Zelmira

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Zelmira

Zelmira is an 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....
in two acts by Gioacchino Rossini

Gioacchino Rossini

Gioachino Antonio Rossini was a popular Italian composer who created 39 operas as well as sacred music and chamber music. His best known works include Il barbiere di Siviglia , La Cenerentola and Guillaume Tell ....
to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola

Andrea Leone Tottola

Andrea Leone Tottola was a prolific Italy libretto, best-known for his work with Gaetano Donizetti and Gioachino Rossini.It is not known when or where he was born....
. Based on the French play, Zelmire by de Belloy

Pierre-Laurent Buirette de Belloy

Pierre-Laurent Buirette de Belloy or Dormont De Belloy was a French dramatist and actor.He was educated by his uncle, a distinguished advocate in Paris, for the bar....
, it was the last of the composer's Neapolitan

Teatro di San Carlo

Stendhal

Henri-Marie Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century France writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme ....
called its music Teutonic, comparing it with La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito

La clemenza di Tito , K?chel-Verzeichnis 621, is an opera seria composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with text after Metastasio. It was started after the bulk of The Magic Flute, the last opera that Mozart worked on, was already written ....
but remarking: "...while Mozart would probably, had he lived, have grown completely Italian, Rossini may well, by the end of his career, have become more German than Beethoven himself!"

first performance of Zelmira was in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in southern Italy, the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,800 years old....
at the Teatro di San Carlo

Teatro di San Carlo

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Performance history

The first performance of Zelmira was in Naples

Naples

Teatro di San Carlo

The Real Teatro di San Carlo is an opera house in Naples, Italy. It is the oldest continuously active such venue in Europe and it is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site....
on February 16, 1822. This was followed by a premiere in Vienna on April 13, 1822, for which Rossini wrote some additional music, and Paris in 1826.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, February 16, 1822 (Conductor: Nicola Festa)
Polidoro, King of Lesbos	bass	Antonio Ambrosi
Zelmira, his daughter	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....	Isabella Colbran Isabella Colbran Isabella Colbran was a Spain opera singer, who was known in her native country as Isabel Colbrandt. Many sources note her as a dramatic coloratura soprano but it is more presumably that she was a mezzo-soprano with a high extension, a mezzosoprano acuto....
Emma, her confidant	contralto Contralto In music, a contralto is a type of European classical music female voice type with a vocal range somewhere between a tenor and a mezzo-soprano. The term is used to refer to the deepest female singing voice....	Anna Maria Cecconi
Ilo, Prince of Troy Troy Troy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer.... and husband of Zelmira	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....	Giovanni David Giovanni David Giovanni David was an Italy tenor particularly known for his roles in Rossini operas.David was the son of the tenor Giacomo David, with whom he studied....
Antenore, a usurper from Mytilene Mytilene Mytilene is the Capital city of Lesbos Island, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, and capital of Lesbos Prefecture and the Northern Aegean region....	tenor	Andrea Nozzari Andrea Nozzari Andrea Nozzari was an Italy tenor.Nozzari was born in Vertova and studied in Bergamo and Rome. He is notable for the principal roles written for him by Gioachino Rossini and mostly premiered in Domenico Barbaia's theatres in Naples....
Leucippo, his confidant, a general	bass-baritone Bass-baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying Bass that shares certain qualities with the baritone voice type.The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Richard Wagner roles: the Dutchman in The Flying Dutchman , Wotan/Der Wanderer in the Ring Cycle and Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von N?rnbe...	Michele Benedetti Michele Benedetti Michele Benedetti was an Italian Bass particularly associated with Rossini roles....
Eacide, a follower of Prince Ilo	tenor	Gaetano Chizzola
High priest of Jupiter	bass	Massimo Orlandini
Priests, populace, Mytilene army, Ilo's followers, Zelmira's young son (silent)

