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New sources for Stiffelio: A preliminary report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Philip Gossett
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Extract

Although there have been a few revivals of Verdi's Stiffelio since its first modern performance in 1968, including an important 1985 production at the Teatro La Fenice of Venice, the opera has received until now only limited attention. With two stagings by major theatres in 1993 (London's Covent Garden in January and New York's Metropolitan Opera in October), the situation has changed markedly. Those of us who know Stiffelio well have tried to temper our enthusiasm, avoiding excessive claims and acknowledging some of the work's dramaturgical problems. But it should come as no surprise that an opera exquisitely poised between Luisa Miller and Rigoletto is likely to be worth rehearing, particularly when the work was withdrawn from circulation by its author for reasons having to do primarily with censorship of its libretto (in which the wife of a Protestant minister commits adultery) rather than with intrinsic artistic merit.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , November 1993 , pp. 199 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 The performance, which took place at the Teatro Regio of Parma, was also marked by the publication of a volume of essays: Medici, Mario, ed., Stiffelio, Quaderni dell'Istituto di studi verdiani, 3 (Parma, 1968).Google Scholar

2 The production in Venice, where Stiffelio was given in alternation with its later incarnation as Aroldo (see below), was the occasion for a scholarly conference. Its proceedings were published: Morelli, Giovanni, ed., Tornando a Stiffelio: Popolarità, rifacimenti, messinscena, efettismo e altre ‘cure’ nella drammaturgia del Verdi romantico (Atti del convegno internazionale di studi: Venezia, 17–20 dicembre 1985), Quaderni della Rivista italiana di musicologia, 14 (Florence, 1987).Google Scholar

3 For a general background to Stiffelio, see Budden, Julian, The Operas of Verdi, 3 vols. (London, 1973–81), I, 447–74.Google Scholar The opera, to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, had its first performance at the Teatro Grande of Trieste on 16 November 1850.

4 Ricordi had moved its autograph manuscripts to a safer site outside Milan, but its collection of manuscript copies, which remained in the centre of the city, was largely destroyed in the air raids.

5 See the draft of his letter to Ricordi, Tito of 17 02 1856Google Scholar, printed in Cesari, Gaetano and Luzio, Alessandro, eds., I copialettere di Giuseppe Verdi (Milan, 1913), 185–6.Google Scholar Announcing that he was about to ‘adjust’ Stiffelio to a new libretto, he set as his first condition in his contractual negotiations with Ricordi that ‘Stiffelio no longer be rented nor editions of it sold, since it will be absorbed (at least for the most, and best, part) in the new opera’.

6 In May 1851, the impresario Alessandro Lanari had presented this adaptation at the Teatro in Via della Pergola of Florence. It had first been performed in Rome, at the Teatro di Apollo, on 23 February 1851. For a listing of nineteenth-century performances of Stiffelio, see Conati, Marcello, ‘Cronologia – Critica – Bibliografia’, in Medici, Stiffelio (see n. 1), 97–100Google Scholar, with some corrections by Chusid, Marlin in ‘Apropos Aroldo, Stiffelio, and Le Pasteur, with a List of 19th-Century Performances of Aroldo’, in Morelli, Tornando a Stiffelio (see n. 2), 281–303Google Scholar, and Kaufman, Thomas G., Verdi and his Major Contemporaries: A Selected Chronology of Performances with Casts (New York and London, 1990), 381.Google Scholar Lanari had hoped to give the opera again at Bologna, during the autumn of 1852, and he asked Verdi whether he would participate in the revival and prepare a new final act. When Verdi learned that Lanari intended to give Guglielmo Wellingrode, however, rather than Stiffelio, the composer responded: ‘But how could you ever imagine, you who have such good sense, that I could come to stage an opera of mine that has been falsified, adulterated under another name? How could you imagine that I would think nothing of preparing a new act of an opera, and for something so ridiculous, so lacking in sense and character as this Wellingrode?‘ The letter is cited in Abbiati, Franco, Verdi, 4 vols. (Milan, 1959), II, 168.Google Scholar

