Mese mariano

Last updated
Mese mariano
Opera by Umberto Giordano
Umberto Giordano by Gaetano Esposito (color).jpg
The composer
Librettist Salvatore Di Giacomo
Premiere
17 March 1910 (1910-03-17)
Teatro Massimo, Palermo

Mese mariano ( Mary's Month ) is an opera in one act by Umberto Giordano. Its Italian libretto by Salvatore Di Giacomo was adapted from his play 'O Mese Mariano, which was in turn adapted from his novella, Senza vederlo (Without Seeing Him). It premiered at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo on 17 March 1910. The opera is described as a bozzetto lirico (lyric sketch) and has a running time of 35 minutes. It tells the story of a woman who visits an orphanage to see her child. Racked with guilt at having abandoned him, she is unaware that he had died the night before.

Contents

Composition history

The play which forms the basis for the libretto was immensely popular in its day. Written in Neapolitan language, it was first performed at the Teatro San Fernando in Naples on 20 January 1900. [1] Giordano, who had seen the play in Milan, was deeply touched by it and asked Di Giacomo to adapt it for an opera. Di Giacomo accepted and agreed to make some changes from the original drama. The setting of the opening scene which allowed Giordano to include a children's chorus was changed to the sunny courtyard in the orphanage with views of the Neapolitan landscape in the distance. [2] The roles of the nuns also became more prominent, making the opera largely one of female voices. In this respect and in terms of its plot, Giordano's work pre-figures Puccini's Suor Angelica which was composed some seven years later.

Librettist Salvatore Di Giacomo Salvatore di Giacomo by Vincenzo Migliaro.jpg
Librettist Salvatore Di Giacomo

Performance history

Mese Mariano premiered at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo on 17 March 1910 conducted by Leopoldo Mugnone with Livia Berlendi in the leading role of Carmela. [3] It was warmly received both in Palermo and in Rome where it was performed a month later at the Teatro Costanzi. [4] On that occasion it was conducted by Pietro Mascagni and presented as a double bill with his Cavalleria rusticana . Emma Carelli sang the role of Carmela.

However, when the opera was first performed in Naples (10 April 1911 at the Teatro San Carlo), [3] it was not a critical success, [5] and Giordano and Di Giacomo further revised the work in 1913. [6] Although Mascagni considered it one of Giordano's best operas, [7] Mese Mariano never achieved the same success as Di Giacomo's play or as Giordano's other (longer) operas, Andrea Chénier and Fedora .

Even in Italy, performances following its initial runs in 1910 and 1911 have been sporadic. In 1931 and 1932, La Scala produced the work and also broadcast it; Augusta Oltrabella appeared in both productions in the leading role of Carmela, according to the notes by Clemens Hoslinger on the Lebendige Vergangenheit CD compilation of commercial recordings by Augusta Oltrabella. This CD includes her 1940 recording of Carmela's monologue "E come?! Ma la pare, signora superiora." Mese Mariano received its first performance in Turin in 1937 at the Teatro Carignano (in a double bill with Hänsel und Gretel ), and in Venice in 1949 at La Fenice (in a double bill with Le jongleur de Notre-Dame ). [3] Its US premiere did not come until 1955, when it was presented at Carnegie Hall in New York. [8] There have been a few late 20th century revivals including those in 1992 at the Teatro del Giglio in Lucca and the Teatro Pergolesi in Jesi and the 1998 performance at the Festival della Valle d'Itria where it was paired with another now-forgotten opera by Giordano, Il re . [9] In addition to Livia Berlendi and Emma Carelli, notable sopranos who have sung the role of Carmela include Clara Petrella, Magda Olivero, Augusta Oltrabella, and Patrizia Ciofi.

