When the noises of a carriage can be heard outside, Fadinard panics. Under no circumstances should his future father-in-law find a strange woman in his apartment. He hides the two visitors in the adjoining rooms.

Scene 5. Fadinard's bride Elena comes in with her father Nonancourt. She is already wearing her wedding dress with veil, crown and a bouquet of flowers. Nonancourt immediately accuses Fadinard of neglecting the guests. Then he complains about his sore feet and too tight shoes and starts looking for more comfortable sandals. Fadinard has trouble keeping him from entering the two adjoining rooms. Nonancourt finally retires to the bridal chamber.

Scene 6. Alone at last, Fadinard and Elena indulge their love.

Scene 7. But Nonancourt returns and catches the two of them red-handed. After a brief scolding, he makes his way to the office with his daughter. Fadinard promises to follow shortly. From outside you can hear the rest of the wedding party singing.

Scene 8. Fadinard tries to get Anaide and Emilio out of his apartment, but is interrupted by Felice's return, who has failed to find an identical hat. Anaide and Emilio are horrified: if she returns home without her hat, they are lost because her husband is extraordinarily jealous and violent. Anaide can't dare to do that, and Emilio doesn't want to leave her alone. So they will stay at Fadinard's house until the replacement has delivered. Since all pleading about his wedding is of no use and Emilio even threatens a duel, Fadinard has no choice but to go on a search himself. At that moment Nonancourt returns. Emilio and Anaide hide again.

Scene 9. Nonancourt brings a blooming orange branch - the symbol of conjugal love. The wedding guests crowd in behind him. Fadinard leads them out again. Anaide and Emilio call after him: “The hat! - A duel! ”And Emilio fires a warning shot.

Interlude to the second act

A milliner shop

Scene 1. The milliners are chatting at work. Your boss demands quiet.

Scene 2. Fadinard enters the shop, shows the milliner the remains of the straw hat and asks for an identical hat. The milliner remembers that only yesterday she had sold such a hat to her best customer, the Baroness von Champigny. After Fadinard learns their address, he hurries away. Outside you can hear the carriages of the wedding party following him.

Second act

Central room in the house of the Baroness de Champigny

In the background two large doors open to the dining room; the entrance is on the right and a wide corridor to the apartments on the left. In the foreground of the scene is a piano. When the curtain is opened, the doors in the background are wide open and you can see a richly laid table in the dining room.

Scene 1. The baroness has invited to an evening party. She tells the Stutzer Achille di Rosalba, who was the first to arrive, that the famous violinist Minardi had arrived from Florence and only asked for a flower as a reward for his playing.

Scene 2. Fadinard shyly approaches the front door. When Achille asks his name, he hesitates and simply says that he wants to speak to the baroness. Achille lets him in anyway, because he thinks he's Minardi.

Scene 3. After Achille has retired to the apartments, Fadinard thinks about how he can bring his request to the baroness. At the same time, he remembers that his relatives are now expecting a dinner in the restaurant and that a maniac at home is threatening to kill him.

Scene 4. The elegantly dressed baroness enters, a flower on her breast. Fadinard's embarrassed cough gives rise to a conversation about the weather in Florence, Italy, and Italian music. Fadinard tries to bring the matter up and asks the baroness for a present. She hands him her flower.

Scene 5. While Fadinard looks at the flower in astonishment, the festively dressed guests appear at the evening party. The baroness introduces them to Fadinard as the violin virtuoso Minardi. Fadinard tries in vain to clear up the error. His stammering is interpreted by the guests as modesty.

Scene 6. Achille hands Fadinard a violin - a Stradivarius that Tartini had already played on. Fadinard gathers all his courage, flatters the baroness and asks her for the hat. The baroness, amused, goes to fetch him.

Scene 7. In the meantime, Nonancourt and the wedding party arrive, who don't want to wait any longer for Fadinard. You have entered the house through the kitchen entrance and are now making your way over the baroness's buffet, which they think is Fadinard's wedding dinner. Because Fadinard can't stop them, he closes the doors to the dining room. Only Nonancourt, whose feet are still aching, sits down on a couch.