7 In a letter of 28 March, Verdi announced Piave's arrival to his Neapolitan friend, Cesare de Sanctis. See Luzio, Alessandro, ed., Carteggi verdiani, 4 vols. (Rome, 1935–47), I, 33.Google Scholar

8 See Verdi's letter to Piave, dated 31 July, in Abbiati, , Verdi (see n. 6), II, 368.Google Scholar

9 To his friend Vincenzo Torelli he wrote on 2 September: ‘The work on the revised Stiffelio is longer and more difficult than I had thought, and yet it is still not completed’ ( Abbiati, , Verdi [n. 6], II, 340Google Scholar). At this point Verdi still hoped to mount the revised opera in Bologna during that very autumn. On 7 October he informed Piave that ‘Stiffelio is finished, but I no longer plan to give it in Bologna’. The letter is published in Morazzoni, G., Verdi: Lettere inedite (Milan, 1929), 41–2.Google Scholar At the most, as we shall see, Verdi had finished his sketch for A roldo, not the complete orchestration.

10 For an overview of this period, see Lawton, David, “‘Le Trouvère”: Verdi's Revision of “Il trovatore” for Paris’, in Studi verdiani, 3 (1985), 79–119.Google Scholar

11 The best guide to the history of Simon Boccanegra is Conati, Marcello, La bottega della musica: Verdi e La Fenice (Milan, 1983), 341–417Google Scholar, and Il ‘Simon Boccanegra‘ di Verdi a Reggio Emilia (1857) (Reggio Emilia, 1984).Google Scholar

12 Fragments of these letters are published (mostly without dates) by Abbiati, , Verdi (see n. 6), II, 430–1.Google Scholar

13 In a letter to Tito Ricordi from Rimini, written before the première, Verdi mentioned that he had found some mistakes in his autograph manuscript of Aroldo: ‘If after three performances Mariani can do without the score, I myself will carry the original away‘. On 22 August, though, he announced to Ricordi that ‘Mariani wanted still to hold on to the score, which much displeased me. Keep after Mariani to return the score to you. He is capable of falling asleep, and I would not like some theft to occur.’ Fragments from the letters are published in Abbiati, , Verdi (n. 6), II, 431–2.Google Scholar

14 Published without date in Abbiati, , Verdi, II, 432.Google Scholar

15 A great deal of work needs to be done on Iberian operatic sources: several important collections of musical manuscripts in Madrid alone, for example, have never been studied by specialists in Italian opera.

16 For a description of the background to these performances, see the ‘Nota introduttiva’ by Medici, Mario in Medici, Stiffelio (n. 1), 7–8Google Scholar, and Morelli, Giovanni, ‘Introduzione’ in Morelli, Tornando a Stiffelio (n. 2), VIII–IX.Google Scholar

17 David Lawton corrected these materials again when he conducted a performance of Stiffelio, in an English translation, at Opera Delaware in 1988.

18 After Sir Edward had completed his work, I reviewed the vocal lines alone against the extant autograph materials (see below), and the resulting corrections were integrated into the Covent Garden score.

19 See his ‘Introduzione’ in Morelli, Tornando a Stiffelio (see n. 2), XIV–XV.Google Scholar The first Venetian performance of the season took place on 13 January. See Girardi, Michele and Rossi, Franco, Il Teatro La Fenice: Cronologia degli spettacoli 1792–1936 (Venice, 1989), 197.Google Scholar

20 The letter is cited in Conati, , La bottega (seen. 11), 270–1.Google Scholar In discussing the significance of the verse ‘Ministro, confessatemi‘, Budden writes ( The Operas of Verdi [see n. 3], I, 452Google Scholar): ‘The key phrase in Act III, in which Lina, having failed to move Stiffelio by appealing to him as her husband, demands that he should, as a minister, hear her confession, was to be rendered totally pointless. “Ministro, confessatemi” became “Rodolfo, ascoltatemi” [“Rodolfo, listen to me”]‘. The Duet is treated at length by Powers, Harold S. in his article, ‘Aria sfasciata, Duetto senza l'nsieme: le scene di confronto Tenore-Soprano nello Stiffelio/ Aroldo di Giuseppe Verdi’, in Morelli, Tornando a Stiffelio (see n. 2), 141–88.Google Scholar

