Zoraida di Granata
Opera by Gaetano Donizetti / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Zoraida di Granata (also Zoraide di Granata or Zoraïda di Granata) is a melodramma eroico (opera seria or 'heroic' opera), in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The Italian libretto had been partly prepared by Bartolomeo Merelli (about whose tardiness the composer complained), based on the French play, Gonzalve de Cordoue ou Grenade Reconquise by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1791), and on a libretto by Luigi Romanelli to an opera by Nicolini called Abenamet e Zoraide.
Zoraida di Granata | |
---|---|
Opera by Gaetano Donizetti | |
Librettist | Bartolomeo Merelli |
Language | Italian |
Based on | Gonzalve de Cordoue by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian |
Premiere |
When Donizetti arrived in Rome, carrying a letter of introduction from his teacher and mentor Johann Simon Mayr to poet and librettist Jacopo Ferretti, he secured his help in revising Merelli's text.[1]
Although it was Donizetti's first theatrical success "and the opera in which he began to adopt 'Rossinian' techniques",[2] the original 1822 version of this violent love story was never given a complete performance because Amerigo Sbigoli, the tenor originally cast in the role of Abenamet, died shortly before the first night, with no replacement available. Donizetti quickly adapted this role for contralto, though omitting three numbers in the process.
The first performance took place at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, on 28 January 1822 and it and its composer received great acclaim in the weekly Notizie del giorno:
- "A new and very happy hope is rising for the Italian musical theatre. The young Maestro Gaetano Donizetti...has launched himself strongly in his truly serious opera, Zoraida. Unanimous, sincere, universal was the applause he justly collected from the capacity audience...".[3]
The opera was presented in a revised edition at the same theatre on 7 January 1824, and given a revival in Lisbon in 1825.[3]