Betly is a dramma giocoso

Dramma giocoso

Dramma giocoso is the name of a genre of opera common in the mid-18th century. The term is a contraction of "dramma giocoso per musica" and is essentially a description of the text rather than the opera as a whole...

in two acts (originally one) by the Italian composer 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...

. The composer wrote the 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...

 after Eugène Scribe

Eugène Scribe

Augustin Eugène Scribe , was a French dramatist and librettist. He is best known for the perfection of the so-called "well-made play" . This dramatic formula was a mainstay of popular theater for over 100 years.-Biography:...

 and Anne-Honoré-Joseph Duveyrier de Mélésville

Anne-Honoré-Joseph Duveyrier de Mélésville

Baron Anne-Honoré-Joseph Duveyrier de Mélésville , pen-name Mélésville, was a French dramatist.-Life:...

's libretto for Adolphe Adam

Adolphe Adam

Adolphe Charles Adam was a French composer and music critic. A prolific composer of operas and ballets, he is best known today for his ballets Giselle and Le corsaire , his operas Le postillon de Lonjumeau , Le toréador and Si j'étais roi , and his Christmas...

's opéra comique

Opéra comique

Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...

 Le châlet, in its turn based on Goethe's Singspiel

Singspiel

A Singspiel is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera...

 Jery und Bätely (1780).

Performance history

It premiered at the Teatro Nuovo, Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 on August 21, 1836, and in the revised, two act version probably on September 29, 1837 at the Teatro del Fondo

Teatro del Fondo

The Teatro del Fondo is a theatre in Naples, now known as the Teatro Mercadante. Together with the Teatro San Carlo, it was originally one of the two royal opera houses of the 18th and 19th-century city....

, Naples.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 21 August 1836 (Conductor: - )
Betly, Max's sister	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...	Adelaide Tosi Adelaide Tosi Adelaide Tosi was an Italian operatic soprano.Born in Milan, Tosi studied with Girolamo Crescentini before making her professional opera debut in her native city in 1821. She portrayed Azema in the premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer's L'esule di Granata at La Scala on 12 March 1822...
Daniele, young person	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...	Lorenzo Salvi Lorenzo Salvi Lorenzo Salvi was an Italian operatic tenor who had a major international opera career during the nineteenth century...
Max, Swiss petty officer first class	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...	Giuseppe Fioravanti Giuseppe Fioravanti Giuseppe Fioravanti was an Italian opera singer active during the first half of the 19th century. Although one of the most important and popular basso buffos of his generation, there is only a relatively small amount of information available about his life...
Peasants, Swiss peasants and soldiers

Synopsis

Time: 18th century

Place: Swiss mountain chalet

Betly, a flirtatious, winsome, and strong-headed Swiss girl with many wiles, is quite fond of the young villager Daniel, yet she doesn't reciprocate his ardent love. As the opera begins, the townspeople of the village Appenzell, mischief-makers as they are, have prepared a phony love letter from Betly accepting his proposal of marriage by forging her signature. The young man is elated and quickly invites the entire village to a wedding supper that night.

Soon after, Betly arrives and discovers the situation and makes fun of Daniel, quickly dashing his hopes. Betly feels she is a strong woman and needs no man to take care of her. Awkward and shy Daniel, sad and in despair, stumbles upon a troop of Swiss soldiers and quickly attempts to enlist in the army to be one of them.

Daniel confides in the Sergeant Max Starner, not realizing he is Betly's brother gone from the Canton of Appenzell for more than fifteen years. Max then takes the reins of the story in order to teach a lesson to his young sister and secure a happy ending for young Daniel. To do this, he conceals his identity to Betly upon meeting her and frightens her into believing that she will be had at the hands and pleasure of his troop. Betly quickly begs Daniel to keep the soldiers away from her for the day so she will be safe until they leave. Daniel gathers what courage he has after seeing the desperation in the eyes of his love and defends her honor. Max calls his bluff and challenges him to a duel at which time Betly attempts to save him by claiming him in marriage, at which time she runs to her cottage and quickly signs the marriage certificate. She hopes it will work, because to be legal, it must be signed by her brother Max—who to her knowledge has been away for more than fifteen years. In the end Max signs the document, and Betly realizes the error of her ways at which time she is elated to call Daniel her husband and a happy ending for all is found.

Scene 1

• Introduction and Cavatina:"Gia l'aurora in cielo appar" Daniel and Chorus
• Recitative & Arietta: "E fia ver" & "Non puo il cor" Daniel
• Recitative: "Amico miei" Daniel
• Cavatina: "In questo semplice" Betly
• Recitative and Duet: "Ho mangiato e bene" Betly and Daniel
• Recitative: "E finita per mer" Daniel

Scene 2

• "Maledetta la vita di stento" Chorus
• Cavatina: "Ti vedo, ti bacio" Max
• Recitative: "Oh giovinoto!" Daniel and Max
• Scena, Coro and Finale Primo: "Per questa via remota" Betly, Max, Chorus

Scene 3

• Recitative and Duet: "In cortesia" Betly and Daniel
• Recitative: "Che! l'ha fatto restar" Betly, Daniel and Max
• Recitative and Duet: "Bassa la voce" Daniel and Max
• Recitative, Aria and FInale: "Mi reggo appena oe pie/ Ah no non posso esprimere" Betly,
• Daniel, Max and Chorus

Recordings

• 1994: Domenico Trimarchi conducting with Bruno Rigacci, Maurizio Comencini, Susanna Rigacci, et al. (Bongiovanni)