Stage Works
SKU:
UT.NAP-11R
Composed
by Saverio Mercadante.
Edited by Elisabetta
Pasquini and Enrico
Lombardi. Paperback (Soft
Cover). Napoli e
l’Europa (Naples
and Europe). Classical.
Vocal Score. Ut Orpheus
#NAP 11R. Published by Ut
Orpheus (UT.NAP-11R).
ISBN 9790215324459. 9
x 12 inches.
P
erformance Material on
Hire
[S
olo: SSATTB - Choir: SATB
- 2.2.2.2 - 4.2.3.0 - Tp
- Hp -
Str]
Francesca
da Rimini is a drama
for music in two acts by
Saverio Mercadante,
libretto by Felice
Romani; the text is
freely inspired by the
unfortunate events of the
two lovers, Francesca and
Paolo, of which Dante's
Comedy (canto V)
also
narrates.
According to
some scholars, the first
performance of
Francesca da
Rimini took place in
Madrid in January 1828;
however, this date is not
reflected in the Diario
de Avisos de Madrid, a
publication that daily
reserved a conspicuous
space for news on the
shows staged in the
Spanish city: the years
between 1828 and 1831 in
fact do not mention the
work. Furthermore, no
printed libretto of
Mercadante's Francesca
da Rimini is
preserved today –
an inexplicable fact, if
one admits that the
performance took place.
The text of the opera can
be largely traced back to
the one prepared by
Romani for the homonymous
work by Antonio Carlini
(Naples 1825), which
Mercadante was able to
know before his stay in
Spain.
Following the
missed Spanish premiere,
the opera should then
have been represented at
La Scala Theater in a
subsequent season, with
reliability the imminent
one of the 1831/32
carnival; but shortly
thereafter the impresario
died: thus the
contractual obligations
involving him were no
longer fulfilled, and,
for a second time,
Mercadante was then
forced to shelve the
plans about Francesca
da Rimini, put aside
now for several months.
In fact, the scoring
– very similar to
that of the operas
planned at La Scala in
the same Carnival period
– assumes that
Francesca da
Rimini was destined
for a theatre of great
means, like few others in
Italy besides La Scala.
But the failure of the
opera may also have been
due to the presence of
the part of an amoroso
en travesti,
Paolo, to whom Mercadante
assigns a prominent role
also in terms of music:
in 1831 and in Italy such
a solution was no longer
so frequent as a few
years before or in
provincial theatres, and
so this condition may
possibly have affected
the fate of the
negotiations in Milan,
and may explain how the
composer was then unable
to have the score
performed
elsewhere.
This
critical edition is based
on manuscript copies
conserved in the Museo
internazionale e
Biblioteca della Musica
di Bologna (autograph
score) and in the
Biblioteca Histórica
Municipal in Madrid
(score and separate
parts).
