Felice Romani
Felice Romani (January 31, 1788 – January 28, 1865) was an Italian poet and scholar of literature and mythology who wrote many librettos for the opera composers Donizetti and Bellini. Romani was considered the finest Italian librettist between Metastasio and Boito.[1][2]
Biography
Born Giuseppe Felice Romani to a bourgeois family in Genoa, he studied law and literature in Pisa and Genoa.[3] At the University of Genoa he translated French literature and, with a colleague, prepared a six-volume dictionary of mythology and antiquities, including the history of the Celts in Italy. Romani's expertise in French and antiquity is reflected in the libretti he wrote; the majority are based on French literature and many, such as Norma, use mythological sources.
After failing to obtain a post at the University of Genoa, he appears to have travelled to France, Spain, Greece and Germany before returning to Milan in either 1812 or 1813.[3] There he became friends with important figures in the literary and musical world. He turned down the post of court poet in Vienna, and began instead a career as opera librettist. He wrote two librettos for the composer Simon Mayr, which resulted in his appointment as the librettist for La Scala. Romani became the most highly regarded of all Italian librettists of his age, producing nearly one hundred. In spite of his interest in French literature, he refused to work in Paris.
As a rule, Romani did not create his own stories; he kept up with what was happening in the Paris theatre and adapted plays which were popular there, but this was not always a safe strategy, given the vague intellectual property rights legislation of the time. In one case, Romani prepared a libretto based on the play Lucrezia Borgia by Victor Hugo for the opera Lucrezia Borgia by Donizetti, but when it was staged in Paris in 1840, Hugo obtained an injunction against further productions. The libretto was then rewritten and retitled La Rinegata, with the Italian characters changed to Turks.
Romani wrote the librettos for Bellini's Il pirata, La straniera, Zaira, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, La sonnambula, Norma and Beatrice di Tenda, for Rossini's Il turco in Italia and Bianca e Falliero, and Donizetti's Anna Bolena and L'elisir d'amore (which he adapted from Eugène Scribe's Le philtre). He also wrote a libretto (originally for composer Adalbert Gyrowetz) that Verdi used for his early comedy Un giorno di regno.
Romani was considered an ideal match for Bellini, who is quoted as having said: "Give me good verses and I will give you good music". Dramatic, even extravagant "situations" expressed in verses "designed to portray the passions in the liveliest manner" was what Bellini was looking for in a libretto, according to a letter to Florimo, August 4, 1834, and he found them in Romani.
The two, however, had a falling out over missed deadlines for Beatrice di Tenda.. After setting I puritani to a libretto by Carlo Pepoli, Bellini was determined not to compose any more Italian operas with anyone but Romani. I puritani was his last opera; he died less than a year after its première. Romani mourned him deeply and wrote an obituary in which he expressed his profound regrets over their disagreement.
In 1834 Romani became editor of the Gazzetta Ufficiale Piemontese to which he contributed literary criticism. He retained the post, with a break 1849–1854, until his death, in Moneglia, (in the region of Liguria, Italy). A volume of his lyric poems was published in 1841.
Libretti
For each libretto the composer/s are listed who set it to music, the date of the first performance, and the new title where applicable.
- La rosa bianca e la rosa rossa
- Medea in Corinto
- Aureliano in Palmira
- Atar ossia Il serraglio di Ormus
- Simon Mayr (1814)
- Carlo Coccia, Atar ou O serralho de Ormuz (1820)
- Luiz Antonio Miró, Atar ou O serralho d'Ormus (1836)
- Il Turco in Italia
- Le due duchesse subtitled La caccia ai lupi
- L'ira di Achille
- La testa di bronzo or La capanna solitaria
- Maometto
- Rodrigo di Valenza
- Mennone e Zemira
- La gioventù di Cesare
