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Rigoletto in Mantua | Palazzo Te, the pleasure palace

What is Rigoletto it about? This sounds like a simple question, which could be answered by telling the story of the Duke of Mantua, the city of Mantua, his hunchback jester and the jester’s daughter, Gilda. A story of love, deception, revenge, and death. The story, of course, is so close to the one told by playwright and poet Victor Hugo in his play Le Roi s’amuse (The King has fun), that they could appear the same thing. But anyone who loves opera will not be satisfied by this explanation. In the best operas, music is much more than an accompaniment to the story: it is through the power of music that the story unfolds into the drama. Verdi fell literally in love with Hugo’s play and was determined to translate it into music; despite his librettist Francesco Maria Piave‘s concerns, particularly over the fourth act culminating in the deposition of a dying Gilda in a bag. In a letter dated June 1850, Verdi explains the reasons he suggested as a title for the opera Monterone’s curse or, by the short, The Curse. “The subject is the curse as a moral element: A distraught father who mourns the honor taken away from his daughter, a […]

January

Pesaro | Pavarotti’s “Buen retiro”

The house has an unbeatable location. Situated halfway up the hill that gradually becomes mountain, the San Bartolo – the only high stretch of coast on the Adriatic sea along with Trieste and Ancona – it faces a large bay. A lush vegetation surrounds the white building from early spring to late autumn. During summer it provides a shelter from the heat of the blazing sun and also from the curious eyes of the bathers crowding the beach – mainly locals as this is not a trendy beach; it’s simply a nice place -. Vegetation could not, however, shield the sounds. So, in the years gone by, it was quite common for people lying on the beach – including me – to hear the Maestro’s powerful voice singing a piece or some musical charade. It was quite something!

February

The Servant turned Mistress | La Serva Padrona

La Serva Padrona, composed on a libretto by Gennaro Antonio Federico in 1733, is an intermezzo divided into two interludes. It was originally designed to be performed between the acts of the opera seria Il prigioniero superbo by Pergolesi himself, staged at the Teatro San Bartolomeo in Naples on the occasion of the birthday of the empress Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick, wife of the emperor Charles VI and mother of the empress Marie Therese of Augsburg. That very same libretto had been used by almost every composer in Naples and therefore was already popular in a number of successful versions. The definition of believable characters and the solid realism of the short story, revolving almost entirely around the characters’ psychology made of the libretto a success. Pergolesi’s genius turned it into a masterpiece.

December

Domenico Cimarosa | The triumph of the Neapolitan school

The Neapolitan school and the trumph of the classical style Domenico Cimarosa’s successes are a prove of the fact that the revolutionary charge of Mozart’s operas wasn’t fully understood by his contemporaries. The secret marriage is regarded as the masterpiece of the comic Neapolitan School and has been almost constantly performed since its composition; yet its characters don’t have a naturalness or a psychological definition comparable to that of Mozart’s. An unmatched reputation as a composer Cimarosa was however the best of his time for his ability of setting into fine music ordinary-life stories. He gave voice to real people with their passions and anxieties, reveiling their true heart. Through the refined melodies of his arias, his characters describe their actions and emotions with freshness and effectiveness. Cimarosa wrote a total of 99 operas filled with delightful pages, graceful melodies and funny and profoundly human characters. In the last years of his life and before Rossini became famous, his reputation as a composer was unmatched. Cimarosa, a brief biography Domenico Cimarosa was born in Aversa, nearby Caserta on the 17th December 1749. Just a few days after his birth his family moved to Naples, as his father was hired for the construction of […]

Tag Archives: opera seria

Rigoletto in Mantua | Palazzo Te, the pleasure palace

Pesaro | Pavarotti’s “Buen retiro”

The Servant turned Mistress | La Serva Padrona

Domenico Cimarosa | The triumph of the Neapolitan school

Siracusa | Rossini’s Tancredi

The transition between 18th and 19th century in Opera

The Comic Opera revolution | From Opera Seria to modern opera

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