History of opera
Italy

In Italy, Romanticism had a markedly populist and nationalist component, in which opera was a means of political vindication for the unification of the peninsula, which would take place in 1870. It was the era of the bel canto, of the showcasing of voices, especially soprano voices. Composers such as Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti were staunch defenders of bel canto, at a time in Europe in general when the orchestra was becoming more and more prominent. However, classical bel canto came to a virtual end with Rossini, while Bellini and Donizetti introduced some innovations, such as the substitution of the canto fiorito for the canto declamato, and the reservation of bel canto passages for moments of intensity, as in the cabaletta or the so-called madness arias, in any case with less vocal ornamentation.

The first great name of the period was Gioachino Rossini, a composer between classicism and Romanticism. He studied at the Bologna Lyceum. Following in the footsteps of Paisiello and Cimarosa, he enriched the orchestra with more wind instruments. In 1810 he premiered in Venice La cambiale di matrimonio, a comic farce in one act, indebted to the Neapolitan opera, but with the new romantic spirit, more dynamic, with a more marked rhythm and with the tonal gradations introduced by the Mannheim school. This work pleased both the traditionalists and the supporters of innovation, who liked its timbral agility and its lively rhythm. It was followed by L'equivoco stravagante (1811), L'inganno felice (1812), La scala di seta (1812), L'occasione fa il ladro (1812) and Il signor Bruschino (1813). After a serious opera, Ciro in Babilonia (1812), in Tancredi, premiered the following year at the La Fenice theater in Venice, he abandoned the classical schemes and gave the structure of the opera buffa to the serious, with arias, cabalette and recitative with orchestra. He also introduced changes to the usual structure of opera buffa, in La pietra del paragone (1812) and L'italiana in Algeri (1813). Il Turco in Italia (1814) is a theatrical farce, where the librettist appears pretending to write the opera as it unfolds. That year he composed his last serious opera in the traditional style: Aureliano in Palmira, which still included a castrato in its cast, which added various ornamentations that did not please the composer, so from then on he composed the musical ornaments himself, closing the doors to improvisations by the singers. With this work, Rossini abandoned the historical and mythological themes typical of traditional opera seria and began to elaborate works of contemporary cut, based on the new romantic literature; a first case would be Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra (1815).

In 1816 he premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), based on the play by Beaumarchais, one of his greatest successes, of buffo genre, as well as La Cenerentola (1817), based on the story Cinderella by Charles Perrault. La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie, 1817) was a semi-serious opera, with a romantic plot, but with comic elements; he cultivated the same genre in Matilde di Shabran (1821). With Mosè in Egitto (1818) he elaborated a new hybrid, which he called azione sacrotragica. In serious genre he elaborated Otello (1816), La donna del lago (1819), Maometto secondo (1820, reconverted in 1826 into Le Siège de Corinthe), Zelmira (1822) and Semiramide (1823). He then began a journey of several years that took him to Vienna, Paris, London and again Paris, where he premiered Le comte Ory (1828) and Guillaume Tell (1829). In his works, Rossini eliminated the recitative without musical accompaniment, so they were set to music from beginning to end. He introduced the so-called "crescendo Rossini", a gradual crescendo in which the same theme was repeated successively increasing in intensity. He also introduced choirs, which became fashionable, generally placed between the aria and the cabaletta and between the two parts of the cabaletta. He stopped composing at the age of thirty-six and lived on his earnings ever since.

The next figures of Romanticism were Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti. Bellini produced more sentimental and melancholic works, of dreamlike evocation, with choppy, irregular phrases, the voice floating above the melody. He is considered the master of bel canto, for his long, lyrical vocal melodies. After two operas for which he began to be recognized (Adelson e Salvini, 1825; and Bianca e Fernando, 1826), he reaped his first success with Il pirata (1827), performed at La Scala in Milan. Two failures followed: La straniera (1829) and Zaira (1829). In 1830 he premiered in Venice I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Capulets and Montagues), a lyric tragedy with libretto by Felice Romani. His following works were fully romantic, with the common plot of the death of one of the lovers and the sublimation of love. La sonnambula (1831) was a semi-serious opera, based on a script for a pantomime-ballet by Eugène Scribe. From the same year is Norma, his most famous work, with libretto also by Romani, which includes the famous aria Casta Diva. In 1833, Beatrice di Tenda did not reap the expected success. His last work, I Puritani (1835), he composed and premiered in Paris, where it was a great success. He died at the age of thirty-four.

