Rienzi

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Rienzi

Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen (WWV 49) (Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes) is an early opera

Opera

Opera is an Performing arts in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work which combines a text and a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition....
by Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, Conducting, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas . Unlike most other great opera composers, Wagner wrote both the scenario and libretto for his works....
in five acts, with the libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, Musical theater, and ballet....
written by the composer after Bulwer-Lytton's

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton was an England novelist, poet, playwright, and politician. Lord Lytton was a florid, popular writer of his day, who coined such phrases as "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword", and the infamous incipit "It was a dark and stormy...
novel of the same name. The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi. Written between July 1838 and November 1840

1840 in music

Events * February 11 - Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Fille du Regiment premieres in Paris.*June 9 - Franz Liszt gives the first piano recital, in London's Hanover Square Rooms....
, it was first performed at the Hofoper

Semperoper

The Semperoper is the opera house of the Saxon State Opera Dresden and the concert hall of the S?chsische Staatskapelle Dresden in Dresden, Germany....
, Dresden

Dresden

Grand Opera

File:Robert-le-diable.jpgGrand Opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage-effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events....
style.

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Encyclopedia

Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen (WWV 49) (Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes) is an early opera

Opera

Richard Wagner

Libretto

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

1840 in music

Semperoper

The Semperoper is the opera house of the Saxon State Opera Dresden and the concert hall of the S?chsische Staatskapelle Dresden in Dresden, Germany....
, Dresden

Dresden

Background

Rienzi is Wagner's third completed opera, and is mostly written in a Grand Opera

Grand Opera

Paris Opera

Paris Opera may refer to:In theaters:*Th??tre de l'Acad?mie Royale de Musique, the official theatre of the French theatrical institution known as the Acad?mie Royale de Musique from 1821 until 1873...
, but several circumstances, including the need for Wagner to flee from the city, prevented the performance. The first performance in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Germany Federal Free state of Saxony. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon triangle metropolitan area....
was well received despite running over six hours (including intermissions). Later, Wagner experimented both with giving the opera over two evenings and making cuts for performance in a single evening.

Because of its atypical style, and its sheer length, Rienzi is rarely performed today, and has never been performed at the Bayreuth Festival

Bayreuth Festival

The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented....
. Wagner later saw the work as an embarrassment, but it remained one of his most successful until his death. An ingenious staging at the English National Opera

English National Opera

English National Opera is the national opera company of England, and one of two opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden....
in London, produced by Nicholas Hytner

Nicholas Hytner

Nicholas Robert Hytner is an English film and theatre producer and director, regarded by some as one of the most prolific and accomplished of his generation on either side of the Atlantic....
in the 1980s, placed the hero in the context of 20th century totalitarianism

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a concept used to describe political systems whereby a state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private life. Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of an official all-embracing ideology and propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, single-party st...
.

The opera concerns the life of Cola di Rienzi, a medieval Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
populist figure who succeeds in outwitting and then defeating the nobles and their followers and in raising the power of the people. Magnanimous at first, he is forced by events to crush the nobles' rebellion against the people's power, but popular opinion changes and even the Church, which has earlier urged him to assert himself, turns against him. In the end the populace burns the Capitol, in which Rienzi and a few adherents have made a last stand.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 20 October 1842 (Conductor: Carl Gottlieb Reißiger)
Cola Rienza, Roman Tribune	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male voice type and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between the C one octave below middle C to the A above in choral music, and up to high C in solo work....	Josef Aloys Tichatschek
Irene, his sister	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately 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....	Henriette Wüst
Stefano Colonna, a nobleman	bass	Georg Wilhelm Dettmer
Adriano, his son	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately 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....	Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient Wilhelmine Schr?der-Devrient , was a Germany operatic soprano....
Paolo Orsini, another patrician	bass	Johann Michael Wächter Johann Michael Wächter Johann Michael W?chter was an Austrian bass-baritone most famous for appearing in the operas of Richard Wagner.Born in Rappersdorf in Austria, W?chter sang in various church choirs in Vienna, making his stage d?but in 1819 at Graz as Don Giovanni in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni....
Raimondo, Papal Legate	bass	Gioacchino Vestri
Baroncelli, Roman citizen	tenor	Friedrich Traugott Reinhold
Cecco del Vecchio, Roman citizen	bass	Karl Risse
The Messenger of Peace	soprano	Anna Thiele
Ambassadors, Nobles, Priests, Monks, Soldiers, Messengers, Populace

Selected recordings

Complete recordings (and performances) of Rienzi are rare, although the overture is regularly found on radio broadcasts and compilation CDs. Significant cuts to the score are common in recordings.

Josef Krips
Josef Krips

Josef Alois Krips was a Jewish Austrians Conducting and violinist.Krips was born in Vienna, Austria, and went on to become a pupil of Eusebius Mandyczewski and Felix Weingartner....
conducting the Vienna Symphony Orchestra
Vienna Symphony Orchestra

The Vienna Symphony is an orchestra in Vienna, Austria....
. Berry, Ludwig, Pernerstorfer, Schoffler. 1960 (Melodram).
Heinrich Hollreiser
Heinrich Hollreiser

Heinrich Hollreiser was a Germany conducting. Born in Munich, he attended the Hochschule f?r Musik und Theater M?nchen there, and went on to serve as the conductor at the opera houses in Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Duisburg....
conducting the Dresden Staatskapelle. Kollo, Wennberg, Martin, Adam. 1975 (EMI). (Complete recording of Wagner's shortened 1843 version)
Edward Downes
Edward Downes

Sir Edward Thomas Downes, Order of the British Empire is an England Conducting. He took up the piano and violin when he was five and sang as a boy chorister....
conducting the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra. Mitchinson, Haywood, Langdon, Herincx. 1976 (Ponto POCD1040) (Complete and uncut recording of Wagner's "original" 1842 version)
Wolfgang Sawallisch
Wolfgang Sawallisch

Wolfgang Sawallisch is a Germany conducting and pianist....
conducting the Bavarian State Radio Orchestra. Kollo,Rootering, Studer, Janssen. 1983 (Orfeo d'Oro)

Recordings of the overture include: James Levine

James Levine

James Lawrence Levine is an United States orchestral conducting and piano. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and of the Boston Symphony Orchestra....
conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini

Arturo Toscanini

Arturo Toscanini was an Italian people conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th Centuries, he was renowned for his brilliant intensity, his restless perfectionism, his phenomenal ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory....
conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra

NBC Symphony Orchestra

The NBC Symphony Orchestra was a radio orchestra established by David Sarnoff of the National Broadcasting Company especially for conductor Arturo Toscanini....
, George Szell

George Szell

George Szell , originally Gy?rgy Sz?ll or Georg Szell, was a Hungary-born American conducting and composer. He is remembered today for his long and successful tenure as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, and for the recordings of the standard classical repertoire he made in Cleveland and with other orchestras....
conducting the Cleveland Orchestra

Cleveland Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five "....
, Lorin Maazel

Lorin Maazel

Lorin Varencove Maazel is a conducting, viola and composer....
conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski

Leopold Stokowski

Leopold Stokowski was a famous orchestral conducting, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted....
conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"....
, Zubin Mehta

Zubin Mehta

Zubin Mehta is an Indian conducting of Western classical music....
conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra

External links

from Stanford University
Stanford University

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....
at Project Gutenberg.
.
IMSLP Complete Vocal Score