Le duc d'Albe
| Work data | |
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| Title: | Il duca d'Alba |
| Original title: | Le duc d'Albe |
Frontispiece of the libretto, Milan 1882 |
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| Shape: | Opera in four acts |
| Original language: | French |
| Music: | Gaetano Donizetti , Matteo Salvi |
| Libretto : | Eugène Scribe , Charles Duveyrier, Angelo Zanardini (Italian version) |
| Premiere: | March 22, 1882 (posthumous) |
| Place of premiere: | Rome, Teatro Valle |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ½ hours (Italian version) |
| Place and time of the action: | Brussels and Antwerp , 1573 |
| people | |
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Italian version from 1882
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Le duc d'Albe (later Italian title Il duca d'Alba ) is an opera in four acts by Gaetano Donizetti . The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier . Since Donizetti stopped working on the opera halfway through, it was only completed 34 years after Donizetti's death by his former student Matteo Salvi . The first performance in Italian took place on March 22, 1882 at the Teatro Valle in Rome. In the French original language, Le duc d'Albe was first performed in Antwerp in May 2012.
action
The action takes place in Flanders in 1573, at the time of the Dutch uprising against the Spaniards, when around 18,000 people were executed under Duke Alba .
The plot and its division into acts may differ depending on the version being played.
first act
The Duke of Alba was sent to Flanders to suppress the revolt against Spanish rule. The Flemish hero Egmont , Amelia's father, is sentenced to death by the Duke. Amelia decides to take revenge, kill the duke and join the Flemish resistance. The Duke notes that Amelia's lover Marcello is his long-lost son, the head of the rebels. His late wife had secretly entrusted him to his adversary Egmont for education. The count invites him to join the Spanish troops, which Marcello refuses. His father warns him not to deal with Amelia and the insurgents.
Second act
The freedom fighters meet in Danieles Bierstube. Amelia feels guilty because despite her father's death she is drawn to Marcello. Marcello confesses his feelings to her and vows to avenge the death of her father. Spanish soldiers led by Sandoval enter the bar and arrest everyone except Marcel, which arouses suspicion among his friends.
Third act
The Duke longs for his son's love. He confesses to Marcello that he is his father, but is repulsed by him. The rebels, Amelia among them, are to be executed in front of the government palace. The Duke promises Marcello her pardon if he speaks to him as Father. Marcello accepts the condition and the rebels are pardoned.
Fourth act
Marcello confesses to Amelia that he is the Duke's son. She asks him to kill the duke as proof of his love. Torn between his father and the woman he loves, Marcello hesitates. Later, before the Duke's departure back to Portugal, Amelia tried to stab the Duke in the port of Antwerp, disguised as a man. Marcello throws himself on his father to protect him and is unintentionally killed by Amelia.
orchestra
The orchestral line-up of the Italian version from 1882 contains the following instruments:
- Woodwinds : flute piccolo , two flutes , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons
- Brass : four horns , two trumpets , two trombones , ophikleide , cimbasso
- Timpani , bass drum
- Strings
- Incidental music on the scene: drums
- Stage music behind the scene: trumpets
Work history
The opera Le duc d'Albe dates from around 1839, when Donizetti tried to gain a foothold in Paris with Roberto Devereux , La favorite and Les Martyrs .
Donizetti began composing in 1838; the contract with the Paris Opera was signed on August 16, 1838. In the following eighteen months Donizetti worked intermittently at the opera, as he was also busy staging other operas for the Paris stage. Donizetti had composed the female lead for Julie Dorus-Gras, a lyric soprano. Since the mistress of the new director Leon Pillet, the dramatic mezzo-soprano Rosine Stoltz , would not allow the new opera to be sung by her competitor, Donizetti stopped work and turned to L'ange de Nisida and L'elisir d'amore . The unfinished work was forgotten.
In 1848, after Donizetti's death, the Paris Opera made an attempt to have the work completed, but abandoned the effort, discouraged by the condition of the manuscript. In 1855 the libretto was rewritten and used for Giuseppe Verdi's opera Les vêpres siciliennes .
In 1875, Donizetti's hometown Bergamo commissioned the composers Alessandro Nini , Giovanni Bertuletti and Bernardino Zanetti to examine the manuscript. They found that the first act was finished and the second act almost finished, but only drafts of the third and fourth act existed, apart from the vocal lines that had been composed to the end. In addition, the tenor aria "Ange du ciel" was removed and reused in La favorite in 1840 under the title "Ange si pur" ("Spirto gentil"). Other parts had also been used for other operas. The manuscript was set aside again.