Roles

Livia Berlendi, who created the role of Carmela in the 1910 premiere Livia Berlendi Postcard Portrait.jpg
Livia Berlendi, who created the role of Carmela in the 1910 premiere
Roles, voice types, premiere cast
Role Voice type Premiere cast, 17 March 1910
Conductor: Leopoldo Mugnone
Carmela soprano Livia Berlendi
Madre Superiora mezzo-soprano [10] Maria De Loris
Suor Pazienzamezzo-sopranoRosa Garavaglia
La Contessa mezzo-sopranoVittoria D'Ornelli
Suor Cristinamezzo-sopranoMaria Slacer
Suor Celestesoprano
Suor Mariasoprano
Suor Agnesesoprano
Don Fabbiano, the Rector baritone Gennaro Curci
Valentina, a childsoprano
Pietro, a sailor tenor or baritoneArturo Romboli
Children, nuns, servants, and street vendors

Synopsis

Time: 19th century
Setting: an orphanage in Naples [11]

It is Easter Sunday and the children are playing and singing as they await the arrival of the Contessa, one of the benefactors of the orphanage. When she arrives, they serenade her as she distributes gifts to them. One of the children, Valentina, then reads a sonnet written in the Contessa's honour by Don Fabbiano. After the Contessa leaves and the children have been led to their rooms, Carmela enters the courtyard bringing a freshly baked Easter cake for her little boy and asks Suor Pazienza if she might see him. Carmela recognizes the nun as her old childhood friend. Overcome with guilt, she tells Suor Pazienza and the Mother Superior how she had been seduced and abandoned as a young girl and left with a son to bring up on her own. She eventually married a worker who refused to have the child of another man in his house and forced her to leave him in the orphanage. Carmela then goes into the chapel to pray. While she is gone some of the nuns arrive to tell the Mother Superior that Carmela's son had died in the night. The Mother Superior decides not to tell her, explaining instead that child cannot see her because he is with the choir practising for the Mary's Month celebrations. Carmela leaves the orphanage in tears.

Recordings

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balbina Steffenone</span> Italian singer

Balbina Steffenone was a 19th-century soprano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrizia Ciofi</span> Italian opera singer

Patrizia Ciofi is an Italian operatic coloratura soprano.

<i>Fedora</i> (opera) Opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano

Fedora is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1882 play Fédora by Victorien Sardou. Along with Andrea Chénier and Siberia, it is one of the most notable works of Giordano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniela Dessì</span> Italian operatic soprano

Daniela Dessì was an Italian operatic soprano.

<i>Gianni di Parigi</i> Opera by Gaetano Donizetti

Gianni di Parigi is an 1839 melodramma comico in two acts with music by Gaetano Donizetti to a libretto by Felice Romani, which had previously been set by Francesco Morlacchi in 1818 and by Giovanni Antonio Speranza in 1836.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mariella Devia</span> Italian operatic soprano (born 1948)

Mariella Devia is an Italian operatic soprano. After beginning her career as a lyric coloratura soprano, in the finale part of it she also enjoyed considerable success with some of the most dramatic roles in the bel canto repertoire.

Marco Lazzara is an Italian countertenor who sings a wide-ranging repertoire from baroque composers to those of the 20th century and has performed in a number of notable premieres and revivals of rarely performed operas. He has recorded widely on the Bongiovanni, Ricordi, Nuova Era, Forlane, Opera Rara and Dynamic labels.

<i>Le cantatrici villane</i> Comic opera by Valentino Fioravanti

Le cantatrici villane is a comic opera in two acts composed by Valentino Fioravanti to a libretto by Giuseppe Palomba. It was first performed in Naples in 1799. A revised one act version premiered at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice as Le virtuose ridicole in 1801.

<i>Il re</i>

Il re is a novella or opera in one act and three scenes by composer Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. The opera premiered at La Scala in Milan on 12 January 1929.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giuseppina Pasqua</span> Italian opera singer (1851–1930)

Giuseppina Pasqua was an Italian opera singer who performed throughout Italy and Europe from the late 1860s through the early 1900s. She began her career as a soprano when she was only 13, but later retrained her voice as a mezzo-soprano. She sang in several world premieres, but is most remembered today for having created the role of Mistress Quickly in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff. The composer wrote the role specifically for her and dedicated the act 2 aria "Giunta all' albergo" to Pasqua. She was married to the baritone Astorre Giacomelli.

<i>Zanetto</i> Opera by Pietro Mascagni

Zanetto is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci. It received its first performance on 2 March 1896 at the Liceo Musicale Rossini in Pesaro. Only 40 minutes long and with cast of two singers, Zanetto was originally described by its composer as a scena lirica rather than an opera. It is set in the countryside near Florence during the Renaissance and tells the story of an encounter between a beautiful courtesan, Silvia, and a young wandering minstrel, Zanetto. The libretto was adapted from an Italian translation by Emilio Praga of François Coppée's play Le passant in which the young Sarah Bernhardt had won fame in the en travesti role of Zanetto.