Scene 8. The baroness hands Fadinard a large hatbox. He introduces her to Nonancourt as his companion. The baroness calls for her guests to start the performance.

Scene 9. Fadinard impatiently opens the box. To his horror, it contains a black feather hat. Desperate, he asks the baroness to bring him the Florentine straw hat instead. While the guests look over in amazement, the baroness explains that she had already given the straw hat to her goddaughter, Madame Beaupertuis, yesterday. Fadinard does not know that this is Anaide, whose hat has already been eaten by his horse. He asked for the address and wanted to hurry off immediately, but was stopped by the baroness and the guests, who first wanted to hear his violin playing. Then the doors to the dining room open and the wedding party rushes in, roaring. There is nothing left of the buffet. Elena brings her groom Fadinard another glass of wine. The baroness and her guests are completely confused.

Scene 10. Now the real Minardi appears with his violin and begins to play. The men of the wedding party force some of the invited ladies to dance, Nonancourt tries to hug the baroness, and Elena pursues Fadinard with the wine glass. He urges his relatives to leave quickly while the baroness's guests call for the police.

Third act

A room in Beaupertuis's house

An entrance door. One door to the bedroom, another to the rest of the apartment. On the ground floor in the foreground of the scene an open umbrella. An alcove with a closed curtain, a fireplace with a hot saucepan.

Scene 1. Beaupertuis sits in front of the umbrella in a dressing gown and washes his feet in a basin with hot water. He laments about the unexpectedly long absence of his wife and lets himself into feelings of jealousy.

Scene 2. Fadinard arrives, ignores the host's dismissive words and insists that he speak to his wife. He is ready to pay any price for a certain item, but will steal it if necessary. Because Beaupertuis, so taken by surprise, doesn't understand a word, Fadinard goes looking for the hat himself in the house.

Scene 3. Nonancourt and Vézinet appear in the door too, tired of waiting all the time for the bridegroom. You think you are in his own apartment. Vézinet goes to sleep in the cabinet and Nonancourt takes the opportunity to exchange his uncomfortable shoes for the Beaupertuis'. Then he goes outside to fetch the wedding guests and lead them to the bridal bed for the wedding rite. Without noticing Nonancourt or Vézinet, Beaupertuis even puts on Nonancourt's too tight shoes.

Scene 4. After Fadinard has rummaged through the bedroom, he goes to the room on the other side. Beaupertuis follows him cursing.

Scene 5. Nonancourt leads in Elena and the wedding party women. One of them carries the orange branch. Nonancourt, who believes that Fadinard is undressing behind the screen, invites the women to the bedchamber. Elena begs him not to leave her alone. The women lead her into the bedroom almost forcibly. Nonancourt sets out to follow them.

Scene 6. Fadinard comes back into the room and meets his father-in-law, who tells him to undress for the wedding rite and precedes him into the bedroom.

Scene 7. Beaupertuis meets Fadinard again. He draws a gun to confront the unwanted intruder. After a short struggle, Fadinard succeeds in snatching it from him. Then he tells Beaupertuis the story of the straw hat. Although Fadinard does not give a name, Beaupertuis recognizes that the owner is his own wife. He asks Fadinard to go to his apartment with him immediately. But a call from Elena from the bedroom leads him to believe that his wife has already returned. He runs into the bedroom. Elena screams in horror.

Scene 8. The women of the wedding party emerge excitedly from the bedroom, among them the disheveled Elena without her veil. Beaupertuis and Nonancourt follow. The situation is gradually clearing up. The women leave the apartment. In return, Beaupertuis asks for the address of Fadinard's apartment in order to confront his wife. Fadinard excuses himself, but his father-in-law gives the address. After Vézinet has also finished his nap in the alcove, the uninvited guests rush out. Beaupertuis takes up his weapon and hobbles behind them in Nonancourt's uncomfortable shoes.

Interlude to the fourth act

A late evening street

Only scene. Elena and Nonancourt wearily roam the streets with the whole wedding party. They don't know where to go, and to make matters worse, it starts raining.

