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Gioachino Rossini 1792–1868 MAOMETTO SECONDO Dramma in two acts Libretto Cesare della Valle First performance 3 December 1820, Teatro San Carlo, Naples Edition Bärenreiter-Verlag Kassel, edited by Hans Schellevis Erisso Governor of the Venetians Paul Nilon Anna his daughter Siân Davies Maometto (Mehmet) Sultan of the Turks Darren Jeffery Calbo Venetian general Caitlin Hulcup Condulmiero Venetian general Christopher Diffey Selimo (Selim) follower of Mehmet Richard Dowling Garsington Opera Chorus Chorus Director Susanna Stranders Garsington Opera Orchestra Leader Robert Salter Conductor David Parry Recorded live at Garsington Opera at Wormsley, June and July 2013 Booklet cover: Darren Jeffery (Maometto) · Opposite: Siân Davies (Anna) 2 page no. page no. ATTO PRIMO ATTO SECONDO 1 Scena I: No.1 – Introduzione: Al tuo cenno (Duci) 3.13 14 27 Scena I: No.6 – Coro: È follia sul fior degli anni (Conzelle musulmani) 4.12 28 2 Recitativo: Volgon due lune or già (Erisso) 2.11 14 28 Recitativo dopo il Coro: Tacete. Ahimè! (Anna/Maometto) 3.37 28 3 Andante maestoso: Risponda a te primiero (Duci/Condulmiero/Calbo/Erisso) 3.41 14 29 No.7 – Duetto: Anna, tu piangi? (Maometto/Anna) 3.02 29 4 Recitativo: Basta, non più. (Erisso) 1.00 15 30 Andantino: Lieta innocente (Anna/Maometto) 3.41 29 5 Moderato: Sì, giuriam! (Tutti) 1.45 15 31 Allegro: Gli estremi accenti (Maometto) 3.20 30 6 Recitativo: Or partite, o guerrieri (Erisso) 1.23 15 32 Recitativo dopo il Duetto: Ma qual tumulto ascolto? (Maometto) – 3.18 30 7 Scena II: No.2 – Cavatina Anna: Ah! che invan su questo ciglio (Anna) 5.38 16 Scena II: Signor, non liete nuove io reco (Selimo/Maometto/Soldati/Anna) 8 Recitativo dopo la Cavatina Anna: Figlia!…Chi veggio! (Erisso/Anna/Calbo) 3.31 16 33 Ah che più tardi ancor? (Duci musulmani) – 3.11 31 9 Scena prima del Terzettone: No, tacer non deggio (Anna/Erisso) 1.59 17 No.8 – Aria Maometto: A che più tardi ancor? (Maometto) 10 No.3 – Terzettone: Ohimè! Qual fulmine (Anna/Erisso/Calbo) 4.38 17 34 Andante mosso: Dell’ontà (Maometto) 2.54 31 11 Allegro: Dal cor l’iniquo affetto (Erisso/Anna) 1.58 18 35 Scena III: Sieguimi, o Calbo (Erisso/Calbo) 10.30 32 12 Scena III – Coro: Misere! or dove (Donne) 2.17 18 36 No.9 – Aria Calbo: Non temer (Calbo) 8.22 33 13 Andantino: Giusto cielo, in tal periglio (Anna/Donne) 2.46 19 37 Scena IV: Padre…Qual voce! (Anna/Erisso/Calbo) 5.59 33 14 Allegro: Ahi, padre!… Oh vista! (Anna/Erisso/Donne) 1.38 19 38 No.10 – Terzettino: In questi estremi istanti (Calbo/Anna/Erisso) 5.47 34 15 Allegro giusto: Figlia… mi lascia, deh! (Erisso) 4.33 19 39 No.11 – Scena e Coro: Alfin compita (Anna) 1.19 34 16 Andantino: Mira, signor, quel pianto (Calbo/Anna/Erisso/Donne) 3.19 20 40 Andante: Nume, cui ’l sole (Donne/Anna) 2.18 34 17 Allegro: Partiam, guerrieri… (Maometto) 4.51 20 41 Recitativo: Taccion le preci omai (Anna/Donne) 1.06 35 18 Scena IV: No.4 – Coro: Dal ferro (Soldati musulmani) 2.54 21 42 No.12 – Finale secondo: Sventurata! (Donne) 2.15 35 19 Maestoso: Sorgete, sorgete (Maometto) 3.46 21 43 Recitativo: Vinto i Veneti han dunque? (Anna) 0.45 35 20 Duce di tanti eroi (Maometto) 3.35 21 44 Andantino: Quella morte (Anna/Donne/Musulmani) 4.48 35 21 Recitativo dopo la Cavatina Maometto: Compiuta ancor del tutto la vittoria non è 4.03 23 45 Allegro: Sì, ferite (Anna/Donne/Musulmani) 2.39 36 (Maometto/Selimo/Guerrieri) 46 Andantino: Madre, a te (Anna) 4.04 37 22 Scena V – Recitativo: Appressatevi, o prodi (Maometto/Erisso) 3.45 23 47 Scena ultimo: Già fra le tombe? (Maometto/Anna/Donne/Musulmani) 4.11 37 23 No.5 – Finale primo: Giusto ciel (Erisso/Calbo/Maometto) 5.50 24 24 Allegro: Guardie, olà (Maometto/Calbo/Erisso) 1.00 25 25 Largo: Ritrovo l’amante (Tutti) 3.52 26 26 Allegro: Rendimi il padre (Tutti) 7.37 27 3 Synopsis Act One The Venetian outpost of Negroponte has been besieged by Maometto’s army for two months. The city faces disease and hunger and the Governor, Erisso, holds a council of war. Condulmiero counsels surrender but Calbo interrupts him and inspires the Venetians to keep fighting. Maometto’s final assault is threatened for the following day. Erisso’s daughter Anna is distraught about her father’s beleaguered situation. Erisso urges her to marry Calbo immediately, in the place where her mother’s ashes are interred. Neither Erisso nor Calbo can understand Anna’s reluctance until she admits that she is in love with a man called Uberto, who she met in Corinth when her father was away in Venice, raising his army. Erisso tells her