IL CROCIATO in EGITTO Heroic Melodrama in Two Acts Libretto by Gaetano Rossi
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MEYERBEER Il CrociaOtoRC 10in Egitto in association with Box cover and CD inlays Set design by Alessandro Sanquirico for 1826 production at La Scala, Milan . Arrival of the crusader into the Port of Damiette (akg-images/Pietro Baguzzi) Booklet cover Velluti as Armando, London 1825, watercolour by Chalon (Opera Rara archive) Opposite Giacomo Meyerbeer (Opera Rara archive) –1– GIACOMO MEYERBEER IL CROCIATO IN EGITTO Heroic melodrama in two acts Libretto by Gaetano Rossi Aladino, Sultan of Damietta ................................................................Ian Platt Adriano di Montfort, Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes .............Bruce Ford Armando D’Orville, a Knight of Rhodes ..................................Diana Montague Palmide, daughter of the Sultan ...................................................Yvonne Kenny Felicia, in the attire of a Knight ........................................................Della Jones Alma, confidante of Palmide ........................................................Linda Kitchen Osmino, the Grand Vizier ..............................................................Ugo Benelli Geoffrey Mitchell Choir Chorus master: Geoffrey Mitchell Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor: David Parry –2– Managing Director: Stephen Revell Producer: Patric Schmid Performing edition for this recording prepared by Robert Roberts Assistant conductors: Paul McGrath, Peter Lipari Répétiteur and recitatives: Rosemary Barnes Italian coach: Gabriella Bullock English libretto: Gwyn Morris Article: Don White Recording engineer: Bob Auger Recorded at CTS Studios, Wembley, London December 1990, February, March and June 1991 –3– CONTENTS Meyerbeer in Italy by Don White..........................................................Page 10 The Story.............................................................................................Page 73 Résumé................................................................................................Page 75 Die Handlung.....................................................................................Page 77 La Trama..............................................................................................Page 79 Libretto...............................................................................................Page 82 –4– CD 1 66’24 Dur Page ACT ONE [1] Patria amata! (chorus) 10’09 82 [2] I doni d’Elmireno (aria Palmide) 3’15 84 [3] Il contento ch’io provo (duet Aladino/Palmide) 3’25 85 [4] Vincitor a questo petto 3’05 86 [5] Ah! Si: tutti miei voti (recit) 3’05 86 [6] Urridi vezzose (chorus) 4’05 89 [7] Cessi o miei fidi (Armando) 1’07 92 [8] O figlio dell’amore 2’54 92 [9] E Palmide! … ella sola (duet) 4’55 94 [10] Ah! Non ti son più cara 2’56 97 [11] Non v’è per noi più speme 4’47 98 [12] Palmide sventurata (recit) 0’37 99 [13] Vedi il legno (chorus) 4’41 99 [14] Popoli dell’Egitto (aria Felicia) 0’53 101 [15] Pace io reco 4’33 101 [16] Ah! Più sorridere 3’35 102 [17] Tu, degli illustri Cavalier 1’28 102 –5– Dur Page [18] Tutto d’intorno (Adriano) 5’09 105 [19] L’anguistia mia (duet Armando/Adriano 5’32 105 CD 2 75’38 [1] Và: già varcasti (duet Armando/Adriano 5’09 110 [2] Non sai quale incanto 5’32 111 [3] Il brando invitto 4’19 114 [4] Oh! Come tutto intorno (recit) 1’45 114 [5] Armando d’Orville! (scene) 4’08 116 [6] Giovinetti Cavalier (trio Palmide/Armando/Felicia) 11’56 120 [7] Armando!... Armando! (recit) 1’55 125 [8] Adriano! Egli stesso! (recit) 1’21 129 [9] Gran Profeta (chorus) 5’29 131 [10] Invitto, illustre Gran Maestro 8’10 132 [11] Sogni e ridenti (canon) 5’16 137 [12] Ite, superbi 3’02 137 [13] All’armi vi/ci chiama 3’51 140 –6– Dur Page ACT TWO [14] Udiste–raccogliete (recit) 2’13 142 [15] Ove, incauta, m’inoltre? (aria Felicia) 2’09 145 [16] Ah! Ch’io l’adoro ancor 5’07 146 [17] Come dolce a lusingarmi 4’03 147 CD 3 70’44 [1] Quanti al gran piano (recit) 0’32 148 [2] O solinghi recessi! (aria 2’28 148 [3] Tutto quì parla ognor 3’53 150 [4] Ma, ciel! S’ei mai perì! 2’21 150 [5] D’una madre disperata 2’28 152 [6] Deh! Mira l’angelo 4’32 152 [7] Con qual gioja 2’47 154 [8] Di natura’e d’amista (recit) 3’26 154 [9] Nel silenzio (chorus) 4’22 161 [10] Dove mi guidi tu? (recit) 1’10 163 [11] In sen del nostro 4’12 165 [12] O cielo clemente (quartet) 7’06 169 [13] Che miro? (quintet) 3’17 170 –7– Dur Page [14] Ah! Questo è l’ultimo 4’01 172 [15] Aladino troppo ardente (recit) 0’47 174 [16] Tutto è finito (aria Adriano) 7’21 175 [17] Suona funerea 6’54 177 [18] Guidati que’perfidi 3’05 178 [19] Ecco, I nostri acciari 1’28 180 [20] Or de’martiri la palma 4’21 181 CD 4 71’13 [1] Or perduto è Aladino (recit) 0’33 181 [2] O tu, divina fè (aria Armando) 2’51 182 [3] Il dì rinascerà 3’05 184 [4] Sollecita, pietosa (recit) 0’34 184 [5] Udite or alto arcano (chorus) 1’43 185 [6] Primiero sul tiranno (recit) 0’59 187 [7] Ah! Che fate? (aria Armando) 2’15 188 [8] Rapito io sento il cor 2’19 189 [9] Verrai meco di Provenza 3’38 190 APPENDIX [10] Eccome alfine (Armando) 3’00 191 [11] Cara mano dell’amore 4’55 193 [12] Popoli dell’Egitto (aria Adriano) 1’30 195 –8– Dur Page [13] Queste destre 2’21 196 [14] Palpitò dolente 3’46 196 [15] Rassicurata da suoi tiranno 3’48 197 [16] Miseri noi! (recit) 0’46 198 [17] D’un genio (aria Alma) 3’31 199 [18] Eccomi giunto omai (aria Armando) 2’50 200 [19] Ah, come rapido 3’26 202 [20] L’aspetto adorabile 2’45 202 [21] Guidati sian que’perfidi 3’06 203 [22] Ecco, i nostri acciari 1’21 205 [23] La gloria celeste 2’56 206 [24] Primiero sul tiranno (scena) 2’13 207 [25] Ravvisa qual’alma (duet Palmide/Armando) 3’14 208 [26] Il tenero affetto 4’48 209 [27] Da queste istante 2’46 210 –9– MEYERBEER IN ITALY By Don White JAKOB LIEBMANN MEYERBEER was born in Berlin, 5 September 1791. His father owned sugar refineries in Berlin and Gorizia. His grandfather was a respected elder of the Jewish community, and a wealthy banker to boot. His home was a meeting place of the cultural and musical elite. It was hardly surprising, in such stimulating surroundings, that the young Meyerbeer should aspire to become as famed as the scientists, writers and musicians who dandled him on their knees. The chosen stage for his prodigious talents was to be the piano, which, by the age of four, he could play by ear. The music teacher of the Prussian Royal Family gave him his first official piano lessons. At eleven, he made his first concert appearance, and he was soon hailed as one of the foremost pianists in Berlin, so technically proficient that the great Clementi himself came out of retirement to teach him. He studied composition with Weber’s brother. None less than the revered Abbé Vogler taught the young man theory at Darmstadt, where he struck up a close friendship with a fellow student, Carl Maria von Weber. By the time he was 18 his first theatrical composition, a divertissement, Der Fischer und das Milkmädchen was given at Berlin’s Royal Theatre on 10 March 1810. In the following 12 months works flowed from his pen: hymns, psalms, religious works, and a grand oratorio, Gott und die Natur , for the Berlin Singakademie (May, 1811). Meyerbeer had attained such great heights by the time he was 20 that it seemed like tempting fate to hope that his success could continue unbroken. –10– And indeed, his first opera, Jephta’s Gelübde (Munich, 1812), was coldly received. ‘More science than melody… an oratorio more than an opera.’ Turning to comic opera, he fared no better with Wirth und Gast at Stuttgart in January 1813. German opera, it was obvious, was not to be the young composer’s metier and, accordingly, he moved to Vienna where, obstinately, he presented a revised version of Wirth und Gast as Alimelek or Die Beiden Kalifen (October 1814). Its new titles helped not a bit. Once again it failed. One of the composer’s earliest biographers, Herman Mendel ( Giacomo Meyerbeer , Berlin, 1868) describes the 23-year-old in these days in Vienna as uncertain, tormented by doubt over his abilities, and close to giving up all idea of a musical career. Generously, the veteran composer Salieri gave him consolation and comfort, and suggested that perhaps the young man would benefit from a visit to Italy, where he could better study the art of writing for the voice. Despite this advice, Meyerbeer first travelled to Munich and then to Paris, then considered the musical centre of Europe, on a visit that he later regarded as a most important stage of his musical-dramatic development. As a virtuoso of the piano, he was lionised in the salons of the French capital; Ignaz Moscheles found his playing ‘unsurpassed’. He stayed long enough to compose in 1815 a French opera, Le Bachelier de Salamanque ; but its hoped-for production at the Théâtre Feydeau was not to be realised. He travelled to –11– London to hear JB Cramer play, and it was not until early in 1816 that he finally arrived in Italy. This was to be the turning point of his career. In Venice, Jakob – now Giacomo – Meyerbeer heard for the first time Rossini’s Tancredi and was, as the Harmonicon expressed it, ‘transported’. Forty years later he still talked of the lasting influence both Italy and Rossini had on him. Writing in 1856 to the German biographer Dr Jean F Schucht, he recalled: At that time, all Italy was feasting in sweet ecstasy. The whole country had finally found, it seems, a long hoped-for Paradise. All that was needed to complete their happiness was the music of Rossini. In spite of myself, I – like all the rest – was caught up in this gossamer web of sound.