Donizetti achieved his first success with his eighth opera, Zoraida di Granata (1822), thanks to which he got a contract to compose operas for several theaters in Naples. He then decided to compose generally comic operas, which denoted the influence of Rossini and Bellini, such as L'ajo nell'imbarazzo (1824) and Viva la mamma! (1827). He also tackled the serious genre with Emilia di Liverpool (1824) and Il castello di Kenilworth (1829). With Anna Boleyn (1830) he had his first international success, and initiated a plot line based on characters of human character —especially women in the role of heroine— treated psychologically. This work opened doors for him to other cities: thus, he composed for Milan L'elisir d'amore (1832), a sentimental comedy with libretto by Felice Romani, where he humanized in the same way the characters of the opera buffa; it includes the aria Una furtiva lagrima, one of the most famous of the opera. He then tried his hand at the dramatic genre with the somber Lucrezia Borgia (1833), based on a story by Victor Hugo. It was followed by Parisina d'Este (1833), Torquato Tasso (1833) and Maria Stuarda (1834). Shortly thereafter he was inspired by the French grand-opéra for Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), based on a novel by Walter Scott (with libretto by Salvatore Cammarano). It was followed by Il campanello (1836), Belisario (1836), Pia de' Tolomei (1837), Roberto Devereux ossia il conte d'Essex (1837), Maria di Rudenz (1838) and Poliuto (1838). He traveled to Paris, where he premiered La Fille du régiment (1840) and La favorite (1840), in which he introduced the do de pecho and initiated the golden age of tenors. He went to Vienna, where he was appointed Kapellmeister. In 1841 he premiered Maria Padilla and, the following year, Linda di Chamounix. It was followed by Maria di Rohan (1843). Back in his country he returned to the comic genre with Don Pasquale (1843). His later works include Caterina Cornaro (1844) and Dom Sébastien, roi de Portugal (1843). He composed a total of sixty-seven operas. In his works the musical embellishments of bel canto are present, but he composed vibrant dramatic scenes, where the music enhances the effect of the voice. His melodies were crystalline, lively, with a magnetism that is still valid today.

At the beginning of Romanticism, Saverio Mercadante and Giovanni Pacini also stood out. Mercadante studied in Naples and was encouraged to compose operas by Rossini. His first success was L'apoteosi d'Ercole (1819). It was followed by Elisa e Claudio (1821) and Donna Caritea, regina di Spagna (1826). In 1827 he settled in Spain, where he premiered Il posto abbandonato that same year. Returning to his country in 1831, he obtained a great success the following year with I normanni a Parigi. In 1837 he premiered in Milan Il giuramento, his masterpiece. After Bellini's death and Donizetti's installation in Paris he was for a few years the most famous composer in his country, with works such as Le due illustri rivali (1838), Elena de Feltre (1838), Il bravo (1839), La Vestale (1840), Il reggente (1843), Leonora (1844) and Gli Orazi e i Curiazi (Horatii e Curiatii, 1846). Pacini scored a major success in 1824 in Naples with Alessandro nell'Indie, which earned him an appointment as director of that city's Teatro San Carlo. His masterpiece was Saffo (1840). Other works of his were La fidanzata corsa (1842), Medea (1843), Lorenzino de' Medici (1845) and Buondelmonte (1845).

The brothers Luigi and Federico Ricci composed several works both together and separately, and are remembered as the authors of the last traditional opera buffa: Crispino e la comare (1850).

Late Romanticism was dominated in Italy by the figure of Giuseppe Verdi. He began in romantic opera with a buffo air, with its recitative-aria- cabaletta structure, with themes generally inspired by medieval Italy. His early work denoted the influence of Rossini and continued the typical forms of bel canto. However, he gradually evolved towards the forms of the musical drama, de-emphasizing the aria – from which he did not manage to detach himself, as Wagner did – and enhancing the melody. Verdi's operas had a strong nationalist component, which turned his works into pleas against the foreign occupation of various regions of Italy, a fact that made him a symbol of the Risorgimento, the process that led to the unification of Italy.

After a first opera that was never performed (Rocester, 1836), with Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio (1839) he had a resounding success at La Scala in Milan. On the other hand, his next work, Un giorno di regno (1840), failed. He repeated the success with Nabucco (1842), with which his link with politics began: the plot based on the Hebrew captivity in Babylon was compared to the Italians, under foreign domination in a good part of their territories. It includes the famous choir Va, pensiero. It was followed by I Lombardi alla prima crociata (1843). Ernani (1844) was his most fully Romantic work, based on a play by Victor Hugo. The following operas he composed were: I due Foscari (1844), Giovanna d'Arco (1845), Alzira (1845), Attila (1846) and I masnadieri (1847). In Macbeth (1847) he introduced an ugly-voiced soprano, befitting the character of Lady Macbeth, thus breaking with bel canto. It was his first work based on Shakespeare, of whom he was a great admirer. With Luisa Miller (1849) and Stiffelio (1850) he abandoned Romanticism in search of greater realism.