Version Salvi
In 1881 Donizetti's heirs offered the manuscript to Ricordi , the most important publishing house in Italy , but refused it on the grounds that the completion of the work by a third party would damage the composer's reputation.
Giovannina Lucca (1810-1894), the widow of the rival publisher Francesco Lucca from Milan, bought the manuscript and commissioned the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan to have the manuscript examined by the composers Antonio Bazzini , Cesare Dominicenti and Amilcare Ponchielli . They came to the conclusion that a “practiced and sure hand” could complete the work.
Signora Lucca had already hired Donizetti's former student Matteo Salvi to revise and complete the score. He was assisted by Antonio Bazzini , Dominicenti and Ponchielli. The libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier was translated into Italian by Angelo Zanardini and adapted to an opera of three acts. Since the original names Henri and Hélène were now occupied by The Sicilian Vespers , they were replaced by Marcello and Amelia. He replaced the missing aria “Spirto gentil” with his own composition “Angelo casto e bel”.
Hardly any of the original parts were taken over completely; the aim was to avoid looking old-fashioned after 40 years. Orchestration and tempos were further developed in the completed score, the timbre was adapted to the time and updated, which Salvi was later accused of.
Posthumous world premiere
The premiere took place on March 12, 1882 in the Teatro Apollo in Rome under the musical direction of Marino Mancinelli. Leone Giraldoni in the title role, Abigaille Bruschi-Chiatti as Amelia de Egmont and Julián Gayarre as Marcello as well as Hjalmar Frey (Sandoval), Giovanni Paroli (Carlo), Alessandro Silvestri (Daniele) and Romeo Sartori (taverniere) sang. The performance was sold out at twice the price and Queen Margaret of Italy was sitting in the central box .
The audience was delighted and the opera was performed in Naples, Bergamo, Turin, Barcelona and Malta. But then the work quickly disappeared from the repertoire. The irony of fate: only one single melody prevailed, which was sung by many tenors: “Angelo casto e bel”. It is practically always attributed to Donizetti, but it comes from Matteo Salvi.
In 1951, the Italian conductor Fernando Previtali is said to have discovered the worn-out score that the conductor used at the premiere in 1882 at a flea market in Rome. On January 12, 1952, the Duca d'Alba was performed in concert by Previtali in Rome, but in a heavily shortened version. Then there were a few more performances in the version by Salvi, then the opera disappeared from the repertoire.
Stage design for the premiere of March 12, 1882
Leone Giraldoni sang the title role
Julián Gayarre , the first Marcello
Schippers version
At the Festival dei Due Mondi at the Teatro Nuovo in Spoleto, the American conductor Thomas Schippers performed a version he had revised on June 11, 1959. Schippers removed practically all the parts Salvi had added in order to get closer to Donizetti's original version. He composed the missing parts in a style that should be more reminiscent of Donizetti. Instead of Salvi's aria “Angelo casto et bel”, which was particularly well received by the audience, he used Donizetti's original “Spirto gentil” again. Directed by Luchino Visconti , some backdrops from the world premiere in 1882 were still used, which had survived unnoticed in a depot. Practically all performances and recordings of the Duca d'Alba play Schipper's version, that of Salvi is rarely played.
Version Battistelli
For a new French performance by the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp in May 2012, the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli, in collaboration with the British musicologist Roger Parker, completed the score with modern inserts and a new ending. Battistelli took over the four acts, the original French text, and largely the orchestration from Salvi. The opening of the 4th act was reconstructed with the tenor aria "Angelo casto e bel" on the basis of Donizetti's drafts and his orchestration in La favorite.
Version Donizetti
In February 2016, Opera Rara released a new recording in French under Mark Elder . Only the first two acts composed by Donizetti were recorded.
literature
- Robert Steiner-Isenmann: Gaetano Donizetti. His life and his operas. Hallwag, Bern 1982. ISBN 3-444-10272-0 .
Web links
- Il duca d'Alba : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Libretto (Italian), Milan 1881. Digitized version of the Munich digitization center
- Il duca d'Alba (Gaetano Donizetti) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna
- Work information on klassika.info
- Work information on esdf-opera.de
- Work information on operalounge.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Norbert Miller : Il duca d'Alba. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 2: Works. Donizetti - Henze. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-492-02412-2 , pp. 18-21.
- ↑ March 22, 1882: "Donizetti". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ., Accessed on August 3, 2019.
- ↑ Information on the work on operalounge.de , accessed on July 24, 2019.
- ↑ Work information on esdf-opera.de , accessed on July 24, 2019.
- ↑ CD information from Opera Rara, accessed on July 24, 2019.