Stiffelio

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Work data
Title: Stiffelio
Title page of the libretto, Milan 1850

Title page of the libretto, Milan 1850

Shape: Opera in three acts
Original language: Italian
Music: Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto : Francesco Maria Piave
Literary source: Le pasteur, ou L'évangile et le foyer by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois
Premiere: November 16, 1850
Place of premiere: Trieste , Teatro Grande
Playing time: approx. 1 ¾ hours
Place and time of the action: Germany, 19th century
people
  • Stiffelio (Rodolfo Müller), Protestant pastor ( tenor )
  • Lina, his wife, daughter of Stankar ( soprano )
  • Dorotea, Lina's cousin ( mezzo-soprano )
  • Stankar, an old colonel, imperial count ( baritone )
  • Jorg, another old preacher ( bass )
  • Raffaele, Edler von Leuthold (tenor)
  • Federico von Frengel, Lina's cousin (tenor)
  • Fritz, servant (silent role)
  • Friends of the Count, followers of Stiffelios ( choir and extras ).

Stiffelio is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi based on a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave . The plot of the opera is based on the play Le pasteur, ou L'évangile et le foyer by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois, which premiered in 1849 . The first performance of the opera took place on November 16, 1850 at the Teatro Grande in Trieste . After problems with the censorship authorities and falsifying interventions, Piave and Verdi reworked the opera seven years later into Aroldo, which premiered in Rimini .

action

prehistory

The action takes place in Germany in the 19th century. Stiffelio had to flee from unnamed enemies, probably religious opponents, and found refuge with Stankar under the name Rodolfo Müller. He is now a respected preacher and married to Lina, Stankar's daughter. During one of Stiffelio's long journeys, Raffaele Leuthold, a notorious seducer, induced Stiffelio's wife Lina to commit adultery.

first act

First picture: Ground floor hall in Stankar's castle

Pastor Jorg, who reads in Klopstock's Messiah , urgently awaits Stiffelio's return because his fellow believers lack his advice. When Stiffelio and Lina enter, Stankar, Federico, Raffaele and Dorotea join them. Stiffelio tells a strange story. Eight days ago a skipper had observed a man at a window of the castle and next to him a woman who seemed to be out of her mind. Finally the man climbed out of the window and fled into the water. In the process, the man lost a wallet that the boatman had given Stiffelio. Lina and Raffaele startle, Stankar suspects. Stiffelio does not want to read the papers, but throws the wallet into the fire because of the mercy of God to eradicate sin. Raffaele hisses at Lina that he wants to put a message in the book for her. When friends and followers of Stiffelio greet him with a song of praise, he says that God alone is to be praised. Lina is plagued by remorse.

Lars Cleveman and Lena Nordin as Stiffelio and Lina, Royal Stockholm Opera 2011

When she is alone with Stiffelio, he complains that on his journey he has only experienced oppression, vice, greed for money, the lack of humanity and adulterous women. Remembering that today is his wedding anniversary, he discovers that she is no longer wearing her ring. From her sigh he recognizes her failure. After Stankar called Stiffelio, whom he still calls Müller, to a meeting, Lina tried to pray full of remorse and to confess everything to her husband in a letter. Stankar surprises her, takes the letter from her and reads the contents. Stankar accuses her of bringing shame on him. He tells her to keep silent about the misstep so as not to disturb Stiffelio's peace of mind. Raffaele secretly puts a letter to Lina in the locked book in which he asks her to meet. Federico, Lina's cousin, takes the book with him.

Second picture: Festively illuminated reception hall of the castle

In Finale I, Jorg, who was watching Raffaele, tells Stiffelio that someone has left a message in the book. When Stiffelio tries to open the book, the letter falls out. Stankar reads it, tears up the letter, and challenges Raffaele to a duel in the churchyard.