<i>La cena delle beffe</i> Italian opera by Umberto Giordano

La cena delle beffe is an opera in four acts composed by Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Sem Benelli adapted from his 1909 play of the same name. The opera premiered on 20 December 1924 at La Scala. Milan. The story, set in Florence at the time of Lorenzo de' Medici, recounts the rivalry between Giannetto Malespini and Neri Chiaramantesi for the affections of the beautiful Ginevra and Giannetto's thirst for revenge over a cruel joke played on him by Neri and his brother Gabriello. Giannetto's revenge "joke" ultimately leads Neri to murder both Ginevra and his own brother. The opera ends with Neri's descent into madness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adelaide Borghi-Mamo</span> Italian opera singer (1826–1901)

Adelaide Borghi-Mamo was an Italian operatic mezzo-soprano who had an active international career from the 1840s through the 1880s. She was married to tenor Michele Mamo and their daughter, soprano Erminia Borghi-Mamo, also had a successful singing career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmela Remigio</span> Italian operatic soprano

Carmela Remigio is an Italian operatic soprano.

<i>Gloria</i> (opera) Opera by Francesco Cilea

Gloria is a tragic opera in three acts by Francesco Cilea with an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti. A variation on the Romeo and Juliet story and set in 14th century Siena, the libretto is based on Victorien Sardou's 1874 play La Haine (Hatred). The opera premiered on 15 April 1907 at La Scala conducted by Arturo Toscanini with Solomiya Krushelnytska in the title role. Gloria was a failure at its premiere when it was withdrawn after two performances and fared little better in the 1932 revised version, although there have been two late 20th century revivals. It proved to be Cilea's last staged opera. In the 43 years following the premiere of Gloria he worked on two or three further operas which were never performed and continued to compose chamber and orchestral music.

Gemma Bosini was an Italian operatic soprano who had an active international performance career in 1909–1930. She is especially associated with the role of Alice Ford in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff, a role which she performed more than 400 times on stage during her career. She is also remembered for being the first soprano to record the role of Mimì in Giacomo Puccini's La boheme in 1917. She also made complete recordings of Gounod's Faust and Lehar's The Merry Widow. After retiring from performance in 1930, she devoted herself to teaching singing and managing the career of her husband, baritone Mariano Stabile.

<i>Don Bucefalo</i>

Don Bucefalo is an opera in three acts composed by Antonio Cagnoni to a libretto by Calisto Bassi. Bassi's libretto was based on the libretto by Giuseppe Palomba to Le cantatrici villane (1799) by Valentino Fioravanti. Don Bucefalo premiered on 28 June 1847 at the Milan Conservatory.

Laura Giordano is an Italian lyric soprano.

NeldaGarrone was an Italian mezzo-soprano, best known for her interpretations of comprimaria roles in some of the earliest complete opera recordings.

Maria Cecilia Fusco was an Italian operatic soprano and voice teacher. In a long career, she appeared regularly at La Scala in Milan, and leading opera houses in Italy and abroad. Her broad repertoire included works from early Italian opera to premieres of contemporary opera.

References

Notes

  1. Borelli (2007) p. 71. The play was also made into a 1929 silent film directed by Ubaldo Pittei  [ it ] (see British Film Institute Database)
  2. Article in Corriere della Sera , 15 May 1909, summarized in Archivi Teatro Napoli
  3. 1 2 3 Casaglia (2005)
  4. Gelli (2007)
  5. Il Mattino , 11–12 April 1911, summarized in Archivi Teatro Napoli
  6. Budden (2002) p. 391
  7. Gelli (2007)
  8. The New York Times, 7 June 1955, p. 38.
  9. Pugliaro (2007) p. 354
  10. Although Carmela has been invariably sung by a soprano, most of the other adult female roles have been sung by both sopranos and mezzo-sopranos.
  11. Synopsis based on Gelli (2007)
  12. Recordings of Mese Mariano on operadis-opera-discography.org.uk

Sources