Luigi Ricci

Luigi Ricci, lithograph by Adolf Dauthage .

Luigi Ricci (* July 8 (or June) 1805, probably in Naples , † December 31, 1859 in Prague ) was an Italian composer .

Life

Federico Ricci's older brother entered the Naples Conservatory at the age of nine, where he studied violin and piano with Giovanni Furno and composition with Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli and, at the suggestion of Pietro Generali, turned to opera buffa. His opera semiseria Chiara di Rosemberg , which premiered at La Scala in Milan in 1831, stayed in the repertoire for around ten years. Another success at La Scala was Un'avventura di Scaramuccia , with the libretto by Felice Romani , who wrote most of the opera texts for Bellini . In 1836 Ricci accepted the position as Maestro di cappella in Trieste . After the failure of his Opera seria Le nozze di Figaro , he refrained from writing operas and composing songs and church hymns for seven years. He was also concertmaster at the Teatro Grande , where he performed the works of his brother and Verdi .

In 1843 the twins Franziska (Fanny) and Ludmilla (Lidia) Stolz (* 1827) from Prague - their younger sister Teresa Stolz would later become Verdi's performer and muse - were engaged at the Teatro Grande. They accompanied Ricci to Odessa , where he conducted the 1844/45 opera season and lived more or less openly with the twins. From 1847 to 1848 the three people were in Copenhagen , where the sisters' commitment was broken off by the death of King Christian VIII . After his return to Trieste, Luigi Ricci and Lidia Stolz married in 1849; but continued his ménage à trois . In the 1950s he had further success with La festa di Piedigrotta , which was performed at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1852 and whose Tarantella has remained a popular classic of light music. After the performance of his last opera Il diavolo a quattro in Trieste in 1859, signs of mental disorders began to show. He was taken to a mental hospital in Prague. Here Luigi Ricci died.

His importance lies above all in the field of opera buffa , in which he often used folk songs. Ricci was a tireless worker; he left 30 operas and 20 masses. He was the father of Luigino Ricci .

Operas

• L'impresario in angustie (GM Diodati), farsa - Naples, Conservatorio, 1823, libretto based on the opera of the same name (1786) by Domenico Cimarosa
• La cena frastornata ( Andrea Leone Tottola ) - Naples, Teatro Nuovo, autumn 1824
• L'abbate Taccarella ( La gabbia de 'matti ; Aladino ) (Andrea Leone Tottola) - Naples, Teatro Nuovo, Carnival 1825
• Il sogno avverato (Andrea Leone Tottola) - Naples, Teatro Nuovo, summer 1825; Collaboration with Dionigio Pogliani-Gagliardi
• Il diavolo condannato a prender moglie (Il diavolo mal sposato) (Andrea Leone Tottola) - Naples, Teatro Nuovo, January 27, 1827
• La lucerna di Epitteto (G. Checcherini) - Naples, Teatro Nuovo, Carnival 1827
• Ulisse in Itaca ( Domenico Gilardoni ) - Naples, Teatro San Carlo , January 12, 1828
• Colombo ( Felice Romani ) - Parma, Teatro ducale, June 27, 1829
• L'orfanella di Ginevra (Amina) ( Jacopo Ferretti ) - Rome, Teatro Valle , September 9, 1829
• Il sonnambulo (Jacopo Ferretti) - Rome, Teatro Valle, December 26, 1829
• L'eroina del Messico ovvero Fernando Cortez (Jacopo Ferretti) - Rome, Teatro Tordinona, February 9, 1830
• Annibale in Torino (Felice Romani) - Turin, Teatro Regio, December 26, 1830
• La neve (Felice Romani) - Milan, Teatro Cannobiana, June 21, 1831
• Chiara di Rosemberg [h] ( Gaetano Rossi ) - Milan, Teatro alla Scala , October 11, 1831
• Il nuovo Figaro (Jacopo Ferretti) - Parma, Teatro ducale, February 15, 1832
• I due sergenti (Felice Romani) - Milan, Teatro alla Scala, September 1st, 1833
• Un'avventura di Scaramuccia (Felice Romani) - Milan, Teatro alla Scala, March 8, 1834; re-enacted in Vienna (1835), London (1836), Madrid (1837), Lisbon (1838), Paris, Théâtre-Italien (1846), Warsaw (1846; Polish), Brussels (1851), Buenos Aires (1851); also edited by Friedrich von Flotow
• Eran due, or son tre ovvero Gli esposti (Jacopo Ferretti) - Turin, Teatro Angennes, 3 June 1834
• Chi dura vince ovvero La luna di miel (Jacopo Ferretti) - Rome, Teatro Valle, December 26, 1834; also as La Petite Comtesse in Paris (1876)
• Il colonello (La donna colonello) (Jacopo Ferretti) - Naples, Teatro del Fondo , March 14, 1835; Joint work with Federico Ricci
• La serva e l'ussero (Maid and Hussar) , farsa -Pavia, Teatro Compadroni, spring 1835
• Chiara di Montalbano [in Francia] (Gaetano Rossi) - Milan, Teatro alla Scala, August 15, 1835
• Il disertore per amore (Jacopo Ferretti) - Naples, Teatro del fondo, February 13, 1836; Joint work with Federico Ricci
• Le nozze di Figaro (Gaetano Rossi) - Milan, Teatro alla Scala, February 13, 1838; revised version (Milan, Teatro alla Scala, 1841)
• La solitaria delle Asturie (Felice Romani) - Odessa, Teatro Italiano, February 20, 1845
• L'amante di richiamo (F. Dall'Ongaro) - Turin, Teatro Angennes, June 13, 1846; Joint work with Federico Ricci
• Il birraio di Preston (F. Guidi) - Florence, Teatro della Pergola , February 4, 1847
• Crispino e la comare ( Francesco Maria Piave ) - Venice, Teatro San Benedetto , February 28, 1850; Collaboration with Federico Ricci; translated by Nuitter / Beaumont as Le Docteur Crispin (Liège, December 17, 1866), with additional numbers by Federico Ricci
• La festa di Piedigrotta (M. D'Arienzo) - Naples, Teatro Nuovo, June 23, 1852
• Il diavolo a quattro (Gaetano Rossi) - Trieste, Teatro Armonia, May 15, 1859

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Ricci, Luigi . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 26th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1874, pp. 18–23 ( digitized version ).
• Alexander Weatherson: Booklet text (English and Italian) for the complete recording of Crispino e la comare (live from Savona, November 1989, Bongiovanni GB 2095 / 06-2). The "distribution of work" within the joint work of the brothers Luigi and Federico Ricci is discussed in detail there.
• Guido Johannes Joerg: Contribution to the program for the production of La serva e l'ussero ( WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne , concert performances in Cologne and at the International Jacques Offenbach Festival in Bad Ems, June 1 and 2, 2007).

Web links

Commons : Luigi Ricci  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Short biography
• Sheet music and audio files by Luigi Ricci in the International Music Score Library Project
• List of the stage works by Luigi Ricci based on the MGG at Operone