Second act

An old cemetery. In the middle a cross, on the left a church

Lina prays for forgiveness at her mother's grave. Raffaele comes in. At her request to return the letters and the ring and to leave, he refuses. Stankar comes with two swords in hand to duel with Raffaele and sends Lina away. Raffaele doesn't want to fight until Stankar insults him as a "foundling". Stiffelio, stepping out of the church, discovers the duelists and forbids them to fight each other, especially on the consecrated earth. Instead, he demands that they reconcile. When Lina arrives, she asks her husband for forgiveness. Stiffelio now realizes that Raffaele is his rival and wants to fight him himself. A religious song sounds from the church. Jorg, stepping out of the church, asks Stiffelio to give consolation to the congregation. Stiffelio, who is still angry, comes to his senses but never wants to forgive his faithless wife. When Jorg points to the cemetery cross, Stiffelio passes out at the foot of the cross.

Third act

First picture: a vestibule (anticamera) with doors

Raffaele has fled and has left Lina a letter asking her to follow him. Stankar, who intercepted the letter, gets angry again, feels dishonored and writes a farewell letter to Stiffelio, only to commit suicide with a pistol. Jorg, looking for Stiffelio, tells Stankar that he has tracked down Raffaele and brought him with him. Stankar wants revenge and gives up the thought of suicide. Stiffelio asks Raffaele what he would do if he released Lina. Raffaele doesn't know the answer. Stiffelio, who has asked Lina for a conversation, sends Raffaele to an adjoining room so that he overhears the conversation. Stiffelio releases Lina so that she can live with Raffaele. He declares the marriage invalid and gives her the letter of divorce. Lina finally signs. Only now is she no longer bound by the promise made to her father and asks Stiffelio as pastor to make her confession. In doing so, she confesses that she still loves Stiffelio and that she was exploited and seduced by Raffaele. Stiffelio plans to kill Raffaele, but Stankar got ahead of him. Stiffelio and Jorg decide to leave the scene of the crime and go to church. Lina doesn't believe in forgiveness for her unwanted sin.

Second picture: interior of a Gothic church, pulpit on a column

Dorotea, Federico and the choir sing a penance psalm. Stankar asks God's forgiveness. Jorg suggests that the still confused Stiffelio open the Bible. God would enlighten him. Stiffelio opens the New Testament where Jesus forgives the adulteress and reads the passage aloud. Stiffelio also forgives.

Instrumentation

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

Work history

Origin and musical classification

The drama on which the opera is based had become known in an Italian translation by Gaetano Vestri in 1848, the year before the Paris premiere . This piece deals with the adultery of a Protestant pastor's wife, which was still considered scandalous at the time, although Émile Souvestre incorporated moralizing teachings. Verdi saw the piece as suitable operatic material, but dispensed with part of the prehistory, which does not adequately explain the role of Lina, the pastor's wife, and her seducer.

Verdi set the Stiffelio to music after Luisa Miller , at a time when he had returned from Paris with his future wife, the singer Giuseppina Strepponi , and settled with her in Busseto . Thus, Stiffelio was the opera that preceded the Rigoletto , the Troubadour and the Traviata . In the opinion of the Verdi biographer Budden, these years between 1849 and 1853 are “among the most fertile times” of Verdi.

reception

Under the pressure of the censorship authorities , which were particularly intransigent after the failed revolution of 1848/49 and the restoration that followed, the plot of the opera had to be changed before the premiere. So it was unthinkable in Italy that a priest was married. Therefore, Stiffelio, like the preacher Jorg, were demoted to sectarian lay people and sect preachers of the Assasverians / Ahasverians . In the duet between Lina and Stiffelio in the third act, where Lina calls her husband as a pastor and wants to go to confession, the position became Ministro, confessatemi! (“Priest, hear my confession!”) ​​The meaningless exclamation: Rodolfo, deh! ascoltatemi! ("Rodolfo, ah! Hear me!"). The scene in the church also had to be redesigned according to the will of the censors in order not to give the impression that the believers were gathered "to hear the word of God". Stiffelio was also not allowed to quote from the Gospel.

After this and other mutilations of the opera, the first performance took place in February 1850 in Trieste, where the work met with incomprehension and the audience only applauded weakly. At this point Verdi was already conceiving the music for Rigoletto , so that he did not find time to rewrite the work.

