Alahor in Granata is an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

 to an anonymous Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

 libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

  (indicated only with the initials "M.A.") after Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian

Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian

Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian was a French poet and romance writer.-Life:...

's text Gonzalve de Cordoue, ou Granade reconquise (1793). However, it seems that the original basis of the libretto goes back to one by Felice Romani

Felice Romani

Felice Romani was an Italian poet and scholar of literature and mythology who wrote many librettos for the opera composers Donizetti and Bellini. Romani was considered the finest Italian librettist between Metastasio and Boito.-Biography:Born Giuseppe Felice Romani to a bourgeois family in Genoa,...

 written for Meyerbeer in 1821, which in turn can be traced back through another iteration to begin with the De Florian version.

While Donizetti was spending most of 1825-26 in Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

 as musical director of the Teatro Carolino, Alahor in Granata was written to be presented in December 1825, but the premiere was delayed until 7 January 1826 and given at the Teatro Carolino with critical and popular success.

Production history

The score was eventually lost, but a copy - "not in the composer's hand" - was subsequently discovered in Boston in 1970. Finally, the autograph score came to light a few years later in Palermo. Some of the music was recycled into Emilia di Liverpool

Emilia di Liverpool

Emilia di Liverpool is a dramma semiseria, dramatic opera, in two acts with music by Gaetano Donizetti. Giuseppe Ceccherini wrote the Italian libretto after the anonymous libretto for Vittorio Trento's Emilia di Laverpaut, itself based on Stefano Scatizzi's play of the same name...

in 1828 and L'Elisir d'amore in 1832.

The first contemporary production, in Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

 in 1998, has been preserved on DVD.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 7 January 1826 (Conductor: - )
Zobeida, daughter of Mohamed, sister of Alahor	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Elisabetta Ferron
Alahor, son of Mohamed	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Antonio Tamburini Antonio Tamburini Antonio Tamburini was an Italian operatic baritone.Born in Faenza, then part of the Papal States, Tamburini studied the orchestral horn with his father and voice with Aldobrando Rossi, before making his debut as a singer, aged 18, in La contessa di colle erbose . He went on to become one of the...
Muley-Hassem, King of Granata	contralto Contralto Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...	Marietta Gioia Tamburini
Sulima, favorite slave of Zobeida	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Carlotta Tomassetti
Alamar, head of the tribe	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Berardo Winter
Ismaele, false friend of Alamar	tenor	Salvatore Patti
Tribesmen, soldiers, people

Recordings

Year	Cast (Alahor, Zobeida, Hassem, Alamar)	Conductor, Opera House and Orchestra	Label
1998	Simone Alaimo, Patrizia Pace, Vivica Genaux Vivica Genaux Vivica Genaux is an American coloratura mezzo-soprano. Her father, an American of Belgian-Welsh descent, was a biochemistry professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and her mother, Mexican-born of Swiss-German extraction, was a language teacher... , Juan Diego Flórez Juan Diego Flórez Juan Diego Flórez is a Peruvian operatic tenor, particularly known for his roles in bel canto operas. On June 4, 2007, he received his country's highest decoration, the Gran Cruz de la Orden del Sol del Perú....	Josep Pons, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada and Chorus of Teatro de la Maestranza de Sevilla (Recorded at performances in Seville, October)	Audio CD: Almaviva Cat: DS 0125

External links

• Libretto (in Italian)