La Forza Del Destino' John Nádas University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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Verdi Forum Number 15 Article 2 1-1-1987 New Light on Pre-1869 Revisions of 'La forza del destino' John Nádas University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/vf Part of the Musicology Commons Recommended Citation Nádas, John (1987) "New Light on Pre-1869 Revisions of 'La forza del destino'," Verdi Forum: No. 15, Article 2. Available at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/vf/vol1/iss15/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Verdi Forum by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. New Light on Pre-1869 Revisions of 'La forza del destino' Keywords Giuseppe Verdi, La forza del destino This article is available in Verdi Forum: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/vf/vol1/iss15/2 New Light on Pre-1869 Revisions of LA FORZA DEL DESTINO John Nadas, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The revision of La forza de/ desti110 father of his first wife), and Gioachino appears to have taken Verdi some five Rossini. years--from first thoughts late in the 1 do not mean that the period between summer of 1863 (after he directed the two Forzas ( 1863-68) has not been performances in Madrid) until the winter of covered in the Verdi literature; quite the 1868-69, and including the rehearsals for the contrary--if anything, it would appear to Milanese premiere of the definitive second have been intensely studied. But new version (see Appendix I). This period insights and refinements are now possible signals the start of an active and abundantly with the aid of modern microfilm and documented part of the composer's career, photocopy archives. Previously there was which includes the refashioning of Macbeth, great difficulty in assembling materials from the creation of Don Carlos, the composition many disparate sources and consequently in of his first significant occasional piece, the appraising the documents in correct 111110 de/le 11a=io11i, for the International chronological order. Among the most Exposition of 1862 in London, and a revival important materials are letters in the of Les Vepres Sicilie1111es at the Paris Opera. collection at Sant' Agata from librettists, Each of these enterprises engaged Verdi singers, publishers, impresarios, and friends, outside of Italy and thus generated much which are largely still tied in bundles as correspondence. The extent of this Verdi and Giuseppina probably left them. documentation had not been fully appreciated These include letters from Verdi's future until the work of the past decade unearthed agent, Mauro Corticelli, the librettists an astounding amount of the surviving Francesco Maria Piave, Achille de Lauzieres, correspondence, most of it now available in and Antonio Ghislanzoni, the tenor Enrico this country in the Verdi Archive at New Tamberlick and his younger brother Achille, York University. Bagier (the impresario who first brought The years of the creation and revision Forza to Madrid and later tried to do the of Forza were among the richest in Verdi's same for Paris), Verdi's favorite tenor, life (see chronology of events during this Gaetano Fraschini, the conductor Angelo period, Appendix 1). The composer Mariani, the director of the Paris Opera, continued his active life as a man of Emile Perrin, and Verdi's French publisher, property, now legally married (1859) and Leon Escudier. settled in his villa at Sant'Agata. These Perhaps the most useful tool has been years also encompassed his short-lived Giuseppina's unpublished Copia/e11ere, five political career as a member of the newly notebooks beginning wit~ drafts of letters formed Italian Parliament and Verdi's dating from 1860. The first two volumes unfortunate role as witness to illness and can, in fact, be considered Verdi's own, for death among his dearest friends, colleagues, in his own drafts of correspondence the and family. Included are Francesco Maria most notable lacuna occurs precisely in the Piave's paralyzing stroke and the deaths of period of Forza (October 1858 - September Camillo Cavour, Verdi's father, Antonio 1867). Giuseppina's notebooks are especially Barezzi (his first patron, close friend, and important because they contain more than 7 8 John Nadas thirty letters by Verdi tracing the history of single entity as "the revision," but rather the revisions, particularly the abortive plans must view the process as a search for a for a Paris production in the early months solution which yielded several different of 1866. Other important documents come projects for revision; (5) this process from archjves and libraries around the world, indicates that the composer was susceptible including the Historical Society of Pennsyl to criticism, especially cumulative criticism, vania, the Berlin Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, even when he was less than convinced that libraries in Ravenna, Forli, Milan, and Rome, others were right. and the significant collections in the Bibliotheque Nationale and Archives * * * Nationales of Paris. I shall focus here on the contributions by Piave, the French Verdi's awareness that something might librettists, and Ghislanzoni; and, most be wrong with Forza began at the time of important, the various changes Verdi himself the Madrid performances in February of considered between I 863 and 1869. 