Fourth act

At night in a place in front of Fadinard's house

A lantern lights the scene. It hangs on a string that is stretched diagonally from the first floor on the left to the third floor on the right. Several streets lead to the square. At the front left is the sentry box of a guard post. Fadinard's house in the right foreground. In the background an inn.

Scene 1. When the bell strikes 11 o'clock, a corporal initiates the changing of the guard.

Scene 2. Left alone, the new security guard complains about the approaching thunderstorm. He withdraws into the sentry house. There is thunder and lightning.

Scene 3. The completely exhausted wedding party is still looking for Fadinard's apartment. The groom is also missing. Nonancourt asks the security guard for directions - but he is on duty and is not allowed to answer. The whole of society shouts loudly in the direction of the houses to find out where they are. The only answer is that a resident pours a bucket of water over them.

Scene 4. Startled by the noise, Felice comes out of Fadinard's house on the right. He doesn't know where his master is either. Now Nonancourt has had enough of the theater. He decides to return to Charanton and asks Felice to return the wedding gifts. The thirsty company follows Felice into the house.

Scene 5. Elena assures her father that she still loves Fadinard and that she wants to wait for him.

Scene 6. Fadinard finally appears too, after he has succeeded in leaving his pursuer behind. He confuses Elena and Nonancourt with the warning that he is being followed by a husband who wants to kill his wife.

Scene 7. Felice and the wedding guests carry the gifts and the hat box out of the house. While Nonancourt and Elena Fadinard explain the reason, Vézinet takes the hat box with the remark that it contains a valuable Florentine straw hat. Fadinard is deeply relieved at this discovery. Meanwhile, Nonancourt takes out his hat unnoticed by him. Fadinard reaches for the box and runs into the house with it like mad.

Scene 8. Nonancourt, who now thinks Fadinard is completely crazy, decides to finally cancel the wedding. But nothing comes of the departure, because the corporal appears with the guard and arrests the entire company as alleged thieves, including Felice and Nonancourt, who is still holding his hat. Only one guard is left.

Scene 9. Fadinard leads Anaide and Emilio out of the house. He opens the hatbox and, to his horror, notices that it is empty. His bride, father-in-law and the wedding guests are also gone. After learning of the arrest from the security guard, Emilio promises to take care of it because he knows the marshal. The guard puts down his rifle, hangs his coat on it, and goes into the inn.

Scene 10. Anaide's husband Beaupertuis arrives in a carriage. To protect Anaide, Fadinard throws the guard's coat on and takes his rifle. He shows Beaupertuis the way to his apartment. Emilio then returns happy with the hat he has recovered. He throws it to Anaide - but the hat gets caught in the rope near the lantern. Fadinard tries in vain to knock him down with an umbrella. Emilio begins to saw through the rope with his sword. But Beaupertuis is already coming out of the apartment because he did not find his wife there. The security guard also returns and, to his astonishment, finds his sentry house occupied. Emilio has now cut the rope, the lantern falls, and the scene darkens. The security guard calls to arms.

Scene 11. House residents, guards, and the entire wedding party gather in the square. During the ensuing confusion, Fadinard finally manages to toss the hat to Anaide. She reveals herself to her husband and accuses him of roaming the streets while she waits with her cousin.

Scene 12. After everything is cleared up, Nonancourt also calms down again. Now he is proud of his son-in-law, who has proven to be a real gentleman. At Fadinard's request, the corporal also releases the wedding guests. They all hug Fadinard. Only Vézinet is surprised that Anaide is wearing his hat. While everyone is celebrating, the horse takes the opportunity to snap at this hat - but a guest can save it. Everyone goes home satisfied.

layout

Instrumentation

The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:

music

The libretto is a mixture of prose and verse. The music is well composed and there are hardly any orchestral interludes. The work is strictly symmetrical, but there are no stanzas. The composer integrated quotations from his own film scores such as Raffaello Matarazzo's Il birichino di papà, Mario Soldati's Le miserie del signor Travet ( The Needs of Signor Travet ) or Federico Fellini's Lo sceicco bianco ( The bitter love ), but also by Gioachino Rossini (e.g. B. Il barbiere di Siviglia ), Gaetano Donizetti , Vincenzo Bellini , Jacques Offenbach , Giacomo Puccini , Johann Strauss or Richard Strauss . The music seems breathless in places. The recitatives are reminiscent of the Opéra-comique style . Stylistically, Nota also used opera buffa , an ironically alienated form of verismo and Viennese operetta . The music is tonal throughout , the instrumentation is transparent. The drums are rarely used. In addition, there are “lyrical resting points” as a contrast. The music critic Ulrich Schreiber considered Rota's Il has a paglia di Firenze as a “masterpiece” in the “musical and dramatic balance of its components”.

