Il giovedì grasso
| Work data | |
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| Title: | Il giovedì grasso or Il nuovo Pourceaugnac |
Title page of the piano reduction |
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| Shape: | Farsa in one act |
| Original language: | Italian |
| Music: | Gaetano Donizetti |
| Libretto : | Domenico Gilardoni |
| Literary source: | Molière : Monsieur de Pourceaugnac |
| Premiere: | February 26, 1829 |
| Place of premiere: | Teatro del Fondo in Naples |
| Playing time: | Around 1 hour |
| Place and time of the action: | Near Paris in the early 19th century |
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Il giovedì grasso ( Dirty Thursday ) is a one-act Farsa (opera) by Gaetano Donizetti . Domenico Gilardoni wrote the libretto . The first performance probably took place on February 26, 1829 in the Teatro del Fondo in Naples.
action
The story is based on Molière's comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac , but with the opposite sign: while in Molière the main character emerges as the moral winner through a trick, here the person who came up with the prank is stupid.
The lovers Nina and Teodoro are in trouble: Nina's father wants to marry her off to Ernesto, a wealthy country resident. Sigismondo, a friend of the couple, has an idea: his wife Camilla, whom he always watches jealously, is supposed to mimic a former friend of Ernesto's who he has deported.
While the conspirators are preparing, Ernesto arrives. He is well aware that Nina could already be taken and listens to the housemaid Stefanina. She doesn't know that he is Ernesto; she reveals the plan to him and also tells of Sigismondo's jealousy. Ernesto withdraws. He decides to play the comedy according to his rules and disguises himself as a backwoodsman.
The colonel, Nina's father, has to travel to Paris on business. He warns his daughter to oppose his plans. Ernesto in disguise appears. As with Molière, Sigismondo, disguised as Monsieur Piquet, greets him as a supposed old friend. Camilla also appears to play her role as Ernesto's friend (Madama Piquet). Instead of asserting that it was all a misunderstanding, however, Ernesto goes into Camilla, reminisces about their happy times and suggests that they start the relationship again. Sigismondo is furious with jealousy.
Then Ernesto and Nina meet. She asks him if he doesn't already have another lover. Ernesto says yes - he speaks of Camilla - but she is married to a donkey. The chambermaid arrives and asks about the arrival of the groom. Nina concludes from this that he couldn't be Ernesto. He leaves her in this belief, promises her marriage to Teodoro and imposes silence on her so that he can continue his plan.
To punish Sigismondo for his intrigue, Ernesto writes a love letter to Camilla. He hands it over to a servant as soon as he notices that Sigismondo is watching this. The supposedly betrayed husband desires to read the letter. The Colonel returned prematurely from Paris on the basis of another bogus letter. Ernesto clears up the comedy and asks Nina's father to let her marry her Teodoro. The old man reluctantly complies.
Work history
Il giovedì grasso was written in Naples from 1828–1829 during a period that was both privately and professionally successful for Donizetti, as the composer, who was newly married to Virginia Vasselli, had just signed a contract for four operas and had been appointed director of the Teatro Nuovo.
At the first performance, which probably took place on February 16, 1829 at the Teatro del Fondo , Adelaide Comeilli-Rubini (Nina), Giovanni Battista Rubini (Ernesto), Luigi Lablache (Sigismondo), Giovanni Arrigotti (Teodoro), Giovanni Campagnoli (II Colonello) sang ) and Giovanni Pace (Cola).
The lyrics, some of which were sung in the local dialect , prevented the work from spreading; after its successful debut, the opera was not played much. The first performance today took place in 1959 at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena and in 1961 in the form of a concert performance by Edwin Loehrer for the station Radiotelevisione Svizzera Italiana .
literature
- Robert Steiner-Isenmann: Gaetano Donizetti. His life and his operas. Hallwag, Bern 1982. ISBN 3-444-10272-0 ; P. 252f; 403
Individual evidence
- ^ William Ashbrook: Donizetti and his Operas. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, ISBN 0-521-23526-X , pp. 546-547.
Web links
- Giovedì grasso : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Vocal score. Digitized at Google Books
- Il giovedì grasso, o Il nuovo Pourceaugnac (Gaetano Donizetti) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna
- Discography of Il giovedì grasso at Operadis