L'ange de Nisida
Encyclopedia
L'ange de Nisida is an opera semiseria
in four acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti
, from a libretto
by Alphonse Royer
and Gustave Vaëz.
Parts of the libretto are considered analogous with the libretto for Giovanni Pacini's
Adelaide e Comingio, and the final scene is based on the François-Thomas-Marie de Baculard d'Arnaud
play Les Amants malheureux, ou le comte de Comminges. Donizetti worked on the opera in late 1839—its final page is dated 27 December 1839. Because the subject matter involved the mistress of a Neapolitan
king, and may thus have caused difficulties with the Italian censors, Donizetti decided that the opera should be presented in France. The theater company Donizetti contracted went bankrupt; L'ange was never performed and was reworked as La favorite
in September 1840.
states that the Adelaide libretto has similarities to that of the Giovanni Pacini opera Adelaide e Comingio, whose libretto was written by Gaetano Rossi
. Donizetti is believed to have taken the manuscript for Adelaide to Paris in 1838. Because the subject matter of L'ange involved the mistress of a Neapolitan king, and may thus have caused difficulties with the Italian censors, Donizetti decided that the opera should be presented in France. Additionally, in September 1839, the French press had announced La Fiancée du Tyrol, a translation of Donizetti's 1833 opera Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo. In October 1839, he wrote to a friend in Naples: "La Fiancée du Tyrol will be Il furioso amplified, L'ange de Nisida will be new." Donizetti began work on L'ange shortly thereafter; La Fiancée du Tyrol never materialized.
score. He had been working on Le duc d'Albe
, but postponed work on the half-completed score in favor of L'ange and La fille du régiment
.
Although Donizetti noted in correspondence to his close friend Tommaso Persico in Naples that L'ange was "an opera in three acts", both the autograph score and Donizetti's contract with Anténor Joly, the owner of the theater company Donizetti contracted, make clear that L'ange had four acts. Regardless, Donizetti's letter has caused confusion among opera journalists and scholars. For example, The Musical Times
journalist Dean Winton wrote of the Italian version of La favorite in 1979: "[I]t was expanded from an unperformed three-act French opera, L'ange de Nisida." Ashbrook speculates that Donizetti may have considered the first two acts as one.
and giving performances at the Salle Ventadour
in Paris. Théâtre de la Renaissance chose L'ange over Richard Wagner
's Das Liebesverbot
. Joly's company had premiered the French version of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor
the previous year, and L'ange was meant to be its successor. The contract, which is on display at the Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra National de Paris
, stipulates that L'ange be performed uninterrupted twenty times unless three consecutive performances sold poorly, and that Joly could not premiere any other opera until the revenue from L'ange started to decline. The contract contains nothing about Donizetti's compensation; therefore, it is possible that another contract existed. L'ange was set to begin rehearsal on 1 February 1840. Donizetti had two other operas in various stages of preparation at other theaters during this time: Les martyrs
and La fille du régiment.
Later in January, Joly terminated all opera productions of the Théâtre de la Renaissance company due to financial hardship, despite a reported 5,000-franc loan from Donizetti. Joly tried to keep the operation afloat by staging ballets, but it closed completely in May 1840. He filed for bankruptcy and therefore avoided paying Donizetti the large fee owed for backing out of the production. Writing for the Cambridge Opera Journal, Mark Everist referred to L'ange as one of "the most spectacular casualties of the collapse of music drama at the Théâtre de la Renaissance".
(now more commonly known by its Italian title, La favorita) in September 1840 for a December premiere in Italy. To circumvent the Italian censors Donizetti agreed to plot modifications; La favorite is about a medieval King of Castile.
The presence and influence of L'ange is evident in Donizetti's autograph score of La favorite, which features "large chunks" of L'ange "cut up and interleaved" in which new character names and text for La favorite overwrite the old. The final page of L'ange was used as the final page of La favorite; therefore, both operas bear the same finish date on the last page. Donizetti's contract for La favorite demanded a 1 December 1840 premiere, leaving him little time for dramatic changes. In his 1965 biography Donizetti, Ashbrook surmises that this tight deadline gave rise to the legend that Donizetti actually composed the last act of La favorite in a single night. In fact, the libretto of L'ange and the autograph score of La favorite make clear that the final act of La favorite was completed long before Donizetti began the rest of it in September—Donizetti lifted it from L'ange with the exception of two solo passages. He brought in librettist Eugène Scribe
to oversee the new text, which also required the approval of starring mezzo-soprano Rosine Stoltz. The finished product was an amalgamation of the unfinished Adelaide, the never-performed L'ange de Nisida, and new material worked into the score by Donizetti and into the libretto by Scribe. La favorite premiered on 2 December 1840.
