Rosmonda d'Inghilterra
| Work data | |
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| Title: | Rosmonda d'Inghilterra |
Title page of the libretto, Florence 1834 |
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| Shape: | Melodramma serio in two acts |
| Original language: | Italian |
| Music: | Gaetano Donizetti |
| Libretto : | Felice Romani |
| Literary source: | Rosemonde by Émile Boisnormand de Bonnechose |
| Premiere: | February 27, 1834 |
| Place of premiere: | Teatro della Pergola, Florence |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ½ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | England, around 1176 |
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Rosmonda d'Inghilterra is an opera (original name: "melodramma serio") by Gaetano Donizetti . The libretto is by Felice Romani . The first performance took place on February 27, 1834 in the Teatro della Pergola in Florence.
content
first act
Woodstock Castle Garden
The people celebrate the return of Enrico (King Henry II) from the war against Ireland. Leonora (Queen Eleanor) learns from the page Arturo that Enrico has a secret mistress who he hides in a tower. This is what his old teacher Clifford found out and he confronts Enrico for it. Little does Clifford suspect that the mistress is his own daughter Rosmonda and demands to see the stranger.
Rosmonda's tower
Rosmonda is waiting for the return of her lover "Edegardo", whose true identity she does not know. When the page Arturo registers Clifford's visit, Rosmonda panics. In the ensuing argument with her father, Rosmonda learns that her lover is the king. When the latter appears herself, she faints. Leonora also appears with her court. Enrico declares Leonora deposed as queen.
Second act
Hall at Woodstock Castle
Enrico orders that the queen be sent back to her native France. Leonora makes a vain attempt to change her husband's mind.
Rosmonda's tower
Clifford orders his daughter to flee to France, where he wants to marry her off to the page Arturo. Enrico tries to change Rosmonda's mind by promising her the throne. She refuses.
Woodstock Castle Garden
Rosmonda is waiting for Arturo. But instead of him Leonora appears. Rosmonda protests her innocence and tells of the planned escape. Leonora is almost inclined to believe her rival. But when suddenly the appearance of Enrico is announced, she stabs Rosmonda and declares Enrico to be really responsible for this act.
backgrounds
A play about the life of Rosamund Clifford (1150–1176), a mistress of King Henry II , who must have been an extraordinary beauty, served Felice Romani as a template for his libretto Rosmonda d'Inghilterra , which was initially set to music by Carlo Coccia in 1829 and then again in 1834 by Gaetano Donizetti.
Gilbert Duprez (Enrico II), Anna del Serre (Leonora), Fanny Tacchinardi-Persiani (Rosmonda), Carlo Porto-Ottolini (Clifford) and Giuseppina Merola (Arturo) sang at the premiere on February 27, 1834 at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence .
In the opera, Queen Leonora stabs her rival Rosmonda to death, which is historically not tenable, but extremely effective as an operatic material.
More recently, the work was performed again at the Camden Festival in 1975 by the Opera Rara Society, which also released a complete recording of the work in 1994 with Renée Fleming in the title role.
literature
- Booklet for the recording of the Opera Rara
Web links
- Rosmonda d'Inghilterra : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Libretto (Italian), Florence 1834. Digitized in the Internet Archive
- Rosmonda d'Inghilterra (Gaetano Donizetti) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna
- Discography on Rosmonda d'Inghilterra at Operadis
- Thomas Tillmann: Review of a performance from 2004 in the Great House of the Musiktheater in the Gelsenkirchen Revier . In: Online music magazine
Individual evidence
- ↑ February 27, 1834: "Rosmonda d'Inghilterra". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ..