L'anima del filosofo | |
---|---|
Opera by Joseph Haydn | |
Translation | The Soul of the Philosopher |
Other title | Orfeo ed Euridice |
Librettist | Carlo Francesco Badini |
Language | Italian |
Based on | Myth of Orpheus |
Premiere |
L'anima del filosofo, ossia Orfeo ed Euridice (The Soul of the Philosopher, or Orpheus and Euridice), Hob. 28/13, is an opera in Italian in four acts by Joseph Haydn and is one of the last two operas written during his life, the other being Armida (1783).The libretto, by Carlo Francesco Badini, is based on the myth of Orpheus and Euridice as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses . Composed in 1791 for His Majesty's Theatre during his first visit to England, [1] the opera was never performed during Haydn's lifetime and only given its formal premiere in 1951. [2]
After his patron Prince Nikolaus Esterházy had died in 1790, Haydn travelled to London where he received a commission to write several symphonies. The impresario John Gallini offered him a contract to write an opera for The King's Theatre but due to a dispute between King George III and the Prince of Wales he was refused permission to stage it in May 1791. There are some uncertainties about why the opera was banned at the time.[ clarification needed ]
The score was nearly completed but was not published in its complete form before the 20th century. It was partially published by Breitkopf & Härtel in c. 1807. [3]
Various manuscripts were scattered in several European libraries. [4] H. C. Robbins Landon did much to assemble the available scores.
L'anima del filosofo remained unperformed until 9 June 1951, when it appeared at the Teatro della Pergola, Florence, with a cast including Maria Callas and Boris Christoff, under the conductor Erich Kleiber.
The UK premiere was in 1955, a concert performance at the St Pancras Festival. This was the debut of the baritone Derek Hammond-Stroud. [5] It has been performed and recorded several times since then. The opera makes extensive use of the chorus.
Role | Voice type | Premiere cast, 9 June 1951 [6] Conductor: Erich Kleiber |
---|---|---|
Orfeo | tenor | Thyge Thygesen |
Euridice | soprano | Maria Callas |
Plutone | bass | Mario Frosini |
Creonte | bass | Boris Christoff |
Baccante | soprano | Liliana Poli |
Genio | soprano | Julanna Farkas |
First courtier | baritone | Camillo Righini |
Second courtier/Warrior | tenor | Gino Orlandini |
Third courtier | baritone | Edio Peruzzi |
Fourth courtier | tenor | Lido Pettini |
The opera is scored for a 12-instrument classical chamber orchestra:
Haydn borrowed previously composed music as the basis for select portions of the opera. One notable example is Genio's "C Major" aria which was a reformed version of Flaminia's aria "Ragion nell'alma siede" from the 1773 opera, Philemon und Baucis. [7]
Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck, based on the myth of Orpheus and set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing. The piece was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 5 October 1762, in the presence of Empress Maria Theresa. Orfeo ed Euridice is the first of Gluck's "reform" operas, in which he attempted to replace the abstruse plots and overly complex music of opera seria with a "noble simplicity" in both the music and the drama.
Cecilia BartoliOMRI is an Italian coloratura mezzo-soprano opera singer and recitalist. She is best known for her interpretations of the music of Bellini, Handel, Mozart, Rossini and Vivaldi, as well as for her performances of lesser-known music from the Baroque and Classical period. She is known for singing both soprano and mezzo roles.
Helen Jeanette Donath is an American soprano with a career spanning fifty years.
Euridice is an opera by Jacopo Peri, with additional music by Giulio Caccini. It is the earliest surviving opera, Peri's earlier Dafne being lost. The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini is based on books X and XI of Ovid's Metamorphoses which recount the story of the legendary musician Orpheus and his wife Euridice.
Derek Hammond-Stroud was an English baritone opera singer best known for his performances of German lieder and his international performances in opera, particularly the roles of Alberich in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, Herr Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier and Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. He also made recordings, including a series of recordings of the Gilbert and Sullivan patter roles.
Vito Giuseppe Millico, called "Il Moscovita", was an Italian soprano castrato, composer, and music teacher of the 18th century who is best remembered for his performances in the operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck.
Le carnaval de Venise is a comédie-lyrique in a prologue and three acts by the French composer André Campra. The libretto is by Jean-François Regnard. It was first performed on 20 January 1699 by the Académie royale de musique in the Salle du Palais-Royal in Paris. Campra dedicated the work to Louis, Grand Dauphin, heir apparent to the French throne, who enjoyed it and had it staged again in February 1711, shortly before his death. In one critic's assessment: "In a magisterial act of conflation, this composer blends the styles of Lully, Lalande, Monteverdi and Cavalli and manages also to foreshadow Handel and Rameau. He dreamt up a multi-hued score, capable of recapturing in Paris both the carnival spirit in general and that of the legendary Venice in particular."
Orfeo (Orpheus) is an opera in three acts by the Italian composer Antonio Sartorio. The libretto, by Aurelio Aureli, is based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. It was first performed at the Teatro San Salvatore, Venice in 1672. With its clear division between arias and recitative, the work marks a transition in style between the Venetian opera of Francesco Cavalli and the new form of opera seria. Modern reactions to the work have been mixed, with Tim Carter describing it as "a fairly dismal example of a genre with all the symptoms of terminal decline...[Orfeo]'s journey to Hades seems almost a Sunday-school outing...Whether satire or not, this is indeed a sorry tale."
Euridice is an opera in a prologue and one act by the Italian composer Giulio Caccini. The libretto, by Ottavio Rinuccini, had already been set by Caccini's rival Jacopo Peri in 1600. Caccini's version of Euridice was first performed at the Pitti Palace, Florence, on 5 December 1602. Caccini hurriedly prepared the score for the press and published it six weeks before Peri's version appeared.
Orfeo (Orpheus) is an opera in three acts, a prologue and an epilogue by the Italian composer Luigi Rossi. The libretto, by Francesco Buti, is based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orfeo premiered at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris on 2 March 1647. It was one of the earliest operas to be staged in France.
Orpheus is an opera in three acts by the German composer Georg Philipp Telemann. It was first performed in a concert version at the Oper am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg on 9 March 1726. The anonymous libretto is based on the 1690 opera Orphée by Michel Duboullay, originally set by the French composer Louis Lully. Most of the work is in German but it also contains passages in French and Italian drawn from famous operas by Handel and Jean-Baptiste Lully. The music to these words is Telemann's own, however. The manuscript score of Telemann's Orpheus was not rediscovered until the late 20th century.
Giacomo David, was a leading Italian tenor of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Faniska is an opera eroica in three acts by Luigi Cherubini. The German libretto, by Joseph Sonnleithner, is based on the melodrama Les mines de Pologne (1803) by René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt.
Kenneth Tarver is an American operatic tenor, born in Detroit. He has appeared at some of the world's most prestigious opera houses, such as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Municipal Theatre of Santiago in Chile, Wiener Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Bayerische Staatsoper, Dresden Semperoper, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, Opéra Comique París, Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste, La Monnaie Brussels, Metropolitan Opera, Washington and Teatro San Carlo Naples.
Le feste d'Apollo is an operatic work by Christoph Willibald von Gluck, first performed at the Teatrino della Corte, Parma, Italy, on 24 August 1769 for the wedding celebrations of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma and Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria.
Anne-Marie Krumpholtz was a French harpist and composer.
The following discography for Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice is mainly based on the research of Giuseppe Rossi, which appeared in the programme notes to the performance of the work at the 70th Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2007, under the title "Discografia – Christoph Willibald Gluck – Orfeo ed Euridice ". Rossi's data has been checked against the sources referenced in the notes.