Gio Di Cronologia Delle Prime Rappresentazioni Di Rigoletto ",68 Mar I
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xxii INTRODUCTION gio di cronologia delle prime rappresentazioni di Rigoletto ",68 Mar I. The draft for the cabaIetta "Addio ... speranza ed anima" in the cello Conati lists more than 250 opera houses throughout the world at Duetto N. 5 is entirely different: it is in common time and in the key which Rigoletto was performed during its first ten years. of Ab major. 2. The Sources: General Observations 2. Several smaller sections of music were drastically revised after Surviving sources for Rigoletto can be divided into four principal the sketch: categories: autograph sources, manuscript copies, printed musical a. The opening of the Rigoletto-Sparafucile Duetto N. 3; sources, and librettos. Each source used for this edition is described in b. All four passages associated with "Quel vecchio male detail in part one of the Critical Commentary. Here we shall give only divami," which were revised so that they resemble one another and all an overview of these sources. stress the pitch c '; c. The Allegro vivo / Allegro brillante section of the Duetto N. Autograph Sources 4 (mm. 69-112); For operas at different stages in Verdi's career, we can identify various d. The opening orchestral passage in act III. compositional layers. Since very few musical documents from 3. Important sections of the opera were transposed down a half-step: Sant' Agata are currently available, it is impossible to judge whether much of the Duetto for Gilda and the Duca(N. 5); all of "Caro nome" known documents in fact adequately reflect Verdi's compositional (N. 6); part of the Duetto for Gilda and Rigoletto (N. 10).74 process. In the case of La traviata, for example, two pages published in facsimile from the original manuscript at the Villa Verdi represent Finally, in act I of the Abbozzo Verdi used italianized versions of a sketch of important textless melodies with connecting verbal nar Victor Hugo's names for the principal characters. This fact, together rative, written by Verdi even before the composer had in hand Piave's with the relevant correspondence, allows us to date with relative pre Iibretto. 69 Did such a stage also exist for Rigoletto, representing work cision sections of the continuity draft. As demonstrated in section I of accomplished on the opera during the summer and fall of 1850? At the this introduction act I was largely prepared between Verdi's return present moment we are unable to say. Of the musical prehistory of from Trieste on 20 November 1850 and the day on which he was Rigoletto, we know only the manuscript published in facsimile by informed that the libretto had been banned, 3 or 4 December. The Carlo Gatti asL'Abbozzo del Rigoletto di Giuseppe Verdi, a document continuity draft for act II was written out between the beginning of containing twenty-eight folios grouped in two fascicles. It comprises January 1851 and 20 January; act III followed immediately and was a small group of sketch fragments and a complete continuity draft of completed on 5 February. the opera, lacking only the Preludio and ninety bars of the final Duetto The Abbozzo itself is not a primary source for this edition of Rig (corresponding to N. 14, mm. 97-186).'0 oletto, yet on numerous occasions its readings have proved useful for There are eleven sketch fragments, ranging from two to twenty-five interpreting problematic passages in the autograph full score. Many measures. Most of them probably preceded the continuity draft, references to it are found in the Critical Commentary, though except several were done while Verdi was working on that draft, and one was for the sketch fragments there has been no attempt to provide a com prepared even later. All of them appear on folios that also contain plete collation. material from the continuity draft, and all but two are on the outer The principal source for this edition of Rigoletto is Verdi's complete folios of the two fascicles comprising the Abbozzo. There is a distinct autograph full score of the opera. It is housed in the archives of the possibility that these particular fragments were preserved or published Casa Ricordi in Milan, bound in three volumes: act I, act II and N. I I precisely because they are found together with the continuity draft. and 12 of act III; and N. 13 and 14 of act III. The third volume There may well be, or may have been, other, separate pages of sketch concludes with two additional folios containing a reorchestration of N. fragments. Only one of these fragments, located on f. 7, directly after 3 by Emanuele Muzio." It is essential to remember that Verdi prepared the continuity draft for N. 3, cannot be explicitly related to the final the autograph of Rigo/etto, as presumably those of most of his operas, version of the opera. 