that she must have been taken in by an impostor, as Uberto was with him in Venice. He gives his daughter a knife so that she can defend herself. The men go off to fight. Anna and the women pray for God’s mercy. Erisso and Calbo return to announce that the fight is lost – Maometto’s forces are superior and he is only waiting till daybreak before breaching the city walls. Erisso tells his men to retreat to the citadel, where they will mount a final act of resistance. He insists that the women stay behind, hoping that they will be spared. Anna begs to join the defending men but is refused. The Muslim soldiers invade and Maometto displays an insider’s knowledge of the city, based on having been sent to Negroponte as a spy when he was a young man. Erisso and Calbo have been captured and Maometto, recognising Erisso, asks him if he was once Governor of Corinth and whether he has a daughter. He offers him mercy if he will persuade his men to surrender the citadel. Erisso and Calbo refuse and Maometto orders them to be tortured. When the women are discovered, Maometto and Anna recognise one another. He is Uberto, her lover, now revealed as the enemy. Anna threatens to kill herself if Maometto will not release her father and Calbo, whom she refers to as her brother. Maometto relents but Erisso rejects Anna in shame. Act Two Maometto begs Anna to become his wife and queen. She refuses, but he interprets her sorrow as a sign of love. The sound of fighting interrupts them – the Venetians have broken out of the citadel and are mounting a desperate last defence. Maometto leaves his imperial seal with Anna to guarantee her safety; with this authority, his soldiers will obey her commands. Maometto rallies his soldiers for the fight. Erisso rails against Anna’s betrayal, but Calbo insists that she is innocent and that she did not know that Uberto was really Maometto. Anna finds them and Erisso makes her swear on her mother’s tomb that she is faithful. To further prove this, she gives her father Maometto’s seal and begs him to marry her to Calbo. Against all the odds, Erisso and Calbo manage to turn the tide and defeat the invaders. The Muslim soldiers are now calling for Anna’s death, as she has inspired this last-minute surge of strength from the Venetians. When Maometto returns, Anna publicly acknowledges Calbo as her husband before stabbing herself and falling dead beside the tomb of her mother. Opposite: Darren Jeffery (Maometto) 4 Maometto secondo and the Rossini revolution To 19th-century Italians Mehmet II was very much part of modern history, a man under whose sway Italy might Richard Osborne well have fallen. After his capture of Constantinople in 1453, the principal ambition of this self-appointed ‘Roman Caesar’ was the conquest and reunification of all the territories that had once belonged to Rome. In 1480 a Muslim The nine serious operas on subjects drawn from history, myth and stage tragedy which Rossini created for the Teatro army landed at Otranto in southern Italy. It was only after the fracture of Mehmet’s supply lines by Albanian rebels San Carlo in Naples between 1815 and 1822 changed the face of 19th-century Italian opera. Maometto secondo was the and his own mysterious death in May 1481 that the plan for a larger invasion of Italy was abandoned. last but one of these operas. It was also the grandest, epic in scale and revolutionary in the seamlessness of its musical Rather closer to home in 1820 was the growing threat of civil unrest in Naples itself. Two months after Rossini structuring. The Neapolitan audience was clearly daunted by it. But Rossini had toiled long and hard over Maometto began work on Maometto secondo in May 1820, the city was invaded by a ragtag army of Carbonari, the secretive and secondo and he knew that it was good. sinister precursors of the foot-soldiers of the Italian Risorgimento, bulked out by disaffected army officers and anti- In 1823 he prepared a new bespoke edition for the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and in 1826 created a scaled-down Bourbon fellow-travellers. Their demand was the provision by King Ferdinand IV of a constitution similar to the one French-language version for the Paris Opéra retitled Le Siège de Corinthe. With the Greek War of Independence, the that had been granted to Spain in 1812. With his rough-and-ready habits and fondness for rubbing shoulders with decade’s most fashionable foreign cause, in the forefront of public attention, the change of title and locale – the 1470 ordinary folk, Ferdinand gave way on the spot.