Tancredi
Tancredi is a melodramma eroico (opera seria or heroic opera) in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi (who was also to write Semiramide ten years later), based on Voltaire's play Tancrède (1760). The opera made its first appearance at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 6 February 1813, less than a month after the premiere of his previous opera Il signor Bruschino. The overture, borrowed from La pietra del paragone, is a popular example of Rossini's characteristic style and is regularly performed in concert and recorded.
For other uses, see Tancredi (disambiguation).Tancredi
Considered by Stendhal, Rossini's earliest biographer, to be "high amongst the composer's masterworks",[1] and describing it as "a genuine thunderbolt out of a clear, blue sky for the Italian lyric theatre,"[2] his librettist Gaetano Rossi notes that, with it, "Rossini rose to glory".[3] Richard Osborne proclaims it to be "his fully fledged opera seria and it established him, more or less instantly, as Italy's leading composer of contemporary opera."[3]
Although the original version had a happy ending (as required by the opera seria tradition), soon after the Venice premiere, Rossini—who was more of a Neo-classicist than a Romantic, notes Servadio[4]—had the poet Luigi Lechi rework the libretto to emulate the original tragic ending by Voltaire. In this new ending, presented at the Teatro Comunale in Ferrara on 21 March 1813, Tancredi wins the battle but is mortally wounded,[1] and only then does he learn that Amenaide never betrayed him. Argirio marries the lovers in time for Tancredi to die in his wife's arms.
As has been stated by Philip Gossett and Patricia Brauner, it was the rediscovery of the score of this ending in 1974 (although elsewhere Gossett provides evidence that it was 1976)[5] that resulted in the version which is usually performed today.[1]
Performance history[edit]
19th century
Tancredi premiered in February 1813 at La Fenice in Venice with Adelaide Malanotte in the title role. The first two performances suffered because of vocal problems from its two female principals, but its success was assured over six performances into the following month.
It was quickly re-mounted in a revised version in Ferrara in March of that year which reverted to Voltaire's tragic ending, but audiences disliked it and subsequent performances there reverted to the Venice ending,[17] with a further revision appearing in Milan in December. Gossett established in 1971 that, later, Rossini also participated in other revisions for performances elsewhere in Italy, including those at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in 1814 and the Naples premiere given at the Teatro del Fondo in 1816 and again in 1818.[7]
However, Heather Hadlock notes that it was the Milanese version of December 1813 which became "something like a definitive form, and in this form it took Italy by storm".[15] Other Italian houses presented the Venice version, including the Teatro Apollo in Rome (1814), the Teatro Regio di Torino (1814 and 1829), La Fenice again (1815, 1823 and 1833), and the Teatro San Moisè in Venice in March 1816 when, in another revision, it is the dying Solamir who professes Amenaide's innocence, and Tancredi returns home in triumph.
Philip Gossett's research in 1971 states that "until about 1825 the musical text was rather fluid. The first Ricordi edition (1829), which differs significantly from the later ones, corresponds to the Milanese version",[7]
but many other Italian cities saw the opera, including Florence (in 1814, 1816, and 1825), Padua (1814), Livorno (1815), Vicenza (1816), Macerata (1817), Camerino (1828), Viterbo (1828), Milan (1829), and Trieste (1830).
Outside of Italy, it was given in Corfù (1822), Lisbon (as Tacredo) (1826), and Geneva (1828). The opera was first performed in England at the King's Theatre in London on 4 May 1820 with Fanny Corri-Paltoni as Amenaide. Its French premiere was given by the Théâtre-Lyrique Italien at the Salle Louvois in Paris on 23 April 1822 with Giuditta Pasta in the title role. It was seen in Portugal for the first time at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos on 18 September 1822 (as Tancredo) and was given its La Scala premiere on 8 November 1823 with Brigida Lorenzani as Tancredi.[18]
The United States premiere occurred on 31 December 1825 at the Park Theatre in New York City using the revised Ferrara version by Lechi. The Paris Opéra mounted the work for the first time with Maria Malibran in the title role on 30 March 1829. After an 1833 revival at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Tancredi was not mounted again until almost 120 years later.
20th century and beyond
The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino revived the work on 17 May 1952 with Giulietta Simionato in the title role, Teresa Stich-Randall as Amenaide, Francesco Albanese as Argirio, Mario Petri as Orbazzano, and Tullio Serafin conducting. The opera was given at the Collegiate Theatre as part of the Camden Festival in April 1971 by the Basilica Opera.[7]
With the discovery of the long-lost music for the March 1813 Ferrara revision and the resulting preparation and completion of the critical edition, the work was revived when mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, who had expressed interest as early as 1972 in performing the Ferrara edition if it ever came to light[19] took on the title role at the Houston Grand Opera on 13 October 1977. Horne, who quickly became strongly associated with that role, insisted on the tragic Ferrara ending, citing that it is more consistent with the overall tone of the opera and that she "did not find the happy ending convincing".[14] Indeed, most of the recordings of this opera today use the Ferrara conclusion, while some include the Venice finale as an extra track.