Work history

The libretto was created by the composer Nino Rota himself together with his mother Ernesta Rota. It is based on the Vaudeville Un chapeau de paille d'Italie by Eugène Labiche and Marc Antoine Amédée Michel, which appeared in 1851 and has been processed many times since then. Stylistically, the model lies between the vaudevilles by Eugène Scribe and the comedies of Georges Feydeau . As early as 1927, the director René Clair processed them in his silent film Der Florentiner Hut , in which he brought the plot closer to the present. The best known was Wolfgang Liebeneiner's film version Der Florentiner Hut from 1939 with Heinz Rühmann in the leading role.

Rota composed his opera in 1944/45, but did not finish the instrumentation until 1955 for the premiere.

The musical direction of the premiere on April 21, 1955 in the Teatro Massimo in Palermo was Jonel Perlea . Corrado Pavolini directed it. The soloists were Nicola Filacuridi (Fadinard), Alfredo Mariotti (Nonancourt), Guglielmo Ferrara (Beaupertuis), Renato Ercolani (Uncle Vézinet), Otello Borgonovo (Emilio), Mario Ferrara (Felice), Vittorio Pandano (Achille di Rosalba), Gaetano Crinzi (Guard), Leonardo Ciriminna (Corporal), Carmelo Alongi (Minardi), Ornella Rovero (Elena), Mafalda Micheluzzi (Anaide), Anna Maria Rota (Baroness von Champigny), Luisa Talamini (Milliner). The performance was a great success.

Il has paglia di Firenze turned out to be Rota's most successful stage work. There were notable performances in the following cities:

  • 1956 Venice
  • 1957 Bari
  • 1957 Karlsruhe (German by Joachim Popelka)
  • 1958 Piccola Scala Milan (directed by Giorgio Strehler , conductor: Nino Sanzogno ; Alvino Misciano (Fadinard), Elena Rizzieri (Elena), Jolanda Gardino (Baroness))
  • 1963 Vienna
  • 1974 Stockholm
  • 1977 Santa Fe (NM)
  • 1980 Camden Festival (Conductor: James Judd , Director: Anthony Besch)
  • 1985 Treviso
  • 1987 Reggio nell'Emilia (conductor: Bruno Campanella , director: Pier Luigi Pizzi )
  • 1988 Théâtre du Châtelet Paris (takeover of the production from Reggio nell'Emilia)
  • 1987 Palermo
  • 1991 Osnabrück
  • 1998 Teatro alla Scala Milan
  • 1999 Lyon
  • 2001 Vienna Chamber Opera
  • 2004 Teatro Regio di Torino

Recordings

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Sigrid Wiesmann: Il cappello di paglia di Firenze. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 5: Works. Piccinni - Spontini. Piper, Munich and Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-492-02415-7 , pp. 460-461.
  2. ↑ a b c Giordano Montecchi:  Cappello di paglia di Firenze, Il. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Ulrich Schreiber : Opera guide for advanced learners. 20th Century II. German and Italian Opera after 1945, France, Great Britain. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1437-2 , pp. 318-319.
  4. ^ Program booklet for the production The Florentiner Hat in the Musiktheater im Revier 2016.
  5. ↑ April 21, 1955: "Il cappello di paglia di Firenze". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ..
  6. ^ A b Kurt Pahlen : The new opera lexicon. Seehamer, Weyarn 2000, ISBN 3-934058-58-2 , p. 610.
  7. ↑ a b c Nino Rota. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all opera complete recordings. Zeno.org , volume 20.