Re Lear

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Giuseppe Verdi (Portrait of Giovanni Boldini , 1886)

Re Lear [ˈre ˈlir] ( King Lear ) is an opera project by Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) that was not completed. Verdi has the drama King Lear by William Shakespeare drawn since 1843 almost 50 years again and again as material for an opera a consideration, but never brought to a conclusion ultimately. In the 1850s, Verdi even worked with Antonio Somma on a complete libretto, for which there is no written composition. Speculations that there was a missing Re Lear score could not be confirmed.

Unrealized operas by Verdi

In addition to the 27 completed operas, Verdi has considered numerous other subjects for operas in the course of around 60 years of activity and discarded them again at various stages of execution for various reasons; around 90 such projects can be verified. Lorenzino de 'Medici and Die Ahnfrau , based on the drama by Franz Grillparzer , came up to the stage of a text conception . The closest thing to a realization came Re Lear , with whom Verdi occupied himself and several of his librettists in several attempts for almost 50 years. Last but not least, Verdi was interested in Shakespeare's drama, the father-daughter theme, which runs through his work like a thread from his first opera Oberto (1839) to Nabucco (1842), Giovanna d'Arco (1845), Luisa Miller ( 1849), Stiffelio (1849), Rigoletto (1851), Simon Boccanegra (1857/1881) and La forza del destino (1862/1869) up to Aida (1871). Incidentally, Verdi was an avowed Shakespeare fan throughout his life, even though he ultimately only realized three Shakespeare operas: at the age of 34, Macbeth (1847) and finally his two last operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893) in old age of 73 or 79 years. Verdi turned down two other Shakespeare materials offered to him: The Tempest (1850) and Hamlet (also 1850 and again on 1871).

Salvadore Cammarano

Working on Re Lear

The subject of Re Lear first appeared in Verdi's correspondence in 1843, before Macbeth was composed . Significantly, Verdi already had precise ideas about the singer for the title role, for whom he wanted to engage the baritone Giorgio Ronconi , the first Nabucco. The project was quickly rejected in favor of Ernani (1844). Already in 1845 Re Lear was on the list of possible subjects for an opera planned for London, not least because Verdi was looking for an "English" subject for the world premiere in London; in fact, he then composed the opera Il corsaro (1848) for Trieste, based on a Byron material .

The preoccupation with Re Lear became much more specific in early 1850, when Verdi initially planned to write Re Lear for his publisher Ricordi. On February 28, he sent a detailed draft of the libretto to Salvatore Cammarano , who would later become the librettist of his opera Il trovatore . In the cover letter, however, fundamental difficulties of the subject came up, which later contributed to the failure of the project: " At first glance, Re Lear is so immeasurable, so intricate that it seems impossible to turn it into an opera." Nevertheless, Verdi wanted to make a new kind of work out of the material: "You know that one cannot turn the Re Lear into a drama in the usual form, but must treat it in a completely new, broader way, regardless of any traditions . " Five main roles were planned, for which Verdi had already determined the vocal subjects: Lear, Cordelia, the fool, Edmondo and Edgardo, as well as the secondary characters Regana and Gonerilla.

King Lear and the Jester , painting by William Dyce

In the middle of 1850 it became clear, however, that Cammarano would not be able to finish the text by autumn, so that Verdi now tackled the Stiffelio (with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave ) for Trieste and for the spring of 1851 the Rigoletto for Venice. Cammarano was not entrusted with the completion of Re Lear , but with the libretto for Il trovatore , whose novel and bizarre subject Verdi had meanwhile fascinated. Cammarano died on July 17, 1852, not even having completed the libretto for Il trovatore , let alone resumed work on Re Lear .

In April 1853 Verdi took up the Re Lear again and sent his documents to the writer Antonio Somma. Somma had not yet written a libretto, but had practical opera experience as the former director of the Trieste Opera. In the following correspondence with Somma, Verdi already developed very specific ideas about his new opera: "It already seems to me that the main pieces of this opera will be: the introduction with Cordelia's aria; the storm scene; the court scene; the duet between Lear and Cordelia and the final scene. " Somma delivered the first part of the libretto on July 12, 1853, but there were fundamental problems with the implementation of the material. Verdi Somma pointed out that it was "extremely difficult" to achieve an effect in the music if the text consisted only of dialogues .; The large number of scene changes also proved to be problematic. Somma had completed the second act in early September 1853. At the beginning of November Verdi transferred 2000 lire to Somma for the work carried out up to then, in mid-November details of the third and fourth acts were discussed and in December the first version of the libretto was finally ready.