Next came his three masterpieces: Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853) and La Traviata (1853) are more realistic dramas, which stick more to the historical aspect. The former, based on Victor Hugo's play The King Amuses Himself, revolved around a superstitious jester who is cursed. It includes a motiv or evocative motif, a passage associated with some aspect of the opera, an antecedent of the Wagnerian leitmotif, which appears for example in the famous aria La donna è mobile. Il trovatore was based on a play by Antonio García Gutiérrez about a medieval troubadour. Composed in only thirty days, it contains a wide range of melodies, including the famous gypsy choir with its anvil strikes. La Traviata was based on Alexandre Dumas' The Lady of the Camellias, a work controversial for having a tubercular courtesan as its protagonist, with which Verdi anticipated fin-de-siècle verismo. It includes the famous duet Libiamo ne' lieti calici, also known as the "toast.".

His next work was Les vêpres siciliennes (The Sicilian Vespers, 1855), premiered in Paris, based on a libretto of an opera that Donizetti left unfinished at his death (Le duc d'Albe). It was followed by Simon Boccanegra (1857), also based on a work by García Gutiérrez, an obscure opera that was not liked by the public. Un ballo in maschera (1859) was inspired by the assassination of Gustav III of Sweden during a masked ball; containing a regicide it was censored in Naples, so he had to premiere it in Rome. La forza del destino (1862), based on texts by Ángel de Saavedra and Friedrich von Schiller, was commissioned by the Imperial Theater of St. Petersburg, where it was premiered. Don Carlo (1867) was based on Schiller's drama Don Carlos, about the tragic fate of first-born son of Philip II of Spain. Aida (1871), set in Ancient Egypt, was one of his grandest productions. It was commissioned by the khedive of Egypt, Ismail Pasha, to inaugurate the Royal Opera House in Cairo, built to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal; however, Verdi did not arrive in time and it was not premiered until two years later. His last two operas were based on Shakespeare plays: Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893), both with librettos by Arrigo Boito. The former was the culmination of his great operas, while Falstaff — based on The Merry Wives of Windsor and Enrich IV — he composed as entertainment, his second comic work after the failure of Un giorno di regno. Verdi worked with several librettists (Temistocle Solera, Salvatore Cammarano, Francesco Maria Piave, Eugène Scribe), with whom he often had conflicts, as he was very demanding with the texts he set to music. He sometimes wrote his own plots, which he would then pass on to a librettist alone to versify.

After Verdi, the work of two composers who already foreshadowed a certain change of style that would materialize at the end of the century with verismo was outstanding: Arrigo Boito and Amilcare Ponchielli. Boito was a composer and librettist, author of the librettos of Verdi's last operas. His first opera was Mefistofele (1868), based on Goethe's Faust, which failed, so he temporarily abandoned composition and devoted himself to writing. However, after some revisions and thanks to Verdi's support, in 1875 he revived it, and this time it was a success. Two years later he began Nerone, on which he worked for forty years until his death. Completed by Vincezo Tommasini and Arturo Toscanini, it was premiered in 1924. Ponchielli composed nine operas, although he succeeded with only one, La Gioconda (1876), based on a play by Victor Hugo adapted for libretto by Arrigo Boito. His first work, I promessi sposi (1856), had little success. I Lituani (1874) was well received, but did not remain in the operatic repertoire. He tried orientalism with Il figliuol prodigo (1880) and the comic genre with Marion Delorme (1885).

Other Italian composers of the period were: Luigi Arditi (I briganti, 1840; Gulnara, 1848; La spia, 1856), Giovanni Bottesini (Cristoforo Colombo, 1848; Marion Delorme, 1864), Antonio Cagnoni (Don Bucefalo, 1847; Papà Martin, 1871), Michele Carafa (Jeanne d'Arc, 1821; Le nozze di Lammermoor, 1829), Carlo Coccia (Maria Stuarda, 1833; Caterina di Guisa, 1833), Filippo Marchetti (Ruy Blas, 1869), Francesco Morlacchi (Il barbiere di Siviglia, 1816; Tebaldo ed Isolina, 1820; La gioventù di Enrico V, 1823), Carlo Pedrotti (Fiorina, 1851; Tutti in maschera, 1869), Errico Petrella (Mario Visconti, 1854; Jone, 1858), Lauro Rossi (I falsi monetari, 1846; Il dominò nero, 1849; La sirena, 1855; Lo zingaro rivale, 1867) and Nicola Vaccai (Giulietta e Romeo, 1825).
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