Synopsis

The opera's complicated plot revolves around Zelmira, her father Polidoro, the wise and beloved king of the Isle of Lesbos, and her husband, Prince Ilo. Before the action begins, Ilo had departed the island to defend his homeland. While he was gone, Azor, the lord of Mytilene and a disappointed suitor of Zelmira, had invaded Lesbos with the intention of assassinating King Polidoro and taking over his throne. Zelmira, however, had managed to conceal her father in the royal mausoleum and then told Azor that he was hiding in the temple to Ceres

Ceres (mythology)

| Image = Ceres_statue.jpg| Caption = This statue depicting Ceres holding wheat is on display at the Louvre in Paris, France.| Name = Ceres| God_of = Goddess of growing plants and motherly love...
. Azor burnt down the temple, thinking he had killed the King, but he was in turn killed on orders from Antenore, who also aspired to the throne.

As Act I opens, the Mytilene warriors are mourning the death of Azor. Antenore, with the help of Leucippo, plots to take over the throne of Lesbos by trying to incriminate Zelmira in the deaths of Azor and her father. At first, even Emma, Zelmira's confidante, believes the accusations. Fearing for the safety of her young son, Zelmira reveals to Emma that her father is still alive and asks her to take the child into hiding. Prince Ilo returns to the island. Zelmira is afraid to tell him of the accusations against her or to defend herself. Instead, Prince Ilo hears only Antenore's version of the story. Antenore is crowned King of Lesbos. Leucippo attempts to murder Ilo, but is stopped by Zelmira. Found with the dagger in her hand, Zelmira is now also accused of attempting to murder her husband and is imprisoned.

In Act II, Leucippo intercepts a letter from Zelmira to Ilo in which she tells him that her father is still alive and that the accusations against her are false. He and Antenore temporarily free her from prison and trick her into revealing her father's hiding place. Both father and daughter are recaptured and await their deaths at the hands of the plotters. Meanwhile, Prince Ilo is distraught at what he believes to be the death of Polidoro and the unhappy end to his marriage. Emma appears and tells Prince Ilo the truth about Zelmira. He and his men rescue Zelmira and Polidoro. Zelmira is happily reunited with her husband and child, while both Antenore and Leucippo are led off in chains.

Selected recordings

Rossini: Zelmira (Virginia Zeani, Nicola Tagger, Gastone Limarilli, Paolo Washington, Anna Rota, Guido Mazzini, Giuseppe Moretti, Enrico Campi; Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro San Carlo) Conductor: Carlo Franci. Recorded live 1965. Opera D'Oro ODO 1455
Rossini: Zelmira (Cecilia Gasdia, William Matteuzzi, Chris Merritt, Bernarda Fink, Boaz Senator, Jose Garcia; I Solisti Veneti) Conductor: Claudio Scimone. Recorded 1989. Erato 45419
Rossini: Zelmira (Elizabeth Futral, Bruce Ford, Marco Palazzi, Antonio Siragusa, Manuela Custer, Marco Vinco; Scottish Chamber Orchestra) Conductor: Maurizio Benini. Recorded 2003. Opera Rara ORC 27

External links

(in Italian) at Karadar.com
(in Italian) in Gelli, Piero (ed.), Dizionario dell'Opera, 2006, Milan: Baldini Castoldi Dalai, ISBN 8884907802
by Pierre-Laurent de Belloy
on the 1989 revival of Zelmira at the Rossini Opera Festival
Rossini Opera Festival

The Rossini Opera Festival is an opera festival held in August of each year in Pesaro, Italy, the birthplace of the opera composer Gioachino Rossini....
in Pesaro.
on the 2003 concert performance in Edinburgh
Edinburgh International Festival

the edinburgh international festival --Special:Contributions/83.44.166.187 21:30, 26 February 2009 The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August....
.
Chris Mullins, , Opera Today, 22 December 2004.
The has a definitive role list from the critical edition by Greenwald and Hansell and some musical analysis.