La nave

Italo Montemezzi
Operas L'amore dei tre re (1913) La nave (1918) L'incantesimo (1943)
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La nave is an opera in 1 act and 3 scenes by Italian composer Italo Montemezzi. Its Italian language libretto was adapted by Tito Ricordi from Gabriele d'Annunzio's 1908 play of the same name. The opera premiered at La Scala in Milan on November 3, 1918 conducted Tullio Serafin. La nave is a work which contains strongly patriotic and imperialistic themes, and fortune seemed to smile on its first performance when, after the conclusion of one of its acts, the performance was interrupted by an announcement that Italian troops had entered Trieste bringing an end to World War I.^{[citation needed]} It received almost universally favorable reviews.^{[citation needed]}

Productions followed in Chicago in 1919 and Verona in 1923. It was also revived in Rome in 1938. But many factors militated against the opera's long term success. It was extremely expensive to stage, due to its large choruses, extravagant scenery, and, especially, the requirement of having a full-sized ship heading out to sea, on stage, in the final act. The lead roles are also very difficult.^{[citation needed]} In addition, La nave's extremely violent and aggressively imperialistic rhetoric seemed out of place after the fall of Mussolini at the end of the Second World War.^{[citation needed]}

La Nave was performed in New York City by Teatro Grattacielo in concert on October 31, 2012, the first time the opera had been heard in the United States since Montemezzi conducted it in Chicago in 1919.

Roles

'Unknown'

Sources

• Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "La nave". Almanacco Amadeus (Italian)
• Cooke, Mervyn (2005). The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-78009-8
• Moore, Edward C. (1930). Forty Years of Opera in Chicago. H. Liveright, pp. 202-204

External links

• Complete piano/vocal score from the University of Rochester

• Teatro Grattacielo website