Horne's triumphant performances as Tancredi in Houston soon led to invitations from other opera houses to sing the role, and it is largely through her efforts that the opera enjoyed a surge of revivals during the latter half of the 20th century. She sang the part for performances at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma (1977), the San Francisco Opera (1979), the Aix-en-Provence Festival (1981), La Fenice (1981, 1983), and the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1989) among others.
Contralto Ewa Podleś achieved recognition in the title role, performing it at the Vlaamse Opera (1991), La Scala (1993), the Berlin State Opera (1996), Polish National Opera at Warsaw (2000), the Canadian Opera Company (2005), the Caramoor International Music Festival (2006), the Teatro Real (2007), and Opera Boston (2009) among others. She also recorded the role in 1995. Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova has also been praised in the role, singing it at the Salzburg Festival (1992), with the Opera Orchestra of New York (1997), and on a 1996 recording with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Munich Radio Orchestra.
Pier Luigi Pizzi staged a new production of Tancredi for the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro in 1982[20]
which originally utilised both the tragic and happy endings – the former being interpolated as a "dream sequence" for Amenaide. He also designed both costumes and scenery. The production was conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti and featured Lucia Valentini Terrani in the title role, as well as Dalmacio Gonzales as Argirio, Katia Ricciarelli as Amenaide, Giancarlo Luccardi as Orbazzano and, as Isaura, Bernadette Manca di Nissa – who later went on to perform the title role for the 1992 live DVD recording. The production was also revived at Pesaro in 1991, 1999, and 2004.
Tancredi was staged at 2003 at Polish National Opera at Warsaw, in the performance directed by Tomasz Konina and conducted by Alberto Zedda, the title role was sung by Ewa Podleś,[21] with original tragic ending. The second production in Poland took place in Warsaw Chamber Opera in 2008.
In 2005 the production went to Rome and Florence (where it was filmed for DVD with Daniela Barcellona in the title role), and then it was presented by the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2011, with Alberto Zedda conducting. Barcellona sang Tancredi again in a new staging of the opera at the Teatro Regio di Torino in November 2009 after reprising the part in February 2009 at the Teatro de la Maestranza. The Theater an der Wien mounted the work for the first time in October 2009 with Vivica Genaux in the title role and René Jacobs conducting.
Tancredi was presented in concert by the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in December 2009 with Nora Gubisch as Tancredi. In addition, as part of its Rossini revivals series, it presented a fully staged production in May 2014 with Marie-Nicole Lemieux in the title role and Patrizia Ciofi as Amenaide. The production used the "unhappy" Ferrara ending, but incorporated many of the changes and reversions found in the December 1813 version for Milan.[22]
In 2018 Teatro Nuovo presented alternating performances of the original Venetian score (including the portions that have been replaced in most modern productions) and a version they called Tancredi rifatto, incorporating every known substitute piece by Rossini (including the aria written to replace "Di tanti palpiti").[23]
Music[edit]
In regard to Rossini's innovations which appear in this, his first opera seria, the Grove Dictionary notes that they "were derived from his early one-act operas"[24] and writer Gaia Servadio notes that [the opera] marks an important stage in the development of opera through the innovations that Rossini brought. With self-assurance and guts, he introduced changes now often taken for granted: the recitatives are short and linked to the context of the arias; there is a new and masterful balance between the dramatic, the lyrical, and the musical; and the chorus makes its first appearance in an opera seria[4]
But it is in the innovations which move away from accepted formulas and which are seen in the finale of the opera in its Ferrara edition that Philip Gossett finds the most striking in Tancredi: "the 'Cavatina Finale' as Rossini called the concluding moments of the opera, depart so completely from typical finale designs of the period that we can easily comprehend their failure to gain popular approval. Gone are the coloratura flourishes; gone is a more elaborate orchestration; gone are requirements of phrase construction and cadential repetition; gone, in short, are the conventions that usually rule Italian opera. Instead, the concluding moments of the opera mirror each word of the dying hero, supported essentially by strings alone."[25]
Additionally, we find in Gossett and Brauner an explanation of another aspect of Rossini's compositional style: in his vocal writing, although the opera continues to use "closed numbers separated by secco recitatives, a flexibility of style makes possible extensive dramatic activity within numbers."[26] They continue stating that it is in the duets that a sectional form is employed so that "the opening section allows dramatic confrontation between the characters, who express their often differing emotions in parallel stanzas." There follows a lyrical section – "with further dramatic interaction" – and then the cabaletta which allows for greater confrontation or accord, thus reflecting any changes in the dramatic configuration.[26]
Notes
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