The revivals in Naples and the Papal States Stiffelio could no longer be a preacher, but mutated to a minister named "Guglielmo Wellingrode". Verdi did not agree with these changes. When the Stiffelio was due to be performed at La Scala in Milan in early 1851, Verdi wrote to his publisher to wait until he had remodeled the scene in the church. He saw an opportunity to do so when the opera was to be performed in Bologna in 1852 and Verdi was invited to rehearsals. However, when he learned that the opera was to be performed in the distorted form under the title Wellingrode, he canceled .

Ultimately, Verdi saw only the possibility of completely reworking the opera by changing the place and time of the plot. Stiffelio became a crusader named Aroldo . The librettist Piave and Verdi rewrote many scenes of the opera, so that the first performance of Aroldo was tantamount to a world premiere.

After the successful performance of Aroldo , Verdi ordered the earlier sheet music to be destroyed. He himself had torn out the changed passages in the autograph and replaced them. However, some piano reductions were preserved, from which the original opera could be reconstructed by Verdi researchers.

It was not until the late 1960s that the original scores of Stiffelio and Guglielmo Wellingrode were found in the library of the Naples Conservatory, so that an unadulterated performance of Stiffelio was possible. The first revival of the Stiffelio took place on December 26, 1968 under the direction of Peter Maag at the Teatro Regio in Parma .

Discography (selection)

(Year; conductor; Stiffelio, Lina, Stankar, Jorg, Raffaele; orchestra; label)

literature

  • Julian Budden: An unjustifiably neglected opera. Analysis in the CD booklet, recorded by Philips 1980.
  • Julian Budden: Verdi - life and work. Revised edition, Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-15-010469-6 , pp. 220-223.
  • Rolf Fath: Reclam's Little Verdi Opera Guide. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-15-018077-5 .
  • Heinz Wagner: The great manual of the opera. 2nd edition, Florian Noetzel Verlag, Wilhelmshaven 1995, p. 740 f. and 744.
  • Max U. Balsiger: Verdi's “Stiffelio” - A Lesson in Theology? In: Studi Verdiani 20. Parma 2006-2007, pp. 87-108.
  • Kathleen Kuzmich Hansell, Ph. Gossett u. a: Le opere di Verdi. Band Stiffelio. In: Series 1 Vol. 16. Ed. The University of Chicago Press / Ricordi Milano.
  • Max U. Balsiger: Program for “Stiffelio”. Zurich Opera House, March 2005.
  • Bärbel Plötner-Le Lay: Émile Souvestre - Écrivain breton porté par l'utopie sociale. Center de recherche bretonne et celtique, Brest / Lyon 2007, ISBN 978-2-901737-76-6 .
  • Max U. Balsiger: Divine service in the opera - Verdi's “Stiffelio” as a reflex of Pietism. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from September 25, 2004.

Web links

Commons : Stiffelio  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Émile Souvestre; Eugène Bourgeois: Stifellius! : dramma in cinque atti e be quadri . Translation into Italian by Gaetano Vestri . Milan: Borroni e Scotti, 1848
  2. ^ Fath: Reclam's Little Verdi Opera Guide. 2000, p. 81. Budden: An unjustly neglected opera. 1980, p. 11 and p. 23, on the other hand, mention November 20, 1850.
  3. ↑ No. 5, Szene und Arie, libretto in the booklet of the CD 1980, p. 88 f.
  4. ↑ Michela Garda: Stiffelio / Aroldo. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Volume 6: Works. Spontini - Zumsteeg. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-492-02421-1 , p. 429
  5. ^ Budden: An unjustifiably neglected opera. 1980, p. 24 f.
  6. ^ Budden: An unjustifiably neglected opera. 1980, p. 23.
  7. ^ Budden: An unjustifiably neglected opera. 1980, p. 26 and p. 28.
  8. ^ Budden: An unjustifiably neglected opera. 1980, p. 28.
  9. ^ Budden: An unjustifiably neglected opera. 1980, p. 23.
  10. ^ Budden: An unjustifiably neglected opera. 1980, p. 28 f.
  11. ^ Budden: An unjustifiably neglected opera. 1980, p. 31.