Donizetti * Belisario _ "A sì tremendo annunzio...Trema Bisanzio!" / U. Grilli / G. Gavazzeni, cond.

Описание: Donizetti

BELISARIO

Gianandrea Gavazzeni, conductor.

Teatro La Fenice di Venezia Orchestra and Chorus

(Teatro La Fenice, Venice, May, 1969)

Umberto Grilli, tenor (Alamiro).

Donizetti intimo

Trema Bisanzio!

Who and what did the composer have in mind with this cry? Enigmatic as a plot, born as a puzzle, Belisario is the most oddly timed opera in the Donizettian canon. “Strong love” he said he wanted but this is precisely what he did not get. Belisario is his one truly Byzantine argument.

Very few operas can have been born under such a brilliant star. The maestro himself wrote that he intended to set Cammarano’s shelved Belisario on the actual day that Lucia di Lammermoor made her début in Naples and brought him instant fame (even if the date of his letter has been disputed), thus, the long-held belief that Donizetti only decided to tackle the forgotten text by his overjoyed collaborator in the euphoric wake of Lucia is completely untrue. The libretto of Belisario had been offered to Barbaja in 1833 - two years before - as an example of his poetic skills, Cammarano was hoping to get the official post left vacant by Domenico Gilardoni, but Barbaja had turned it down.

Nor had Donizetti ever shown any particular enthusiasm for this bitter tale of revenge and betrayal - or so at least it has always been presumed. We were wrong. The initial puzzle, however, is due to something else entirely:

AI LETTORI
Fu base di questo lavoro, che oso offrirvi, una Tragedia di Holbein, che il valenta Artista Drammatica Luigi Marchionni ridusse per le Scene Italiche. Il Belisario di Holbein, pari a quello della Storia, colse ovunque allori copiosi e meritati; reputerò il mio non meno avventuroso, se Voi, delle cose Teatrali integri e scienti giudici, gli accorderete una sola fronda di quegli allori. Vivete Felici. L’AUTORE

So reads the preface to the printed libretto of Belisario for its Venetian prima on 4 February 1836, and very charmingly put it is, but it is anything but true, the opera is not based on Holbein.

The romantic stage owed almost everything to a very small number of people, one of the most adept of whom was the journeyman/playwright/actor Luigi Marchionni (1791-1851) who was a lynch-pin for libretti. The leader of a family troupe whose interminable provincial tours disgorged an incredible amount of undistinguished dramatic fare to gullible audiences, with plots and texts he himself prepared, he kept his ear close to the ground for new ideas. That these were shallow plays lowered to the tastes of largely unsophisticated clients full of posturing and arcane situations did not deter him in the least." - Alexander Weatherson

More @ http://alexander.weatherson.info/DocP...