Same opera, different composers

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Gabriele D'Annunzio was a sublime poet. But he didn't live only in a world of Muses and high feelings: he loved money very much. He only wrote one libretto ("Parisina", with music of Mascagni), but a lot of its dramas were adapted as librettos and set to music by many composers. One of them was Alberto Franchetti. D'Annunzio wrote an abrucese rural drama, very tragic and heartbreaking, titled "La figlia di Iorio", which was premiered in 1904 with a big success. Franchetti, although in ours days is a forgotten composer, was in the beginning of XXth century a very appreciated author. So, when he said he wanted to make an opera using this drama as subject, D'Annunzio was delighted: this will be a very good business for him. The opera was premiered two years later, in 1906, but doesn't was the success that his fathers expected.

But the idea about art, and about lyric drama, that D'Annunzio had was very different that wich of Franchetti had. His viewpoint about opera was nearest to another composer, the young Ildebrando Pizzetti. D'Annunzio and Pizzetti developped a true friendship and, in proof, the poet, at the end of his life, gave to the composer the rights over "La figlia di Iorio", without remember he had sold them to Franchetti and Ricordi, or may be he remembered of that but it doesn't matter for him.

Fortunately, descendants of Baron Franchetti (yes, Franchetti had a title) proved they were very nobles (in every senses) and announced that "La figlia di Iorio" was mundial heritage, free of every tutelage and author's rights, and so, Pizzetti could make what he wanted with the text. Pizzetti's "Figlia" was premiered in 1954 and achieved a good success.

That's how we can to enjoy nowadays with two operatic versions about "La figlia di Iorio". I link here two fragments about the same dramatic moment, and you can to compare. Is the moment in which Aligi face his father Lazaro and kills him (Act II):

Franchetti:
http://www.divshare.com/download/15388054-394]

Pizzetti:
http://www.divshare.com/download/15392422-639


If you are interested, you can hear the complete Pizzetti's work here:
Act I
Act II
Act III

[Schigolch]

Franchetti 1 : Pizzetti 0.

[Loge]

Oh, yes! I know.

[Schigolch]

King Lear was one of Verdi's disappointments as an operatic composer, as he tried to find the right libretto to compose an opera, but it never happened.

However, other composers have been able to write an opera on the subject. For instance, Antonio Cagnoni:



and Aribert Reimann:

[Schigolch]

Paul et Virginie.

Victor Massé



Jean-François Le Sueur

[Festat]

Ooh, I never knew Paul et Virginie was ever turned into opera.
My grandmother will be very pleased. She herself is called Virginia and managed to marry my grandpa, whose name is, curiously, Paulo.

[Schigolch]

It was, and even before the versions mentioned in my post above, there was one by Rodolphe Kreutzer premiered as early as 1791.

[Eltenor212]

Yes it is quite good!!! One has to keep in mind that Rossini's asthetic is completely different from Verdi. Rossini tells a different story with different musical and theatrical conventions but it is a worthy piece. I recomend the opera rara recording with Bruce Ford as Otello it is a fine recording of theis little produced opera

[Schigolch]

Yes, Rossini's Otello is a nice opera.

Welcome to Opera Lively!.

[myaskovsky2002]

Two come to my mind

Wozzeck: Gurlit, Berg
Gustav III: Daniel Auber, Verdi (un ballo in maschera
Faust: Gounod, Schnittke

Notre Dame de Paris... I don't remember...

Martin

[Schigolch]

Antonín Dvořák's Dimitrij starts just where Boris Godunov concludes, with the death of Boris and the split of the Russian people between two factions, led by Shuisky and the false Dimitrij.

This is a beautiful duet between Dimitrij and her supposed mother, Marfa, with splendid singing from Beno Blachut and Marta Krásová:

[myaskovsky2002]

Verdi: Giovanna d'arco, Tchaikovsky : the maid of Orleans

[Schigolch]

Apart from Verdi's I Masnadieri there is other opera based on Schiller's Die Rauber and it was written by Giselher Klebe (a recent work then) under the same title as the original source.

Very recent performance of Mercadante's I Briganti, also based on "Die Räuber". This opera was premiered some years before Verdi's, in 1836, and was never a big success:

[Schigolch]

We have already commented in the thread how Pietro Metastasio's librettos were put in music by several composers.

One of those librettos is "Antigono", that was used by Gluck or Hasse:



But perhaps the more curious story related with "Antigono" is the opera written by Antonio Mazzoni. It was a tragedy in three acts commissioned by the King of Portugal Jose I, and sung in the premiere by luminaries like the castrati Guadagni, Caffarelli and Farinelli. However, the score was apparently lost in the big earthquake that stroke Lisbon in 1755, "Antigono" was the last opera performed at the old Teatro do Taixo. However, using several fragmentary information located in Lisbon itself, and Rio de Janeiro, eventually the opera was restored a few years ago, and presented again in Lisbon.

[Schigolch]

Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô was the subject of two unfinished operas, one by Modest Mussorgsky and other by Sergei Rachmaninoff. However there are other, finished, operas based on Salammbô.

Ernst Reyer wrote his, under the unimaginative title of Salammbô, in 1890 and was premiered at Brussel's Opera. It's was not very succesful, and today is mostly forgotten, though it was revived for the hundredth anniversary of Reyer's death:




Josef Matthias Hauer adapted himself (in an almost verbatim way) Flaubert's story for his... yes, Salammbô again, written in 1929, using the composer's own flavour of 12-tone techniques.