From the beginning of 1854, Verdi stayed in Paris for a long time to prepare and rehearse for Les vêpres siciliennes . However, he repeatedly discussed further work on the text on Re Lear with Somma by letter . In some cases, individual arias, even individual lines of verse, were discussed, whereby Verdi was always concerned with abbreviations and the summary of individual scenes. In early 1855 Verdi received a modified libretto from which two main characters had now been deleted; but he sent Somma again extensive detailed changes. Work on Re Lear ended temporarily in April 1855 and was not resumed until 1856. In April of this year a new complete version of all acts was available, but Verdi was still not entirely satisfied: "I couldn't say what it is, but there is something in it that does not satisfy me," he wrote of the fourth act. The joint work of Verdi and Somma on the text of Re Lear has now dragged on for more than three years, but Verdi "has considerable doubts as to whether the substance of Shakespeare's drama can really be adequately represented by music."

Cordelia at the Court of King Lear (1873), painting by John Gilbert.

Nevertheless, the realization of Re Lear seemed imminent in the middle of 1856 , when Verdi was negotiating a new opera with the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, among others . Verdi already made precise requirements for the casting of the main roles, which suggests an at least sketchy composition of the voices. However, the singers requested by Verdi were not available for Naples, so the project was postponed again - Verdi now wrote Simon Boccanegra (1857) for Venice, but continued to stick to Re Lear : in July 1856 he informed his French publisher Escudier that he first wanted to rework the Stiffelio (realized under the title Aroldo ), then finish Simon Boccanegra and then compose Re Lear for Naples. The fact that individual compositions from Re Lear found their way into Simon Boccanegra (where the constellation father daughter plays a central role) and Aroldo (here the storm scene) is obvious due to the chronological sequence, but nothing is proven because there are no (preserved) There are composition sketches for Re Lear .

In 1857, however, Verdi found again that the singers in Naples did not meet his expectations for a Re Lear , so that in mid-1857 he looked for a new material for the San Carlo as an alternative. A revision of his opera La battaglia di Legnano was initially considered, but a completely new opera was finally realized: Un ballo in maschera (with a libretto by Somma), which, for reasons of censorship, was not premiered in Naples, but in Rome in 1859.

End of the project

With the failure of the project in Naples, Re Lear gradually fell out of Verdi's narrow field of vision. In 1865 he at least considered the subject again, this time for Paris; but he immediately doubted whether the present libretto was of all things suitable for the opera. Somma died on August 8, 1865, without his libretto getting any closer to implementation. Verdi had apparently copied this opera, but still not entirely. For example, in 1868 he explicitly did not agree to the inclusion of the libretto as part of the publication of Somma's collected works, so he reserved the right to continue using it without taking any concrete steps.

Arrigo Boito

While working on Otello (from 1880) Verdi occasionally mentioned Re Lear , but not in the sense of a planned opera, but the text was apparently still present to him. After the world premiere of Falstaff (1893), there were rumors in the press that Verdi and his librettist Boito were working on another Shakespeare opera, namely a Re Lear . Boito is said to have given appropriate considerations; According to an anecdote by the Verdi biographer Nardi, Giuseppina Verdi is said to have stopped the pursuit of these plans out of consideration for Verdi's health. In any case, a list of people for a Re Lear was found in Boito's estate . In this context, a report handed down by Pietro Mascagni is interesting: The 85-year-old Verdi had heard that Mascagni himself was working on a Re Lear and then offered the young colleague his study material. At the same time, however, he indicated that he had been overwhelmed by the material, whereupon Mascagni naturally dropped his project: "In my entire life, I never broached the subject of Re Lear again ." (The conversation must have taken place in the spring of 1898.)