71 in two stages. First he entered the vocal parts with text, orchestral The bulk of the Abbozzo is devoted to a continuity draft of the entire solos when there were no voices, and an occasional orchestral bass opera. For Verdi this was the basic compositional stage. When he had part. David Lawton has aptly called this stage of the autograph a completed it he told Piave that "oggi appunto ho terminata I'opera." "skeleton" score.'6 It was the skeleton score of act I and the first three The continuity draft comprises most of the vocal lines of Rigoletto, numbers of act III that Verdi sent to Venice on 5 February 1851, so that with significant instrumental solos, accompanimental patterns, and the vocal parts could be extracted by copyists and the singers be ready bass lines frequently provided. Unlike the completed autograph full to begin rehearsals when Verdi arrived on 19 February with the remain score, which was a public document, written neatly for the benefit of derofthe opera. The second stage, instrumentation, was accomplished copyists, engravers, and so on, Verdi penned the sketch essentially for during the "prove al cembalo," that is, the rehearsals with vocalists himself, to help fix the succession of musical ideas throughout the and piano alone. Verdi told Marzari that this work would take him less opera in preparation for writing out the full score. As a result, countless than a week and commented to Piave that "intanto che faremo Ie prove details such as clefs, key signatures, tempo markings, and other per io istrumentero." His estimate must have been reasonably accurate, formance indications (e.g., dynamic signs, slurs, staccati) are for the since not only did Verdi have to do the instrumentation but parts for the most part absent. There are remarkably few explicit suggestions for players also had to be extracted in time for orchestral rehearsals to scoring, though Verdi probably entrusted to memory more then he begin on either 3 or 4 March. actually wrote down. He avoided notating the second strophes of songs Because the autograph score is not merely the fair copy of a pre such as "Questa 0 quella" or "La donna e mobile," and omitted the viously completed work, there are hundreds of alterations visible in its text of other passages as well when he knew precisely how words and pages. They range from corrections of momentary lapses, to changes music would fit. In two cases, at least, he omitted the text because he in the orchestration, to minor improvements in prosody, to the trans was dissatisfied with the verses Piave had sent. 72 Yet enough is clearly position or reworking of entire passages. In many cases, it is not specified to make Verdi's further compositional tasks seem largely possible to reconstruct these layers accurately. The Critical Commen mechanical. tary mentions them only when they are of unusual interest or where Though this is not the place for a wide-ranging discussion of the there are problems establishing the definitive text, problems whose sketch as a compositional document, several details are worth noting:" solution depends upon an understanding of the compositional history 68. Conati's study is to appear in Verdi 3, no. 9 (Parma, 1982). of the passage. Despite these corrections, the autograph is a document 69. These pages are published in Carlo Gatti, Verdi nelle immagine (Milan, 1941), pp. of remarkable clarity. Though signs of articulation, slurs, and dynam 64-65. Not only is there no text underlaid beneath the melodies, but the protagonists are ics, frequently incomplete and occasionally contradictory, do bear referred to as "Margharita" and "II tenore." 70. Carlo Gatti, L'Abbozzo del Rigolelto di Giuseppe Verdi (Milan, 1941). Full bibli ographical details and a description of the contents of this publication are gi ven in part one 74. Of particular significance for the question of tonal design is David Lawton's of the Critical Commentary. treatment of these transpositions in his doctoral dissertation, which includes an extended 71. The fragments are identified in part one of the Critical Commentary. discussion of the Rigoletto sketch. He makes a persuasive case that the transpositions were 72. This happened with both caba1ettas in act II, "Possente amor" and "Si, vendetta, not merely effected to accommodate the vocalists. See also Martin Chusid. uRigoletto and tremenda vendetta. I, See Verdi's letters to Piave of 14 January and 20 January 1851. cited Monterone: A Study in Musical Dramaturgy," Report of the Eleventh Congress o/the in section I of this introduction. International Musicological Society (Copenhagen, 1974), pp. 325-36, to be reprinted in 73. For further details, see part one of the Critical Commentary. A definitive study of Verdi 3. no. 9· the Abbozzo remains to be written.