Ashbrook has compared the surviving autograph scores of L'ange de Nisida and La favorite to determine precisely how much material L'ange provided for the latter. While the events in L'ange are set in 1470 in Nisida and Naples, La favorite is set in Santiago de Compostela
and Castile
, both in Spain, prior to 1350. Donizetti made fundamental changes to the first half of La favorite and little remains of L'ange. The central conflict of the story involving the marriage and subsequent death is essentially the same from one opera to the other, and some of the character names are also similar or identical.
A transcription of the L'ange libretto is kept at the Fondazione Donizetti library in Bergamo
, and was printed in a 2002 issue of the Italian-language journal for The Donizetti Society.
)
, outside Naples, Italy, to see Sylvia, with whom he is infatuated. Leone knows she is a noble but little else. While on Nisida, Leone encounters Don Gaspar, Chamberlain to King Fernand of Naples. After hearing Leone's plight, Don Gaspar convinces him to travel to Naples to have his exile lifted. Leone and Sylvia meet in Naples, at which time Leone discovers that she is actually Sylvia de Linares, the King's mistress. She declares her love for Leone but implores him to abandon her and his plans in Naples. When he refuses, the King discovers him and orders Don Gaspar to arrest and imprison him.
The King expresses to Sylvia his desire that she wed him. However, agents of Rome have been plotting to banish the mistress from Naples. When the King, dismayed, offers to grant her any request, she asks that Leone be set free. A monk appears, brandishing the Papal bull
and threatening to banish Sylvia if she remains a mistress to the King. The King plots with Don Gaspar to free Leone and wed him to Sylvia, although Leone would be sent away and Sylvia would remain the King's mistress. Leone and Sylvia marry, but when Leone discovers the plot, he breaks his sword in front of the King and leaves under the monk's escort.
Leone is preparing to take his vows as a monk when Sylvia appears, having followed him disguised as a novice. When she confronts Leone and asks for forgiveness, he realizes his feelings and attempts to flee with her. Sylvia, who has been near death, dies at Leone's feet despite his calls for help.
Opera semiseria
Opera semiseria is an Italian genre of opera, popular in the early and middle 19th century.Related to the opera buffa, opera semiseria contains elements of comedy but also of pathos, sometimes with a pastoral setting. It can usually be distinguished from tragic operas or melodramas by the presence...
in four acts by 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...
, from a 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...
by Alphonse Royer
Alphonse Royer
Alphonse Royer, was a French author, dramatist and theatre manager, most remembered today for having written the librettos for Gaetano Donizetti's opera La favorite and Giuseppe Verdi's Jérusalem...
and Gustave Vaëz.
Parts of the libretto are considered analogous with the libretto for Giovanni Pacini's
Giovanni Pacini
Giovanni Pacini was an Italian composer, best known for his operas. Pacini was born in Catania, Sicily, the son of the buffo Luigi Pacini, who was to appear in the premieres of many of Giovanni's operas...
Adelaide e Comingio, and the final scene is based on the François-Thomas-Marie de Baculard d'Arnaud
François-Thomas-Marie de Baculard d'Arnaud
François-Thomas-Marie de Baculard d'Arnaud was a French writer and dramatist.-Life:A practitioner of the roman noir...
play Les Amants malheureux, ou le comte de Comminges. Donizetti worked on the opera in late 1839—its final page is dated 27 December 1839. Because the subject matter involved the mistress of a Neapolitan
Kingdom of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...
king, and may thus have caused difficulties with the Italian censors, Donizetti decided that the opera should be presented in France. The theater company Donizetti contracted went bankrupt; L'ange was never performed and was reworked as La favorite
La favorite
La favorite is an opera in four acts by Gaetano Donizetti to a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, based on the play Le comte de Comminges by Baculard d'Arnaud...
in September 1840.
Background
L'ange de Nisida incorporated many of the manuscript pages from Adelaide, an unfinished score that Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti was probably working on in 1834, from a libretto of unknown origin. This libretto contained elements from the 1790 Parisian play Les Amants malheureux, ou le comte de Comminges by François-Thomas-Marie de Baculard d'Arnaud. In his book Donizetti and his Operas, musicologist William AshbrookWilliam Ashbrook
William Ashbrook was an American musicologist, writer, journalist, and academic.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ashbrook earned a BA in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1946 and a MA in the same field from Harvard University in 1947...
states that the Adelaide libretto has similarities to that of the Giovanni Pacini opera Adelaide e Comingio, whose libretto was written by Gaetano Rossi
Gaetano Rossi
Gaetano Rossi was an Italian writer who wrote opera libretti for several composers including Mayr, Rossini, Donizetti, Mercadante, Pacini, and Meyerbeer.-Biography:...
