I pazzi per progetto
Encyclopedia
I Pazzi per progetto is a farce in one act by Gaetano Donizetti
to a libretto by Domenico Gilardoni.
The autographed score was preserved at the Conservatorio S. Pietro a Majella in Naples. The first performance took place at Teatro del Fondo, Naples on 7 February 1830. It was performed few more times in Naples and Palermo, and then forgotten until 1977, with a new revision edited by Maestro Bruno Rigacci of Florence. It went on stage again in the International Festival Opera Barga in 1977, achieving a resounding success with the public and the critics.
At the first performance of 1830 in Naples, some great singers of the time, as the Boccabadati and Luigi Lablache performed it in a charity event, and despite of the exceptional cast, the audience was really very meager. The work, carried out by two women curiously surrounded by five heavy voices, was divided into seven numbers linked by dry or accompanied recitatives, revealed the purest farcical style of the great composer from Bergamo, with the characters and forms typical to that style.
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 a libretto by Domenico Gilardoni.
The autographed score was preserved at the Conservatorio S. Pietro a Majella in Naples. The first performance took place at Teatro del Fondo, Naples on 7 February 1830. It was performed few more times in Naples and Palermo, and then forgotten until 1977, with a new revision edited by Maestro Bruno Rigacci of Florence. It went on stage again in the International Festival Opera Barga in 1977, achieving a resounding success with the public and the critics.
At the first performance of 1830 in Naples, some great singers of the time, as the Boccabadati and Luigi Lablache performed it in a charity event, and despite of the exceptional cast, the audience was really very meager. The work, carried out by two women curiously surrounded by five heavy voices, was divided into seven numbers linked by dry or accompanied recitatives, revealed the purest farcical style of the great composer from Bergamo, with the characters and forms typical to that style.
Roles
- Darlemont, directore of a mental hospital, uncle of Norina - basso
- Norina, wife of Blinval - soprano
- Blinval, colonel - basso-baritono
- Cristina, a young girl, in love with Blinval - mezzosoprano
- Venanzio, stingy old man, guardian of Cristina - basso
- Eustachio, trumpeter of Blinval's regiment - baritono
- Frank, servant of Darlemont - basso-baritono
The Plot
The plot takes place in a hospital for the insane in Paris, whose director, Darlemont, has a niece, Norina, married to Blinval, a colonel of dragoons. The remoteness of the man from his beloved wife due to military reasons and mutual jealousy are the causes of series of actions when the two meet again. Since the meeting takes place in the hospital which is managed by Norina's uncle, the two alternately pose themselves as crazy to find out the true feelings of each other, causing frantic carousel of deceptions and misunderstandings. If you add to all this a very babbler and all too sincere servant, (Frank), a deserter trumpeter who pretends to be a doctor (Eustace), a beautiful young girl (Christina), former lover of the colonel who tries to escape from her old guardian (Venanzio), who tries to make her grow mad so he can take her dowry, you have all the very well matched ingredients for a farce with all its rules. At the well designed end, peace and moral obligation are restored.Discography
- Director Amy Kaiser, Orchestra Festival Opera Barga, singers: Giancarlo Ceccarini, Anna Baldasserini, Vera Pastore, Francesco Facini, Franco Ligas, Giovanni Savoiardo, Giovanni Fancellu - Opera BargaBargaBarga is a medieval town and comune of the province of Lucca in Tuscany, central Italy. It is home to around 10,000 people and is the chief town of the "Media Valle" of the Serchio.-Geography:...
, Teatro dei Differenti, Live 1977 - Unique Opera Records - UORC 357