Luisa Miller

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Work data
Title: Luisa Miller
Title page of the libretto, Naples 1849

Title page of the libretto, Naples 1849

Shape: Melodramma tragico in three acts
Original language: Italian
Music: Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto : Salvatore Cammarano
Literary source: Cabal and love by Friedrich Schiller
Premiere: December 8, 1849
Place of premiere: Naples , Teatro San Carlo
Playing time: approx. 2 ½ hours
Place and time of the action: Tyrol , 1st half of the 17th century
people
  • Il Conte di Walter, Count Walter ( bass )
  • Rodolfo, his son ( tenor )
  • Federica, Duchess of Ostheim, Walter's niece ( old )
  • Wurm, Walters Castellan (bass)
  • Miller, retired soldier ( baritone )
  • Luisa, his daughter ( soprano )
  • Laura, a peasant girl ( mezzo-soprano )
  • a peasant (tenor)
  • Villagers, court ladies, pages, servants, bodyguards ( choir )

Luisa Miller is an opera (original name: "Melodramma tragico") in three acts . The libretto is by Salvatore Cammarano based on Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich Schiller , the music by Giuseppe Verdi . The premiere took place on December 8, 1849 in the Teatro San Carlo in Naples .

action

First act: "Amore" - love

First picture: graceful village

The villagers bring Luisa a birthday serenade. She is in love with Rodolfo, whom she discovers among the well-wishers. Your father distrusts him. While going to church, Wurm demands the hand of his daughter from Miller. When he is turned away, he reveals that Rodolfo is Count Walter's son.

Second picture: Hall in Walters Castle

Count Walter disapproves of his son's plans to marry a peasant girl. He wants to marry him to Duchess Federica di Ostheim. When Rodolfo openly confesses his love for Luisa to him, he arouses her jealousy.

Third picture: In Miller's house

Miller reveals to his daughter the true identity of her lover and the Count's plans. Rodolfo joins them and swears eternal loyalty to Luisa. Count Walter follows him, he insults Luisa as a prostitute. Miller then attacks him and is captured by the count's bodyguard. Rodolfo threatens to reveal to his father how the count came to possession and title.

Second act: "Intrigo" - intrigue

First picture: In Miller's house

Wurm seeks out Luisa: In order to save her father, she is supposed to “confess” her love for Wurm in a letter and to Federica personally. She desperately agrees.

Second picture: room in the castle

Wurm reports to the count about the successful blackmail. Both are still concerned, however, that Rodolfo could announce that his father owes his property and title to the murder of his cousin by Wurm. Luisa is brought in and makes the extorted confession to Federica.

Third picture: garden in the castle

Rodolfo has received Luisa's letter and is desperate. He challenges Wurm to a duel, from which he evades with a shot in the air. Guards come over, as does the count. Apparently he agrees to Rodolfo's marriage to Luisa. When Rodolfo tells him about Luisa's letter, his father advises him to take revenge on her and to marry Federica.

Third act: "Veleno" - poison

Miller's house

Luisa writes a letter in which she reveals Wurm's intrigues to Rodolfo. Then she wants to take her own life. Her father comes back and can stop her. Together they want to set off into a new future the next morning. When Luisa is praying at night, Rodolfo secretly comes in; he pours poison into a mug unnoticed. Both drink. In the face of death, she reveals the truth to Rodolfo. Walter and Wurm join in to get Rodolfo to marry Federica. Rodolfo stabs Wurm to death and curses his father.

Emergence

Piano reduction from 1849

After Alzira , Verdi was to write two new operas for Naples, for which the resident poet of the Teatro San Carlo , Salvatore Cammarano (1801-1852), was to supply the libretti. The choice fell on La battaglia di Legnano (world premiere January 27, 1849, Teatro Argentina, Rome) and Luisa Miller based on Friedrich Schiller's drama Kabale und Liebe (1783). It was Verdi's third setting of a drama by Schiller after Giovanna d'Arco (libretto by Temistocle Solera after Die Jungfrau von Orléans , 1845) and I masnadieri (Andrea Maffei after Die Räuber , 1847), later followed by Don Carlos ( Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle , 1867). Verdi confirmed receipt of the exposé on Luisa Miller (then still Eloisa ) on May 17, 1849 from Paris. He planned obviously, the first act, contrary to the former Convention, as in the drama short and abrupt (d. E. Without Cabaletta and Stretta ) come to an end to make. Cammarano, whom Verdi always treated with respect, did not comply with this request and followed up with eight lines of poetry, which Verdi set to music, but which are now mostly deleted. The quartet in Act II has Verdi from the beginning as a capella planned -Stück, and this is something quite unusual for Italian opera this time. He also writes: “Finally worm! Do not forget to keep that certain comedy in the whole part of this latter, which will help to give greater weight to his finesse and nefariousness! ”Unfortunately, Cammarano did not go into this idea, which challenged Verdi's music-dramatic ability and was undoubtedly very interesting. The finished libretto was sent to Cammarano on August 15, 1849. Verdi left for Naples on October 3 to prepare the premiere.