- Le zingare dell'Asturia
- Adele di Lusignano
- I due Valdomiri
- Gianni di Parigi
- Il finto Stanislao
- Il barone di Dolshein
- Danao
- Gl'Illinesi
- Clemenza d'Entragues
- Il falegname di Livonia
- Il califo e la schiava
- Bianca e Falliero or Il consiglio dei tre
- Vallace or L'eroe scozzese
- La sacerdotessa d'Irminsul
- I due Figaro or Il soggetto di una commedia
- Margherita d'Anjou
- Donna Aurora or Il romanzo all'improvviso
- La voce misteriosa
- Giuseppe Mosca (1821)
- Carlo Mellara (1823)
- Atalia
- L'esule di Granata
- Adele ed Emerico ossia Il posto abbandonato
- Chiara e Serafina subtitled Il pirata
- Amleto
- Chi fa così, fa bene
- Feliciano Strepponi (1823)
- Abufar, ossia La famiglia araba
- Francesca da Rimini
- Feliciano Strepponi (1823)
- Luigi Carlini (1825)
- Massimiliano Quilici (1829)
- Saverio Mercadante (written 1830; unperformed)
- Giuseppe Staffa (1831)
- Giuseppe Fournier (1832)
- Giuseppe Tamburini (1835)
- Emanuele Borgatta (1837)
- Francesco Morlacchi (composta nel 1840, incompiuta)
- Francesco Canneti (1843)
- Giovanni Franchini (1857)
- Egilda di Provenza
- Stefano Pavesi (1823)
- Evangelista Pareira da Costa, Egilda de Provenca (1827)
- Amina or L'innocenza perseguitata
- Elena e Malvina
- Il sonnambulo
- Gli avventurieri
- Giulietta e Romeo
- Il montanaro
- Saverio Mercadante (1827)
- Pietro Campiuti, L'incognito (1832)
- Giovan Battista Cagnola, Il podestà di Gorgonzola (1854)
- La selva d'Hermanstadt
- Il pirata
- Gastone di Foix
- Il divorzio Persiano subtitled Il gran bazzarro di Bassora
- I saraceni in Sicilia ovvero Eufemio di Messina
- La regina di Golconda
- Colombo
- La straniera
- Rosmonda
- Saul
- Nicola Vaccaj (1829)
- Ferdinando Ceccherini (1843)
- Giovanni Antonio Speranza (1844)
- Zaira
- Giovanna Shore
- Carlo Conti (1829)
- Lauro Rossi (1836)
- Enrico Lacroix (1845)
- Vincenzo Bonnetti (1853)
- La rappresaglia
- Bianca di Belmonte
- Luigi Riesck (1829)
- Tomás Genovés y Lapetra (1833)
- Annibale in Torino
- Anna Bolena
- Il romito di Provenza
- La sonnambula
- Il disertore svizzero aka La nostalgia
- La neve
- Norma
- I normanni a Parigi
- Ugo, Conte di Parigi
- L'elisir d'amore
- Ismalia ossia Morte ed amore
- Il segreto
- Caterina di Guisa
- Carlo Coccia (1833)
- Giuseppe Mazza (1836)
- Luigi Savi (1838)
- Fabio Campana (1838)
- Francesco Chiaromonte (1850)
- Antonio Gandolfi (1859)
- Cenobio Paniagua y Vasquez (1859)
- Beniamino Rossi (1861)
- Giacomo Nascimbene, Enrico di Guisa (1868)
- Il conte d'Essex
- Parisina
- Beatrice di Tenda
- Vincenzo Bellini (1833)
- Rinaldo Ticci (1837)
- Frederico Guimarães, Beatriz (1882)
- Il contrabbandiere
- I due sergenti
- Lucrezia Borgia
- La figlia dell'arciere
- Un'avventura di Scaramuccia
- Emma d'Antiochia
- Saverio Mercadante (1834)
- Giovanni Bracciolini, Emma e Ruggero (1838)
- Vincenzo Pontani, Emma e Ruggero (1852)
- Carlo Lovati-Cozzulani, Alda (1866)
- Ercole Cavazza, Emma (1877)
- Un episodio del San Michele
- Cesare Pugni (1834)
- Giuseppe Concone (1836)
- Luigi Savi, L'avaro (1840)
- Ermanno Picchi, Il tre di novembre (1844)
- Giuseppe Lombardini, La sartina e l'usurajo (1853)
- Pietro Repetto, Un episodio del San Michele (1855)
- Guglielmo Quarenghi, Il dì di San Michele (1863)
- Carlo Brizzi, L'avaro (1877)
- Uggero il danese
- La gioventù di Enrico V
- Francesca Donato subtitled Corinto distrutta
- Odio e amore
- Mariano Obiols (1837)
- Alfonso Cosentino, Laurina (1858)
- La solitaria delle Asturie or La Spagna ricuperata
- La spia ovvero Il merciaiuolo americano
- Edita di Lorno
- Cristina di Svezia
References
- ^ Branca, Emilia (1882). Felice Romani ed i più riputati maestri di musica del suo tempo
- ^ Roccatagliati, Alessandro (1996). Felice Romani librettista, Quaderni di Musica, Lucca, Italy - ISBN 88-7096-157-5
- ^ a b Roccatagliati, Allesandro (2001). "Romani, (Giuseppe) Felice" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition. London: Macmillan. ISBN 9781561592395 (hardcover). OCLC 419285866 (eBook).
Persondata |
Name |
Romani, Felice |
Alternative names |
|
Short description |
|
Date of birth |
1788 |
Place of birth |
|
Date of death |
1865 |
Place of death |
|