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L'italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers) is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca. It premiered at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on 22 May 1813. The music is characteristic of Rossini's style, remarkable for its fusion of sustained, manic energy with elegant, pristine melodies.
The work was first performed at the Teatro San Benedetto, Venice on 22 May 1813. It was a notable success and Rossini made progressive changes to the work for later performances in Vicenza, Milan and Naples, during the following two years.
The opera was first presented in London at His Majesty's Theatre on 28 January 1819 and on 5 November 1832 in New York. Having fallen somewhat out of favour as the 19th Century progressed, notable performances of the opera were presented from the 1920s in "Turin (1825), Rome (1927) and London (1935)" and it has been revived frequently after World War II with many successful productions. It is performed regularly in the 21st Century with 48 productions being presented in 43 cities since January 2009. One notable production was given at The Santa Fe Opera in 2002 with Stephanie Blythe as Isabella.
Industry:Drama
Ivan the Fool is an opera-fairytale for children in three tableaux, by César Cui, composed in 1913. The libretto was written by Nadezhda Nikolaevna Dolomanova, using Russian folk tales. (It is not derived from Leo Tolstoy's story of the same name.)
The title can be rendered in English in a number of ways, depending upon whether one wishes to consider the diminutives involved: Foolish Ivan, Ivan the Little Fool, Johnny the Little Fool, etc.
The performance history of this opera has yet to be traced.
Industry:Drama
The Jacobin is an opera in three acts by Antonín Dvořák to an original Czech libretto by Marie Červinková-Riegrová. Červinková-Riegrová took some of the story's characters from the story by Alois Jirásek, "At the Ducal Court", but devised her own plot around them. The first performance was at the National Theatre, Prague, 1889. Červinková-Riegrová revised the libretto, with Dvořák's permission, in 1894, notably in the last act. Dvořák himself revised the music in 1897 (the revised premiere was on 19 June 1898, under Adolf Čech).
The composer felt great affection for the subject of the opera, as the central character is a music teacher, and Dvořák had in mind his former teacher Antonin Liehmann, who had a daughter named Terinka, the name of one of the opera's characters.
John Clapham has briefly discussed the presence of Czech musical style in the opera. H. C. Colles has described this opera as "the most subtle and intimate of his peasant operas", and noted "how clearly its scenes are drawn from life".
Industry:Drama
Jenůfa About this sound is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904. It was written between 1896 and 1902, and counts among the first operas written in prose.
The first of Janáček's operas in which his distinctive voice can clearly be heard, it is a grim story of infanticide and redemption. Like the playwright's original work, it is known for its unsentimental realism. While today it is heard in the composer's original version, Jenůfa's early popularity was fostered by a revision by Karel Kovařovic of what was considered its eccentric style and orchestration. Thus altered, it was well-received, first in Prague, and particularly after its Vienna première also worldwide. More than 70 years were to pass before audiences heard it as Janáček had intended it to be performed.
Janáček wrote an overture to the opera, but decided not to use it. It was partly based on a song called Žárlivec (The jealous man). It is now performed as a concert piece under the title Žárlivost (Jealousy), JW 6/10.
The composer dedicated the work to the memory of his dead daughter Olga, as he also did with his choral composition called the Elegy on the Death of Daughter Olga.
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Jérusalem is a grand opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was to be an adaptation and partial translation of the composer's original 1843 Italian opera, I Lombardi alla prima crociata. It was the one opera which he regarded as the most suitable for being translated into French and, taking Scribe's advice, Verdi agreed that a French libretto was to be prepared by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, who had written the libretto for Donizetti's most successful French opera, La favorite. The opera received its premiere performance at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris on 26 November 1847.
The director of the Paris Opéra, Léon Pillet, had invited Verdi to compose an opera for the company in November 1845 and February 1846, but initially Verdi declined. This was the composer's first encounter with the Académie Royale de Musique, as the Paris Opéra was officially known. Amongst 19th century Italian composers, there had been an increasing interest in writing for Paris, where the combination of money, prestige, and flexibility of style were appealing. Musicologist Julian Budden provides examples of those composers who had crossed the Alps; amongst the most well-known were included Rossini and Donizetti as well as Vincenzo Bellini who, before he died in 1835, was planning a French grand opera.
However, Verdi had given some consideration of the idea of adapting one of the librettos written by Temistocle Solera in earlier years, librettos which music historian David Kimball regards as having something of grand opera in their structure.
After conducting the premiere of I masnadieri in London and within a week of Verdi's arrival in Paris on 27 July 1847, he received his first commission from the company, agreeing to adapt I Lombardi to a new French libretto. The adaptation meant that Verdi could "try his hand at grand opera" without having to write something entirely new, a strategy which both Donizetti and Rossini had employed for their Paris debuts.
Industry:Drama
I gioielli della Madonna (The Jewels of the Madonna) is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to an Italian libretto by Carlo Zangarini and Enrico Golisciani, based on news accounts of a real event.
It was first performed at the Kurfürstenoper in Berlin on 23 December 1911 under the title Der Schmuck der Madonna. That performance was in German, but now it is usually given in Italian. (Wolf-Ferrari stated that his operas were often first given in German simply because he had a German publisher.)