21 The title page of this Venetian libretto of thirty-four pages reads: ‘STIFFELIO / LIBRETTO / DI FRANCESCO MARIA PIAVE / MUSICA DEL MAESTRO / GIUSEPPE VERDI / da rappresentarsi / al Grande Teatro della Fenice in Venezia, / il Carnevale 1851–1852Google Scholar / [ ] / Milano / DALL'I.R. STABILIMENTO NAZIONALE PRIVILEGIATO DI / GIOVANNI RICORDI / Cont. degli Omenoni, N. 1720Google Scholar / e sotto il portico a fianco dell'I.R. Teatro alla Scala. / 22746’.

22 As Budden points out ( The Operas of Verdi [see n. 3], I, 451–2Google Scholar): ‘The sect of the Assasveriani, of which Stiffelio is supposed to be the leader, was a pure invention on the pan of the playwrights. The name is derived from Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew’.

23 The libretto for Trieste exists in two forms, with the same title page: ‘STIFFELIO / LIBRETTO / DI FRANCESCO MARIA PIAVE / MUSICA DEL MAESTRO / GIUSEPPE VERDI / espressamente scritta / pel grande Teatro Civico di Trieste / nella stagione d'autunno 1850 / Milano / DALL‘I.R. STABILIMENTO NAZIONALE PRIVILEG. ° DI / GIOVANNI RICORDI / Cont. degli Omenoni, N. 1720Google Scholar / e sotto il portico a fianco dell'I.R. Teatro alla Scala. / MDCCCL / 22746‘. The librettos diverge on the last page. The earlier libretto has a text similar to Piave's original, the latter a heavily censored version that avoids the biblical citations and all references to adultery. Both versions of the Trieste libretto, however, share with the later Venetian libretto the reading ‘Assasveriano io sono’ at the end of the second act.

24 This article is reproduced in Medici, , Stiffelio, (see n. 1), 107–10.Google Scholar

25 These verses are present in both Trieste librettos.

26 Gossett, Philip, ‘The Composition of Ernani’, in Abbate, Carolyn and Parker, Roger, eds., Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner (Berkeley, 1989), 27–55.Google Scholar

27 Gossett, , ‘The Composition of Ernani’, 28–9.Google Scholar

28 I want particularly to thank Professor Petrobelli for his untiring efforts on behalf of Verdi scholarship and for his countless kindnesses to me through our years of collaborative work.

29 This is the scene in which Stiffelio preaches to the congregation, including his now divorced wife Lina. He opens the Gospels at random and reads from the passage in which Christ points to the adulteress and says ‘Let those of you who have not sinned throw the first stone’. In this public manner, Stiffelio pardons his wife: ‘E la donna perdonata si alzò’ (And the woman, pardoned, raised herself up).

30 The primary source, not the only source: in many cases secondary sources, such as performing pans, copyists' manuscripts (with or without annotations by the composer), or printed editions, provide crucial additional evidence. For a particularly striking example, see the critical edition of Rossini's, Guillaume Tell, ed. Elizabeth, M.Banlet, C., in Edizione critica delle ope di Gioachino Rossini, Sezione prima, vol. 39 (Pesaro, 1992–1993).Google Scholar

31 These sketches were published in facsimile as: L'abbozzo del Rigoletto di Giuseppe Verdi, with an introduction by Gatti, Carlo (Milan, 1941).Google Scholar

32 Gatti, Carlo, Verdi nelle immagini (Milan, 1941). Pages 64–5 and 184–7Google Scholar include reproductions from the sketches for La traviata, II trovatore, Un ballo in maschera, Aida, Otello and Falstaff.

33 See, for example, Gatti's unpaginated introduction to L'abbozzo del Rigoletto.

34 For further details about the contents of the sketches for Rigoletto, see the Preface by Chusid, Martin to his edition of Rigoletto in The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, Series I, vol. 17 (Chicago and Milan, 1983), xv–xxii.Google Scholar

35 Petrobelli, Pierluigi, in his ‘Osservazioni sul processo compositivo in Verdi’, Acta musicologica, 43 (1971), 125–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar (and the discussion on p. 162), suggests that the existence of extensive sketches after Luisa Miller ‘goes hand in hand with the change in Verdi's musical style’.

