Saverio Mercadante

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Saverio Mercadante

Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (baptized September 17, 1795 in Altamura near Bari ; † December 17, 1870 in Naples ) was an Italian composer whose main focus was opera and a representative of the so-called Neapolitan School .

Life

Mercadante was born out of wedlock in 1795 in poor circumstances and received his artistic training from 1808 at the Conservatorio di San Sebastiano in Naples, initially under Giovanni Furno , Giacomo Tritto , violin, flute and voice, and from 1813 on he studied composition regularly with the director of the Conservatorio Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli , which he graduated with honors in 1816. Around 150 works were already written during this time, mainly chamber and orchestral works, including his best-known work in 1813, the 2nd Flute Concerto in E minor. After 1816 he stayed at the Conservatory as primo aluno and was prepared for the career of an opera composer. In 1818 he achieved a first and brilliant success with the cantata L'unione delle belle arti , which earned him the commission for his first opera L'apoteosi di Ercole , which was premiered in 1819 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. The cast was the same as for Rossini's Ermione , so it consisted of the absolute star singers of the time. No other Italian opera composer has ever been given such an ensemble for his first opera. Mercadante then presented himself on all major stages in Italy. From 1823 to 1825 he was Rossini's successor in house composer at the Teatro San Carlo. During these years he devoted his work as a composer almost exclusively to the stage. From 1827 to 1830 he worked in Madrid, Lisbon, Cádiz and again Madrid as a composer and conductor of the Italian opera theaters.

During this time in Italy, Bellini's operas turned into melodrama romantico . On returning to Italy, Mercadante managed to adapt to this development without much effort. In 1832 he married. In order to offer his family permanent residence, he took the position of Kapellmeister at the Cathedral of Novara in 1833 as the successor to Pietro Generali . That was a good starting point to continue to work for the big theaters of Northern Italy (Turin, Milan, Venice). As part of his work as a church music director, everyday church music was created, primarily for choir and organ. At that time, church music and operas were written to the same extent for the northern Italian stages. Every year on the Assumption of Mary, however, he also composed a representative festival mass for solos, choir and orchestra. The decisive event of those years was a six-month stay in Paris in 1835/36. Rossini had invited Mercadante to write an opera after Donizetti and Bellini for the local Théâtre-Italien . When I briganti (based on Schiller) took place in March 1836, this opera was a great success, although it was overshadowed by the even greater success of the almost simultaneous premiere of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots . Mercadante returned to Novara and processed his acquaintance with French opera in Paris in his Il giuramento (the same plot as La Gioconda ), premiered at La Scala in 1837 , which was regarded from the beginning as Mercadante's masterpiece. Mercadante himself spoke in this context of “reform operas”, in which the pure Bel-Canto was replaced by a Canto dramatico and the plot, previously often just a pretext for singing beautiful arias, was to be welded together to form a closed drama , following the example of the Grand-operá . In doing so, he went far beyond the melodrama romantico of Bellini or Donizetti, and that is where his lasting musical history lies. Giuseppe Verdi's early work cannot be understood without Mercadante's reform operas, and knowing Mercadante's operas shows how much Verdi adopted Mercadante's models.

In 1840 Mercadante was appointed director of the Royal Conservatory in Naples as the successor to his teacher Zingarelli . Mercadante took this task very seriously. When he took office, he felt like the head of the school at the Scuola napoletana . In addition, this office put him in the position of a freelance composer, insofar as he was now able to live on this basic salary without having to rely on additional composition commissions. As director of the Conservatory, he attached great importance to the previously neglected training of qualified instrumentalists who were able to meet the growing demands of the contemporary opera business. Every Saturday he personally held an orchestral rehearsal with the student orchestra. With this he brought, among other things, the Neapolitan premiere of Beethoven's Eroica on the way. He also enjoyed conducting Weber . In addition, he turned back to composing orchestral music himself and encouraged his composition students to do so. His aim was not to imitate German symphonic music, but to create a genuinely Italian form of orchestral music, often in the form of program music that could be characterized as an opera scene without words. He only composed operas at long intervals and after 1856 did without them altogether. In contrast, he continued to create church music, mainly large representative masses for festive worship services. He continued this activity after 1861 after he was completely blind. Now he dictated new works to his students from the piano, thus combining composition and composition lessons. With increasing experience he dared to work on ever larger works; last in 1869 he completed a great mass. After that he took up another opera, which he had completed by the middle of the first act when he had a stroke at the conservatory from which he could no longer recover. He died completely paralyzed a few days later in December 1870.

Mercadante belonged to a liberal family that had supported the short-lived Republic of Naples as early as 1799 . His relationship with the restoration of the monarchy under the Bourbons was correspondingly tense. He not only welcomed Garibaldi's invasion and annexation to the United Kingdom of Italy in 1860, but also memorialized him compositionally in his Garibaldi Symphony .

From 1856 Mercadante was a foreign member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts . In August 1876 a memorial was erected to him in Naples.

Mercadante was very successful during his lifetime, his operas were played all over Italy and abroad, often years after their premiere. After 1880, however, his luster began to fade, and his operas rarely appeared on opera house schedules. Since around 1970, Mercadante's operas have been increasingly played again, especially at opera houses and festivals that specialize in rarely performed Italian operas, such as Martina Franca , Rossini in Wildbad or Wexford . In the meantime, these are also being staged more and more. His Flute Concerto No. 2 in E minor has been recorded many times on CD; His early flute quartets are also enjoying growing popularity. The later orchestral works and especially church music, however, have yet to be rediscovered.

