L'assedio di Calais is a melodramma lirico, or 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 three 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...

. Salvatore Cammarano

Salvatore Cammarano

Salvadore Cammarano was a prolific Italian librettist and playwright perhaps best known for writing the text of Lucia di Lammermoor for Gaetano Donizetti....

 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 Luigi Marchionni's play and, secondarily, Luigi Henry's ballet (1827), both based on Pierre Du Belloy's play Le siège de Calais (1765). The historical basis was the siege of Calais in 1346, toward the beginning of what would later be called the Hundred Years' War

Hundred Years' War

The Hundred Years' War was a series of separate wars waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou, for the French throne, which had become vacant upon the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings...

. It premiered on November 19, 1836 at the Teatro San Carlo, 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...

.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 19 November 1836 (Conductor: - )
Eustachio de Saint-Pierre, Mayor of Calais	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...	Paul Barroilhet Paul Barroilhet Paul-Bernard Barroilhet was a French operatic baritone.-Career:Barroilhet studied at the Conservatoire de Paris and then with Davide Banderali in Milan...
Aurelio, his son	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... , pants role	Almareinda Manzocchi
Eleonora, Aurelio's wife	soprano	Caterina Barilli-Patti, mother of Adelina Patti Adelina Patti Adelina Patti was a highly acclaimed 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851 and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914...
Giovanni d'Aire, burgher	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...	Ferdinando Cimino
Giacomo de Wisants, burgher	tenor	Freni
Pietro de Wisants, burgher	baritone	Giovanni Revalden
Armando, burgher	bass	Giuseppe Benedetti
Eduardo III, King of England	baritone	Luigi Lablache Luigi Lablache Luigi Lablache was an Italian opera singer of French and Irish heritage. He was most noted for his comic performances, possessing a powerful and agile bass voice, a wide range, and adroit acting skills: Leporello in Don Giovanni was one of his signature roles.-Biography:Luigi Lablache was born in...
Isabella, Queen of England	soprano
Edmundo, English general	tenor	Nicola Tucci
An English spy	bass	Pietro Gianni

Synopsis

Time: 1347

Place: Calais

Calais

Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....

, France,

Calais is under siege by the English army under Edward III. Six noblemen of Calais, including the mayor,volunteer their lives in exchange for lasting peace. The English Queen is so moved by their valour that she persuades her husband to end the siege and spill no more blood.

External links

• Libretto (Italian)