Its controversial themes include love between a brother and his adopted sister, implied criticism of the Catholic Church, and an on-stage orgy. There is an extant recording of the opera.
The opera was given its Italian premiere in 1953. I gioielli della Madonna is not often performed today though it remains in the repertory. The third act intermezzo was for many years a popular concert piece. It was performed by Teatro Grattacielo in New York City in 2010.
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Judith is an opera in five acts, composed by Alexander Serov during 1861–1863. Derived from renditions of the story of Judith from the Old Testament Apocrypha, the Russian libretto, though credited to the composer, has a complicated history (see below). The premiere took place in 1863 in Saint Petersburg. This stage debut, supplemented with his next opera Rogneda, made Serov the most important Russian opera composer of the 1860s.
The Italian play Giuditta by Paolo Giacometti, produced in Saint Petersburg in 1860, first inspired the Serov to work on the project as a vehicle for the Italian opera troupe in Saint Petersburg. Using Serov's scenario, Ivan Antonovich Giustiniani wrote a libretto in Italian. When an Italian production of the proposed opera proved legally impossible, the Italian libretto was translated into Russian by Konstantin Zvantsov and Dmitry Lobanov, and some verses were added by the poet Apollon Maykov; in the meantime, the composer was writing the music without having the words ahead of time.
Performance history
The world premiere was given on 16 May 1863 at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, conducted by Konstantin Lyadov and starring Mikhail Sariotti as Olofern and Valentina Bianki as Judith.
The Moscow premiere took place in 1865 at the Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow under Shramek.
Industry:Drama
uha is a three-act opera by Aarre Merikanto, with a Finnish libretto by Aino Ackté based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Juhani Aho. Although completed by 1922, it was only finally staged at the music college in Lahti on 28 October 1963. The story is a drama of a love triangle : the older husband Juha, his young wife Marja, and her seducer the merchant Shemeikka. Set in the 1880s in Kainuu in northern Finland, the human tragedy is based around the harsh realities of a farming community and the clash of their lifestyle with the more worldly nomadic Karelians, represented by Shemeikka.
Ackté first offered the libretto to Sibelius, who, after two years, declined to set it, explaining in a letter to Ackté that he believed the text should be subservient to the ‘absolute music’ of the score, and he felt unable to achieve that with what he called Aho’s “masterpiece”.
Juha was Merikanto's second opera, following Helena in 1912. Having composed Juha from 1919 to 1922, Merikanto submitted it to the board of the national opera in Helsinki who were worried by its modernity. As he had no response from them, Merikanto withdrew the work and did not compose any further operas. A ‘safer’ version was written by Leevi Madetoja and premiered at the Finnish National Opera in 1935. The third act of Merikanto's version was broadcast on 3 December 1958, the year before the composer’s death.
After the Lahti premiere Juha was accepted at the Finnish National Opera in 1967, leading to a recording for Finlandia, and a production at Savonlinna in 1971, revived the following year. A later production was toured to the Edinburgh Festival in 1987. The opera has also been seen in Hagen, Evanston and Essen. A new production was mounted at Helsinki Opera House in December 2011.
Industry:Drama
La Juive (The Jewess) is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on 23 February 1835.
La Juive was one of the most popular and admired operas of the 19th century. Its libretto was the work of Eugène Scribe, one of the most prolific dramatic authors of the time. Scribe was writing to the tastes of the Opéra de Paris, where the work was first performed – a work in five acts presenting spectacular situations (here the Council of Constance of 1414), which would allow a flamboyant staging in a setting which brought out a dramatic situation which was also underlined by a powerful historical subject. In addition to this, there could be choral interludes, ballet and scenic effects which took advantage of the entire range of possibilities available at the Paris Opera.
Because of the story of an impossible love between a Christian man and a Jewish woman, the work has been seen by some as a plea for religious tolerance, in much the same spirit as Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots which premiered in 1836, a year after La Juive, as well as the 1819 novel Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott which deals with the same theme. At the time of composition, the July Monarchy had liberalised religious practices in France. Meyerbeer and Halévy were both Jewish and storylines dealing with topics of tolerance were common in their operas. However, reviews of the initial performances show that journalists of the period responded to the liberalism and to the perceived anti-clericalism of Scribe's text, rather than to any specifically Jewish theme.
The libretto of La Juive is considered by some to have a goal of reconsidering the status of Jews in French society. However a closer examination of the text - with its clichéd portrayal of the Jew Eléazar as secretive, vengeful and materialistic - does not convincingly bear out this interpretation.
Industry:Drama
Julie is a one-act chamber opera written by the Belgian composer Philippe Boesmans who is composer-in-residence of the Brussels opera house, La Monnaie. It is based on August Strindberg's 1888 play, Miss Julie with a libretto by Luc Bondy and Marie Louise-Bischofberger.
It received its premiere production in March 2005 at La Monnaie, and was subsequently seen in Vienna and as part of the July 2005 Festival d‘Aix en Provence. It has been recorded from a live performance at La Monnaie.
Industry:Drama