Verdi has never made any explicit statements about the reasons for the failure of the Re Lear project after a period of intensive study of the subject. In addition to the lack of suitable interpreters when there was a concrete possibility of realizing it in Naples, Verdi always had fundamental doubts as to whether it was possible to translate the complex material into a libretto and finally also realized “that not all drama in spoken theater is suitable for opera are". Despite its qualities, Somma's libretto does not seem to have corresponded to Verdi's compositional style; a collaboration with Boito could possibly have led to a successful conclusion despite the difficulties of the material.

Since Verdi was already thinking about instrumentation issues and details of arias in 1856/57, it is likely that he had somewhat concrete ideas about the composition, even if he had not written anything down; this would certainly correspond to his usual way of working, for he had also started to write down the scores quite late in other operas. However, there were always suspicions that Verdi had destroyed a finished score by Re Lear himself or that such a score would still be in the archives of the Ricordi Verlag and would one day come to light. In both cases, however, the legends are unsupported.

literature

  • Julian Budden: Verdi - life and work. 2nd revised edition. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-15-010469-6
  • Vincenzina C. Ottomano: Opera plans not realized ; in: Anselm Gerhard, Uwe Schweikert (Eds.) Verdi Handbuch , Verlag Metzler, Stuttgart 2013; ISBN 978-3-476-02377-3
  • Christian Springer: Verdi Studies , Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 309 ff.

Individual evidence

  1. Vincenzina C. Ottomano: Unrealized opera plans ; in: Anselm Gerhard, Uwe Schweikert (Eds.): Verdi Handbuch , Verlag Metzler, Stuttgart 2013, p. 593
  2. Christian Springer: Verdi studies ; Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 343
  3. Christian Springer: Verdi studies ; Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 341
  4. Sebastian Werr, Il corsaro; in: Anselm Gerhard, Uwe Schweikert (Eds.) Verdi Handbuch , Verlag Metzler, Stuttgart 2013, p. 408
  5. Christian Springer: Verdi studies ; Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 341
  6. ^ Julian Budden: Verdi - Leben und Werk , Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2000, p. 65
  7. ^ Verdi on February 28, 1850 to Cammarano, quoted from Christian Springer: Verdi Studies ; Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 345
  8. Christian Springer: Verdi studies ; Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 349
  9. ^ Hans-Joachim Wagner: Il trovatore ; in: Anselm Gerhard, Uwe Schweikert (Eds.) Verdi Handbuch , Verlag Metzler, Stuttgart 2013, p. 408
  10. ^ Verdi on May 22, 1853 to Somma, quoted from Christian Springer: Verdi Studies ; Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 354
  11. Christian Springer: Verdi studies ; Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 356
  12. Vincenzina C. Ottomano: Unrealized opera plans ; in: Anselm Gerhard, Uwe Schweikert (Eds.) Verdi Handbuch , Verlag Metzler, Stuttgart 2013, p. 595
  13. Verdi on April 7, 1856 to Somma, quoted from Christian Springer: Verdi Studies ; Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 354
  14. Vincenzina C. Ottomano: Unrealized opera plans ; in: Anselm Gerhard, Uwe Schweikert (Eds.) Verdi Handbuch , Verlag Metzler, Stuttgart 2013, p. 595
  15. Christian Springer: Verdi studies ; Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 373
  16. Christian Springer: Verdi studies ; Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 376
  17. ^ Christian Springer: Verdi Studies , Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 378
  18. ^ Christian Springer: Verdi Studies , Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 378
  19. Vincenzina C. Ottomano: Unrealized opera plans ; in: Anselm Gerhard, Uwe Schweikert (Eds.) Verdi Handbuch , Verlag Metzler, Stuttgart 2013, p. 595
  20. ^ Julian Budden: Verdi - Leben und Werk , Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2000, p. 147
  21. ^ Christian Springer: Verdi Studies , Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 387 f.
  22. ^ Christian Springer: Verdi Studies , Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 390
  23. Vincenzina C. Ottomano: Unrealized opera plans ; in: Anselm Gerhard, Uwe Schweikert (Eds.): Verdi Handbuch , Verlag Metzler, Stuttgart 2013, p. 595
  24. ^ Christian Springer: Verdi Studies , Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005; P. 396 f.