Isabeau (opera)
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Isabeau |
.jpg)
Lady Godiva, Pre-Raphaelite painting by John Collier (1898) |
|
| Original language: | Italian |
| Music: | Pietro Mascagni |
| Libretto : | Luigi Illica |
| Literary source: | Legend of Lady Godiva |
| Premiere: | June 2, 1911 |
| Place of premiere: | Teatro Colón , Buenos Aires |
| Place and time of the action: | England in the Middle Ages |
| people | |
Isabeau is the name of an opera by Pietro Mascagni from 1911. The libretto of the “leggenda drammatica” in three acts comes from Luigi Illica . The premiere took place on June 2, 1911 in Buenos Aires and was conducted by Mascagni himself. The story of Lady Godiva served as inspiration .
action
King Raimondo wants to marry off his daughter, the chaste princess Isabeau. To this end, he organizes a “tournament of love” in which the participating knights should win their love - not through the art of weapons, but through “words of advertisement and looks of longing”. However, Isabeau refuses all knights and is observed by Folco. He came to town to see her because he dreamed of Isabeau.
The king punishes his disobedient daughter: she has to ride naked through the city at twelve noon, exposed to the sun and insults. The population is upset against the king because of this humiliation of his daughter and, out of respect, refuses to watch the princess. The people are demanding an edict from the king to condemn and deprive anyone who dares to look at the princess on this degrading ride.
Ignoring this decree, Folco accidentally looks at the princess and is arrested. When Isabeau visits him in prison, she falls in love with him and asks her father for mercy. Cornelius, the king's minister, incites the population until they form a pack and kill the falconer in an act of vigilante justice. In the end, Isabeau takes her own life over the body of the dying Folco.
reception
After its premiere in 1911, the opera was initially very popular and inspired a whole series of great operas based on legends with a large orchestra, the most famous being Turandot (1926). Of Mascagni's operas, only Cavalleria rusticana has a permanent place in the repertoire today . Also Isabeau is rarely played as in 2011 at the State Theater Braunschweig . At the International Opera Awards 2019 , the production was nominated in the summer opera program of Opera Holland Park in London's Holland Park in the category Rediscovered Work .
Web links
- Libretto on the Mascagni.org website (Italian)
- Isabeau (Pietro Mascagni) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna
Individual evidence
- ^ Alan Mallach: Pietro Mascagni and his operas . University Press of New England, Lebanon NH 2002, ISBN 1-55553-524-0 , pp. 172-174.
- ↑ Program: Isabeau ( Memento from February 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) at the Braunschweig State Theater (accessed on February 5, 2016)
- ↑ 2019 International Opera Awards. International Opera Awards , accessed April 30, 2019 .