La sonnambula

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Work data
Title: The night walker
Original title: La sonnambula
Jenny Lind as Amina

Jenny Lind as Amina

Shape: Melodramma in two acts
Original language: Italian
Music: Vincenzo Bellini
Libretto : Felice Romani
Literary source: La sonnambule ou l'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur by Eugène Scribe .
Premiere: March 6, 1831
Place of premiere: Teatro Carcano , Milan
Playing time: approx. 2 ¼ hours
Place and time of the action: A Swiss mountain village for an indefinite period
people
  • Count Rodolfo, landlord of the village ( bass )
  • Teresa, Müllerin ( mezzo-soprano )
  • Amina, orphan adopted by Teresa, engaged to Elvino ( soprano )
  • Elvino, rich landowner, fiance of Amina ( tenor )
  • Lisa, landlady, in love with Elvino (soprano)
  • Alessio, villager, in love with Lisa (bass)
  • A notary (tenor)
  • Villagers ( chorus )

La sonnambula ( The Night Walker or The Sleep Walker ) is an opera (original name: "Melodramma") by Vincenzo Bellini , which was premiered on March 6, 1831 at the Teatro Carcano in Milan. The libretto is by Felice Romani based on Eugène Scribes Libretto for a ballet pantomime La sonnambule ou l'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur by Jean-Pierre Aumer (which was premiered at the Paris Opera in 1827, or the vaudeville comedy Scribes by 1819). However, at Bellini's request, Romani made significant changes to the text (e.g. the ending in which Rodolfo proves to be Amina's father was omitted).

action

first act

Amina, the beautiful adopted daughter of the miller Teresa, and the wealthy farmer Elvino want to get married. Amina is greeted by the villagers' choir on the village square, but Lisa, the landlady of the village inn, is jealous because she is in love with Elvino herself (she rejects Alessio, who is in love with her). When Elvino arrives with a notary and wants to put the ring on Amina's finger (love duet), Rodolfo appears, the new feudal lord of the place, who has been away for a long time and appears incognito. He immediately courted Amina and aroused the jealousy of her fiancé Elvino.

In the inn, Lisa visits Rodolfo in his dining room when sleepwalking Amina enters, calls for Elvino and then sinks onto a sofa. Lisa hides and Amina is found by the villagers in the presence of the confused Rodolfo. All her pledges of innocence are of no use and she is rejected by Elvino.

Second act

Despite the Count's attempts at reconciliation, whom the villagers ask, Elvino sticks to his step. When they meet, he accuses Amina of her infidelity. He now wants to marry Lisa. On the way to the wedding, Teresa again accuses Lisa of infidelity by showing a scarf that she lost in Rodolfo's dining room. Elvino gets angry again and lets the wedding break. As the sleepwalking Amina appears on a roof, Elvino confesses her love and in the process also reaches safe ground. There is a reconciliation and yet the marriage of the two.

Aria Non credea mirarti engraved in Bellini's sarcophagus

Instrumentation

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

Work history

Poster of a performance with Maria Malibran , 1835

Bellini had been commissioned by Duke Litta of Milan to compose an opera and chose a rural-pastoral subject after he had previously wanted to set Hernani by Victor Hugo to music. Since Donizetti wanted to bring out a different historical subject ( Anna Bolena ) in the same season , Bellini decided against it. Bellini used already composed material from the Hernani project in La sonnambula and Norma , which premiered in the same year. Bellini composed the opera in two months in Moltrasio , where he lived with his befriended singer Giuditta Turina.

The opera was one of Bellini's greatest successes and was soon performed across Europe (and New York). Amina is a prime role for a lyric coloratura soprano. Giuditta Pasta celebrated triumphs with her at the premiere in 1831 (with the tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini), Henriette Sontag and Maria Malibran (e.g. in the Drury Lane Theater in London, their last Sonnambula performance was in Aachen in 1836, shortly before her death) and later Jenny Lind and Adelina Patti . At the world premiere, the opera was performed with the ballet Furore d'Amore and Bellini conducted. The Russian composer Michail Glinka sat in the premiere. The aria Ah! Non credea mirarti! in which the sleepwalker Amina declares her love for Elvino at the end of the opera. The incipit of notes and text are engraved in Bellini's sarcophagus.

In the second half of the 20th century the opera, like other bel canto operas, was revived by Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland , of which several recordings each exist. Well-known interpreters previously were Luisa Tetrazzini and the coloratura soprano stars of the Scala Toti dal Monte and Lina Pagliughi . In 2008 the opera was performed in Baden-Baden in a reconstructed version based on the new critical edition of the opera (editors Luca Zoppelli, Alessandro Roccatagliati) by Thomas Hengelbrock with Cecilia Bartoli .

Recordings

Web links

Commons : La sonnambula  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Ah! Non credea mirarti, Si presto estinto, O fiore - Ah, I would not have believed, Oh flower, to see you wither so quickly

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Lippmann : La sonnambula. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Volume 1: Works. Abbatini - Donizetti. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-492-02411-4 , p. 247.