1863. What chiefly bothered him was Before the recent collection of reaction to the ending of the opera with its documents at the Verdi Archive--1ndeed, three violent deaths. Don Carlos is mortally before Julian Budden's outline of Forza wounded by Don Alvaro on stage; before revisions in The Operas of Verdi1--it was dying, Carlos stabs his sister Leonora; and, not uncommon for writers either to dismiss as the monks hasten to the scene, Don the importance of these changes too quickly, Alvaro commits suicide by leaping from a or to jumble the facts so badly as to distort cliff. A report by a friend about the the intentions of Verdi and his collaborators. February 7 Italian premiere in Rome (under For example, Giorgio Gualerzi's early history the alternate title Don Alvaro) was not of the opera, published in the Parma Istituto favorable.3 An indifferent performance was di Studi Verdiani, Bolletini nos. 4, 5, and 6, exacerbated by the numerous and frequently hardly touches on the question of a French absurd changes imposed by the censor. Ten production of Forza in 1865-66. And Cecil days later Verdi complained about the cast,4 H~pkinson sketched the following outline of and to Tito Ricordi he bemoaned the fact revisions in his Verdi bibliography2: "It that Forza had been given its first Italian seems that as early as December 1864 Piave exposure in Rome, of all places. 5 He was was instructed by Verdi to make some more than justified, for it was precisely in changes in the work,[ . ) But for four Rome that the last vestiges of censorship years the revision was kept in abeyance, and were to be found on the Italian peninsula, in December 1867 Piave suffered a stroke; until 1870. While the Madrid critics thus he was denied the possibility of complained that Verdi had deformed the continuing with the revision. So Verdi original Spanish play, Italian newspapers called in Ghislanzoni instead, and Ghislan harped on the unbearably tragic ending. A zoni visited Sant'Agata in the summer of Rome correspondent ended his review on 28 1868 to consider the new requirements of February by stating that "there would have the composer." (. .. ) been more applause had the public not been Several points seem now to be so displeased by the sight of so many dead unequivocal: (I) La forza de/ destino is on-stage--a true slaughter."6 This view of unique among Verdi's operas in that its the denouement of Forza de/ destino was to revision was undertaken solely to emend become a veritable ritornello in reviews of perceived defects in the plot, principally in the opera by Italian critics, and it played a the finale; (2) revisions began as early as considerable role in forcing Verdi to think August of 1863; (3) the original librettist, of revision. We must remember that at this Piave, was totally out of the Forza picture point in the 19th century, Italian composers by 1864, although he and Verdi contjnued to were still careful not to overdo the correspond and work on another project-- the horrifying aspects of their librettos. In Paris Macbeth; (4) we cannot speak of a fact, Italian auaiences were accustomed to New Light on Pre- I g69 Revisions of La forza de/ destino 9 deaths occuring for the most part off-stage. French translations had already been After the performances in Madrid, prepared at Bagier's request for Forza and Verdi was tempted by many offers to Simon Boccanegra; Verdi knew this because produce his new opera. A second Italian the translator, Carlo Bianchi, had written to production was mounted at the Teatro him in October of that year.9 The composer Municipale in Reggio Emilia. Verdi received had also received a letter from Gaetano a report from Tito on May 11, stating that Fraschini, then in Paris under contract with "the performance went well, and even the Bagier. Verdi's favorite tenor complained third and fourth acts were liked and that the impresario could not run his applauded the more the opera was business properly.10 Verdi protested to his performed."7 The composer, however, was Parisian publisher, Leon Escudier: "At any not taken in by Tito's veiled optimism. When rate, if I must express my opinion, these two his publisher wrote that he now had to deal operas [Simon and Forza] are not at all with requests for the new opera, and that he suited to the Theatre ltalien of Paris.