If you compare the libretto with Schiller's bourgeois tragedy, you have to bear in mind that the opera business in Italy and the conditions at the San Carlo at that time made very specific guidelines. First of all, all politically explosive passages had to be deleted because of the censorship and the main character had to be renamed from Ferdinando to Rodolfo, since the King of the Two Sicilies in Naples was then called Ferdinand . Then choral scenes had to be created which required that some scenes were played "outside" and not all inside, as with Schiller. The available staff required that roles of the same vocal subject were brought into a hierarchy and that only very specific aria types could be considered. That is why the counterpart of Luisa, the Duchess of Ostheim, had to be greatly devalued compared to the original, to the detriment of the dramaturgy of the play. The three bass figures also had to be put in order. Verdi decided on: Miller, Walter, Wurm. Cammarano followed him in this (letter of May 17th). Because Wurm couldn't have his own aria, his actions always seem a bit unmotivated. In addition, Cammarano already had a predilection for writing libretti with extreme mood swings and breaks. At the expense of dramatic stringency and credible characters, he created occasions for musical outbursts of extreme expressiveness, a process that he was to take to extremes in Il trovatore (1851–1853).

layout

Instrumentation

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

music

Sheet music example: Cantilena of Luisa from the finale of the first act

At first glance, the score appears to be a typical product of the “galley years” with arias of skillfully significant melodies with concise rhythms in the usual schemes and ensembles that are as expressive as they are effective. The characterization of the person suffers from the fact that Verdi created the Luisa as a virtuoso-dramatic coloratura role (or better: had to create it), which does not fit the natural-sensitive character of the figure, and the one to whom such a role design would be appropriate, namely the Duchess of Ostheim, demoted to a supporting role. One only has to imagine that Verdi could have made these two roles antagonistic like Elisabeth and Eboli in Don Carlos ! Occasionally, however, the Ostheim is "enriched" by taking over an aria from another Verdi opera of the time. Furthermore, it would probably have been better to upgrade the worm's much more active role over that of the count.

In the years from 1848 onwards, Verdi was definitely looking for new possibilities of form and expression beyond the usual musical and dramatic conventions and stereotypes. However, Cammarano did not want to provide him with suitable text templates (and Francesco Maria Piave was often unable to do so, despite or because of his respectful diligence towards Verdi).

Nevertheless, the Luisa contains an innovation, which Verdi was to make little use of later. It is already evident in the overture . It is not one of the potpourris or short introductions usual in Italy at the time, but is characterized by thematic-motivic work with a motif that can be described as a fate or intrigue motif . This thematic-motivic work can be seen as a musical cipher for the intrigue which, as Verdi writes to Cammarano, "dominates the whole drama like a fate". In the introduction to the first picture, he contrasts this with the love motif T'amo d'amor ch'esprimere, typically a vocal melody. Both motifs appear in the course of the opera at a suitable point and characteristically alienated, repeatedly, most effectively, before these two themes that dominate the drama are resolved or at least brought to an end, namely in the introduction of the third act. In a certain way, Verdi had two options around 1850: either to integrate the thematic-motivic work into the conventional form of the number opera (as in Luisa ) or to develop the number opera into a thoroughly composed opera under the primacy of song. He finally decided on the latter.

literature

  • Score, piano reduction, orchestral material, published by Ricordi Music Publishing , Milan. German translation: G. Göhler.
  • Peter Ross: Luisa Miller. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Volume 6: Works. Spontini - Zumsteeg. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-492-02421-1 , pp. 424-429.
  • W. Otto (ed.): G. Verdi: Briefe. Berlin (GDR) 1983, pp. 70-72 (Verdi's letter to Cammarano of May 17, 1849).

Web links

Commons : Luisa Miller  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Peter Ross: Luisa Miller. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Volume 6: Works. Spontini - Zumsteeg. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-492-02421-1 , p. 424.