La zingara is an opera semiseria

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 two acts (1822) 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...

, set to 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 Andrea Leone Tottola

Andrea Leone Tottola

Andrea Leone Tottola was a prolific Italian librettist, best known for his work with Gaetano Donizetti and Gioachino Rossini.It is not known when or where he was born...

, after La petite bohémienne (The Little Gypsy) by Louis-Charles Caigniez, which was itself derived from a work of August von Kotzebue

August von Kotzebue

August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue was a German dramatist.One of Kotzebue's books was burned during the Wartburg festival in 1817. He was murdered in 1819 by Karl Ludwig Sand, a militant member of the Burschenschaften...

.

It was Donizetti's first opera written for 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...

 and the first performance took place at the Teatro Nuovo on 12 May 1822. The soprano aria Fra l'erbe cosparse ("Sprinkled over the grass") was especially popular.

One critic reviewing the 2001 recording from the Festival della Valle d'Itria

Festival della Valle d'Itria

The Festival della Valle d’Itria is a summer opera festival held in the south eastern Italian town of Martina Franca in the Apulia region. The Festival was founded in 1975 and performances are given in July and August each summer on a specially constructed stage in the outdoor courtyard of the...

, made the following observations about the opera:

"Despite its moronic libretto, the opera was an enormous success at its premiere in Naples in 1822, and even Bellini wrote nice things about the second-act septet in which Donizetti mixes buffo and serious characters, as well as Neapolitan dialect (there are no recitatives; numbers are separated by spoken dialogue) with "pure" Italian, and the absurd plot is (sort of) held together by the clever Argilla, who under the guise of telling fortunes gains entry to people's feelings as well as to every area of the castle. Is it a masterpiece? Even close? No, but there are niceties galore—rhythmic arias and ensembles, good (if typical) characterizations, and good tunes."

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 12 May 1822 (Conductor: - )
Argilla	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...	Giacinta Canonici
Ines	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...	Caterina Monticelli
Fernando	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...	Marco Venier
Don Ranuccio Zappador	bass	Carlo Moncada
Don Sebastiano Alvarez	bass	Giuseppe Fioravanti Giuseppe Fioravanti Giuseppe Fioravanti was an Italian opera singer active during the first half of the 19th century. Although one of the most important and popular basso buffos of his generation, there is only a relatively small amount of information available about his life...
Duca d'Alziras	tenor	Alessandro Busti
Papaccione	buffo	Carlo Casaccia
Amelia	soprano	Francesca Ceccherini
Ghita	soprano	Clementina Grassi
Manuelita	soprano	Marianna Grassi
Antonio Alvarez	tenor	Raffaele Sarti
Sguiglio	tenor	Raffaele Casaccia
Domestici di Zappador e di zingari, chorus

Synopsis

Time: The middle ages

Place: Spain

Don Ranuccio has imprisoned Don Sebastiano in his castle and he also wants to kill the Duke of Alziras, his political rival. Ranuccio's daughter Ines is in love with Fernando, but her father wants her to marry Antonio who is Don Sebastiano's nephew.

Argilla, the gypsy girl of the title, brings together the lovers Ferrando and Ines, saves the life of the Duke, whom she brings together again with his brother, and frees Don Sebastiano, who turns out to be her father. Comedy is provided by the servant Pappacione, fooled into searching for gold in an old cistern. All ends happily.

Recordings

Year	Cast (Argilla, Ines, Fernando, Don Sebastiano Alvarez, Duca d'Alziras)	Conductor, Opera House and Orchestra	Label
2001	Manuela Custer, Rosita Ramini, Massimiliano Barbolini, Piero Terranova, Cataldo Gallone	Arnold Bosman, Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia and Bratislava Chamber Chorus (Recorded at the Festival della Valle d'Itria, Martina Franca, July)	Audio CD: Dynaminc Cat: CDS396/1-2

External links

• Robert Levine, review of 2002 recording on classicstoday.com
• Information and synopsis (Italian)
• Libretto
• Naxos