. Donizetti is believed to have taken the manuscript for Adelaide to Paris in 1838. Because the subject matter of L'ange involved the mistress of a Neapolitan king, and may thus have caused difficulties with the Italian censors, Donizetti decided that the opera should be presented in France. Additionally, in September 1839, the French press had announced La Fiancée du Tyrol, a translation of Donizetti's 1833 opera Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo. In October 1839, he wrote to a friend in Naples: "La Fiancée du Tyrol will be Il furioso amplified, L'ange de Nisida will be new." Donizetti began work on L'ange shortly thereafter; La Fiancée du Tyrol never materialized.
Composition
Donizetti completed L'ange de Nisida on 27 December 1839, the date on the final page of the autographAutograph
An autograph is a document transcribed entirely in the handwriting of its author, as opposed to a typeset document or one written by an amanuensis or a copyist; the meaning overlaps with that of the word holograph.Autograph also refers to a person's artistic signature...
score. He had been working on Le duc d'Albe
Le duc d'Albe
Le duc d'Albe or Il duca d'Alba is an opera in three acts originally composed by Gaetano Donizetti in 1839 to a French language libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier...
, but postponed work on the half-completed score in favor of L'ange and La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.La figlia del reggimento, a slightly different Italian-language version , was...
.
Although Donizetti noted in correspondence to his close friend Tommaso Persico in Naples that L'ange was "an opera in three acts", both the autograph score and Donizetti's contract with Anténor Joly, the owner of the theater company Donizetti contracted, make clear that L'ange had four acts. Regardless, Donizetti's letter has caused confusion among opera journalists and scholars. For example, The Musical Times
The Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
journalist Dean Winton wrote of the Italian version of La favorite in 1979: "[I]t was expanded from an unperformed three-act French opera, L'ange de Nisida." Ashbrook speculates that Donizetti may have considered the first two acts as one.
Contract and cancellation
On 5 January 1840, Donizetti signed a rehearsal and performance contract with his librettists and Anténor Joly, who was operating a company named Théâtre de la RenaissanceThéâtre de la Renaissance
The name Théâtre de la Renaissance has been used successively for three distinct Parisian theatre companies. The first two companies, which were short-lived enterprises in the 19th century, used the Salle Ventadour, now an office building on the Rue Méhul in the 2nd arrondissement.The current...
and giving performances at the Salle Ventadour
Salle Ventadour
The Salle Ventadour, a former Parisian theatre in the rue Neuve-Ventadour, now the rue Méhul , was built between 1826 and 1829 for the Opéra-Comique, to designs by Jacques-Marie Huvé, a prominent architect...
in Paris. Théâtre de la Renaissance chose L'ange over Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Das Liebesverbot
Das Liebesverbot
Das Liebesverbot is an early opera in two acts by Richard Wagner, with the libretto written by the composer after Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Described as a grosse komische Oper, it was composed in 1834, and Wagner conducted the premiere in 1836 at Magdeburg...
. Joly's company had premiered the French version of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
the previous year, and L'ange was meant to be its successor. The contract, which is on display at the Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra National de Paris
Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra National de Paris
The Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra National de Paris is a library and museum of the Paris Opera and is located in the 9th arrondissement at 8 rue Scribe, Paris, France. It is no longer managed by the Opera, but instead is part of the Music Department of the National Library of France...
, stipulates that L'ange be performed uninterrupted twenty times unless three consecutive performances sold poorly, and that Joly could not premiere any other opera until the revenue from L'ange started to decline. The contract contains nothing about Donizetti's compensation; therefore, it is possible that another contract existed. L'ange was set to begin rehearsal on 1 February 1840. Donizetti had two other operas in various stages of preparation at other theaters during this time: Les martyrs
Poliuto
Poliuto is a tragedia lirica, or tragic opera, by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto after Pierre Corneille's play Polyeucte . It was composed in 1838 and first performed on 30 November 1848 at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples...
and La fille du régiment.
Later in January, Joly terminated all opera productions of the Théâtre de la Renaissance company due to financial hardship, despite a reported 5,000-franc loan from Donizetti. Joly tried to keep the operation afloat by staging ballets, but it closed completely in May 1840. He filed for bankruptcy and therefore avoided paying Donizetti the large fee owed for backing out of the production. Writing for the Cambridge Opera Journal, Mark Everist referred to L'ange as one of "the most spectacular casualties of the collapse of music drama at the Théâtre de la Renaissance".
Reworking
Donizetti managed to retrieve the score of L'ange de Nisida from Joly's company and reworked it as La favoriteLa favorite
La favorite is an opera in four acts by Gaetano Donizetti to a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, based on the play Le comte de Comminges by Baculard d'Arnaud...
(now more commonly known by its Italian title, La favorita) in September 1840 for a December premiere in Italy. To circumvent the Italian censors Donizetti agreed to plot modifications; La favorite is about a medieval King of Castile.