Works

  • L'apoteosi d'Ercole ( UA Teatro San Carlo , Naples, 1819)
  • Violenza e costanza, ossia I falsi monetari (UA Teatro Nuovo, Naples 1820; later as Il castello dei spiriti, Lisbon 1825)
  • Anacreonte in Samo (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1820)
  • Il geloso ravveduto (UA Teatro Valle , Rome, 1820)
  • Scipione in Cartagine (UA Teatro Argentina , Rome, 1820)
  • Maria Stuarda, regina di Scozia (WP Teatro Comunale , Bologna, 1821)
  • Elisa e Claudio, ossia L'amore protetto dall'amicizia ( WP Teatro alla Scala , Milan, 1821)
  • Andronico (UA Teatro La Fenice , Venice, 1821)
  • Il posto abbandonato, ossia Adele ed Emerico ( WP Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1822; new version Madrid 1826)
  • Amleto (UA Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1822)
  • Alfonso ed Elisa (WP Teatro Nuovo, Mantua, 1822; revised version as Aminta ed Argira, WP Reggio Emilia, 1823)
  • Didone abbandonata (UA Teatro Regio, Turin, 1823)
  • Gli sciti (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1823)
  • Costanzo ed Almeriska (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1823)
  • Gli amici di Siracusa (UA Teatro Argentina, Rome, 1824)
  • Doralice (WP Kärntnertortheater, Vienna, 1824)
  • Le nozze di Telemaco ed Antiope (Pasticcio, WP Kärntnertortheater, Vienna, 1824)
  • Il podesta di Burgos, ossia Il signore del villaggio (WP Kärntnertortheater, Vienna, 1824)
  • Nitocri (UA Teatro Regio, Turin, 1824)
  • Erode, ossia Marianna (UA Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1824)
  • Ipermestra, first version, libretto: Luigi Ricciuti (Premiere Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1825)
  • Caritea, regina di Spagna (Donna Caritea), ossia La morte di Don Alfonso re di Portogallo (UA Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1826)
  • Ezio (UA Teatro Regio, Turin, 1827)
  • Il montanaro (UA Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1827)
  • Ipermestra , second version, libretto: Pietro Metastasio (WP Teatro São Carlos, Lisbon, 1827)
  • La testa di bronzo, ossia La capanna solitaria (UA private theater of Baron Quintella in Laranjeiras, Lisbon; 1827)
  • Adriano in Siria (UA Teatro de São Carlos, Lisbon, 1828)
  • Gabriella di Vergy (WP Teatro de São Carlos, Lisbon, 1828; revised version Genoa, 1832)
  • La rappresaglia (UA Teatro Principal, Cádiz, 1829)
  • Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamaccio (UA Teatro Principal, Cádiz, 1830)
  • Francesca da Rimini (1831, WP Martina Franca, July 30, 2016)
  • Zaïra (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1831)
  • I normanni a Parigi (UA Teatro Regio, Turin, 1832)
  • Ismalia, ossia Amore e morte (UA Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1832)
  • Il conte di Essex (Premiere Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1833)
  • Emma d'Antiochia (UA Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1834)
  • Uggero il danese (UA Teatro Riccardi, Bergamo, 1834)
  • La gioventù di Enrico V (Premiere Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1834)
  • I due Figaro (1827–1829; UA Teatro Principe, Madrid, 1835)
  • Francesca Donato, ossia Corinto distrutta (WP Teatro Regio, Turin, 1835; revised version: Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1845)
  • I briganti (UA Théâtre Italien, Paris, 1836), based on Schiller's drama Die Räuber
  • Il giuramento (UA Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1837)
  • Le due illustri rivali (UA Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1838)
  • Elena da Feltre (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1839)
  • Il bravo (La veneziana) (UA Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1839)
  • La vestale (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1840)
  • La solitaria delle Asturie, ossia La Spagna ricuperata (UA Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1840)
  • Il proscritto (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1842)
  • Il reggente (premier Teatro Regio, Turin, 1843; revised and expanded version: Trieste, 1843)
  • Leonora (UA Teatro Nuovo, Naples, 1844)
  • Il Vascello de Gama (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1845)
  • Orazi e Curiazi (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1846)
  • La schiava saracena, ovvero Il campo di Gerosolima ( WP Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1848; revised version: Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1850)
  • Medea (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1851)
  • Statira (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1853)
  • Violetta (UA Teatro Nuovo, Naples, 1853)
  • Pelagio (UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1857)
  • Virginia (1845–1855; UA Teatro San Carlo, Naples 1866)
  • L'orfano di Brono, ossia Caterina dei Medici (1870, only 1st act completed)

literature

  • Michael Wittmann : Mercadante, Saverio. Article in the MGG encyclopedia .
  • ders .: The rediscovery of Saverio Mercadante on the opera stage. Notes on the world premiere by Francesca da Rimini. In: Sieghart Döhring , Stefanie Rauch (ed.): Music theater in focus. In memory of Gudrun and Heinz Becker , ISBN 978-3-89564-161-9 .
  • ders .: Meyerbeer and Mercadante? Considerations for the Italian Meyerbeer reception. In: Sieghart Döhring , Arnold Jacobshagen (Eds.), Meyerbeer and the European Music Theater, Laaber 1998, pp. 352–385.
  • Clemens Risi: On the way to an Italian musical drama. Conception, staging and reception of the melodramma before 1850 by Saverio Mercadante and Giovanni Pacini . Schneider, Tutzing 2004, ISBN 978-3-7952-1149-3 .

Web links

Commons : Saverio Mercadante  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Burrows (Ed.): Classical Music. Dorling Kindersley Verlag, p. 172
  2. ↑ festivaldellavalleditria.it ( Memento from August 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Mercadante, Saverio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mercadante, Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian opera composer
DATE OF BIRTH baptized September 17, 1795
PLACE OF BIRTH Altamura near Bari
DATE OF DEATH December 17, 1870
Place of death Naples