36 Gossett, , ‘The Composition of Ernani’ (see n. 26), 33–5.Google Scholar

37 Work on the critical edition of Verdi's, Alzira, ed. Castelvecchi, Stefano and Cheskin, Jonathan, to be published in The Works of Giuseppe VerdiGoogle Scholar, has shown that the autograph of its Sinfonia too is constructed as a series of successive bifolios.

38 See Petrobelli, Pierluigi, ‘Pensieri per “Alzira’”, in Nuove prospettive nella ricerca verdiana (Atti del convegno internazionale in occasione della prima del ‘Rigoletto‘ in edizione critica, Vienna, 12/13 marzo 1983) (Parma, 1987), 110–24.Google Scholar

39 See the catalogue, Stargardt 558, item 773, where it is described as follows: ‘E. Musikmanuskript: Entwürfe zu einer Vokalkomposition in A-dur, 104 Takte in particellmäßiger Anlage. Teilweise textiert, beginnend: ‘Anima mia …’ 2 S. Hochformat’. A facsimile of the recto is printed as ‘Tafel 35’.

40 This manuscript had previously been placed for sale by the dealer, Viennese, Heck, V. A., in his catalogues No. 26 (1925)Google Scholar and No. 30 (1926). The only information Heck adds is that there are ten lines of music.

41 The letter, dated from Naples on 30 July 1845, is published in Luzio, Alessandro, Studi e bozzetti di storia letteraria e politica (Milan, 1910), 403n.Google Scholar

42 Let me thank Professor Lawton for sharing this information and for sending me a copy of his unpublished study, ‘A sketch for I due Foscari’.

43 Selections from these four letters are published in Abbiati, , Verdi (see n. 6), II, 65–7.Google Scholar See also Conati, , La bottega (n. 11), 260–1.Google Scholar

44 Abbiati, , Verdi, II, 69–70.Google Scholar

45 See Chusid, , Rigoletto (see n. 34), xv.Google Scholar

46 The critical edition of Stiffelio, to be published in The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, has been prepared by Kathleen Hansell, managing editor of the Verdi edition. It formed the basis for the performances of Stiffelio at the Metropolitan Opera. Let me thank Dr Hansell for her collaboration in many aspects of my work on this paper.

47 There is a large and growing body of scholarly work devoted to tonality in Verdi's operas. One study that poses a problem similar to those raised by the sketches for Stiffelio is Hepokoski, James A., ‘Verdi's Composition of Otello: The Act II Quartet’, in Abbate and Parker, Analyzing Opera (see n. 26), 125–49.Google Scholar

48 Some examples from other Verdi operas have been cited before. See, for example, Holmes, William C., ‘The Earliest Revisions of “La forza del destino”’, in Studi verdiani, 6 (1990), 55–98Google Scholar; see particularly pp. 80–95. Marvin, Roberta Montemorra has discussed a similar problem in Verdi's ‘I Masnadieri’: Its Genesis and Early Reception, Ph.D. diss. (Brandeis University, 1992), 288–308.Google Scholar

49 For a recent discussion of its earlier history in nineteenth-century Italian opera, see Balthazar, Scott L., ‘Rossini and the Development of the Mid-Century Lyric Form’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 41 (1988), 102–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 Two representative pages from the Bellini sketches are published in Pastura, Francesco, Bellini secondo la storia (Parma, 1959), facing p. 385Google Scholar (with sketches for I puritani) and p. 400.

51 Gatti, , Verdi nelle immagini (see n. 32), 64–5.Google Scholar

52 Moving a bit further afield, there is certainly a rhythmic resemblance between this sketch and what was ultimately to be the cabaletta of the first-act Terzetto in Il trovatore, where Leonora and Manrico sing together ‘Un istante almen dia loco’ and ‘Del superbo è vana l' ira’.

53 A preliminary version of this paper was first presented at the International Conference on Verdi Studies, sponsored by the American Institute of Verdi Studies, held in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in March 1993. I wish to thank Professor Martin Chusid for his permission to publish it here, before the appearance of the proceedings of the Conference.