The presence and influence of L'ange is evident in Donizetti's autograph score of La favorite, which features "large chunks" of L'ange "cut up and interleaved" in which new character names and text for La favorite overwrite the old. The final page of L'ange was used as the final page of La favorite; therefore, both operas bear the same finish date on the last page. Donizetti's contract for La favorite demanded a 1 December 1840 premiere, leaving him little time for dramatic changes. In his 1965 biography Donizetti, Ashbrook surmises that this tight deadline gave rise to the legend that Donizetti actually composed the last act of La favorite in a single night. In fact, the libretto of L'ange and the autograph score of La favorite make clear that the final act of La favorite was completed long before Donizetti began the rest of it in September—Donizetti lifted it from L'ange with the exception of two solo passages. He brought in librettist 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:...
to oversee the new text, which also required the approval of starring mezzo-soprano Rosine Stoltz. The finished product was an amalgamation of the unfinished Adelaide, the never-performed L'ange de Nisida, and new material worked into the score by Donizetti and into the libretto by Scribe. La favorite premiered on 2 December 1840.
Ashbrook has compared the surviving autograph scores of L'ange de Nisida and La favorite to determine precisely how much material L'ange provided for the latter. While the events in L'ange are set in 1470 in Nisida and Naples, La favorite is set in Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain.The city's Cathedral is the destination today, as it has been throughout history, of the important 9th century medieval pilgrimage route, the Way of St. James...
and Castile
Castile (historical region)
A former kingdom, Castile gradually merged with its neighbours to become the Crown of Castile and later the Kingdom of Spain when united with the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre...
, both in Spain, prior to 1350. Donizetti made fundamental changes to the first half of La favorite and little remains of L'ange. The central conflict of the story involving the marriage and subsequent death is essentially the same from one opera to the other, and some of the character names are also similar or identical.
A transcription of the L'ange libretto is kept at the Fondazione Donizetti library in Bergamo
Bergamo
Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...
, and was printed in a 2002 issue of the Italian-language journal for The Donizetti Society.
Roles
As the opera never got to the rehearsal stage, little is known about the intended cast. In a letter to his close friend Tommaso Persico, Donizetti expressed his desire to give the title role to Juliette Bourgeois, a temperamental soprano who requested a large sum of money to perform in France. (She was later to create the title role in Donizetti's La fille du régimentLa fille du régiment
La fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.La figlia del reggimento, a slightly different Italian-language version , was...
)
| Role | Voice type | Corresponding role in La favorite |
|---|---|---|
| Don Fernand d'Aragon, King of Naples | 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... |
Alphonse XI of Castile |
| Don Gaspar, chamberlain of the King | basso buffo Bass (voice type) A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C... |
Don Gaspar |
| Countess Sylvia de Linares | 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... |
Léonor |
| Leone de Casaldi, a soldier | 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... |
Fernand, a novice |
| The Monk | bass | Balthasar |
Synopsis
Leone de Casaldi is an exiled soldier who makes a forbidden journey to the island of NisidaNisida
Nisida is a volcanic islet of the Flegrean Islands archipelago, in southern Italy. It lies at a very short distance from Cape Posillipo, just north of Naples; it is now connected to the mainland by a stone bridge. The islet is almost circular, with a flooded crater forming the bay of Porto Paone on...
, outside Naples, Italy, to see Sylvia, with whom he is infatuated. Leone knows she is a noble but little else. While on Nisida, Leone encounters Don Gaspar, Chamberlain to King Fernand of Naples. After hearing Leone's plight, Don Gaspar convinces him to travel to Naples to have his exile lifted. Leone and Sylvia meet in Naples, at which time Leone discovers that she is actually Sylvia de Linares, the King's mistress. She declares her love for Leone but implores him to abandon her and his plans in Naples. When he refuses, the King discovers him and orders Don Gaspar to arrest and imprison him.
The King expresses to Sylvia his desire that she wed him. However, agents of Rome have been plotting to banish the mistress from Naples. When the King, dismayed, offers to grant her any request, she asks that Leone be set free. A monk appears, brandishing the Papal bull
Papal bull
A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....
and threatening to banish Sylvia if she remains a mistress to the King. The King plots with Don Gaspar to free Leone and wed him to Sylvia, although Leone would be sent away and Sylvia would remain the King's mistress. Leone and Sylvia marry, but when Leone discovers the plot, he breaks his sword in front of the King and leaves under the monk's escort.
Leone is preparing to take his vows as a monk when Sylvia appears, having followed him disguised as a novice. When she confronts Leone and asks for forgiveness, he realizes his feelings and attempts to flee with her. Sylvia, who has been near death, dies at Leone's feet despite his calls for help.