Milton (opera)

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Work data
Title: Milton
Eugène Delacroix: Milton dictates to his daughter

Eugène Delacroix : Milton dictates to his daughter

Shape: Fait historique, Opéra en un acte
Original language: french and italian
Music: Gaspare Spontini
Libretto : Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and Armand-Michel Dieulafoy
Premiere: November 27, 1804
Place of premiere: Opéra-Comique , Paris
Playing time: about 1 ½ hours
Place and time of the action: Hoston, England, around 1660
people

Milton is an opera comique in one act by Gaspare Spontini .

action

The blind poet John Milton and his daughter Emma fear being persecuted by King Charles II , but they find refuge with the Quaker Godwin. Godwin's niece Charlotte is in love with Milton's secretary "Arthur", who is in fact Sir William Davenant , who had to suppress his love for Emma. Milton now dictates verses from his epic The Lost Paradise to his daughter . Towards the end, Davenant reveals his true identity and is also able to produce a letter from the king stating that Milton should not be arrested after all. Davenant and Emma can now get married.

Work history

Emergence

The opera was written shortly after Spontini's arrival in Paris (and the performance of La petite maison on May 12, 1804 at the Théâtre Feydeau ) for the Salle Favart of the Opéra-Comique and was premiered there as usual with spoken dialogue on November 27, 1804. But Spontini also had an Italian version with secco recitatives printed in the engraved score .

Jean-Pierre Solié (Milton), Alexandrine-Marie-Agathe Gavaudan-Ducamel (Emma), Jean-Baptiste-Sauveur Gavaudan (Davenant), Simon Chénard (Godwin) and Marie Crétu-Simonet (Charlotte) sang at the world premiere .

In 1838 Spontini had the doctor and journalist Joseph Friedrich Sobernheim prepare a new version of the libretto in German. It was titled The Stuarte , Milton , or Milton's Death . This time the material was to become a historical-romantic opera. In the summer of 1838 Spontini stayed in England for this reason. In May 1840 the 1st act and two thirds of the 2nd act were completed. The work was put on the program as Das verlorene Paradies in 1841, but was no longer performed due to the escalation of the problems surrounding Spontini's Berlin position.

reception

Milton was played a lot both in France and in the rest of Europe during Spontini's lifetime. In recent times there have been several attempts to get the work back on stage. In 1975, a live recording of the work was made for RAI under the conductor Alberto Paoletti after a concert performance with the following cast: Emma - Mariella Devia, Godwin - Carlo Micalucci, Lord Davenant - Antonio Savastano, Milton - Giovanni Ciminelli, Miss Charlotte - Silvana Mazzieri ; RAI Milano choir and orchestra. A concert version (as "Opera at the piano") was produced in May 2006 in the Erfurt Theater .

literature

  • Charles Bouvet: Spontini , Paris 1930
  • Dennis Albert Libby: Gaspare Spontini and His French and German Operas , PhDiss. Princeton 1969
  • Paolo Fragapane: Spontini , Bologna 1954, new edition: Florence 1983
  • Amanda Holden (Ed.): The New Penguin Opera Guide , New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001. ISBN 0-140-29312-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. November 27, 1804: "Milton". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ..
  2. Bohemia, an entertainment journal , vol. 11, no. 79 of July 3, 1838, p. 3
  3. ^ Supplement to the Allgemeine Zeitung , No. 243 of August 31, 1838, p. 1849
  4. ^ "PS" = Philipp Spitta , article "Spontini", in: A Dictionary of Music and Musicans , ed. by George Grove , Volume 3, London 1883, pp. 665–682, here p. 690 (digitized version )