FEDORA Livorno 1996 Cristiana Popescu, Vladislav Piavko, Ramona Eremia, Dan Ser

• Work Title: Fedora  
• Composer: Giordano Umberto  
• Libretto: Arturo Colautti  
• Venue & Opera Company: Livorno, Italy, Opera Romana di Cluj  
• Recorded: 1996
• Type: Concert Live
• Singers: Cristiana Popescu, Vladislav Piavko, Ramona Eremia, Dan Serbac, Monica Denitiu, Marius Budoiu, Petre Ghilea, Gheorghe Mogosan e Mircea Moisa
• Conductor: Petru SbÎrceav  
• Orchestra: Orchestra dell'Opera Romana di Cluj  
• Chorus: Coro dell'Opera Romana di Cluj  
• Stage Director:   
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Format: Unknown
• Quality Video: 3 Audio:3
• Subtitles: nosubs  
• This Recording is NOT AVAILABLE from a proper commercial or public source
•  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Fedora is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1882 play Fédora by Victorien Sardou. Along with Andrea Chénier and Siberia, it is one of the most notable works of Giordano.

It was first performed at the Teatro Lirico in Milan on 17 November 1898 conducted by the composer; Gemma Bellincioni created the role of Fedora with Enrico Caruso as her lover, Loris Ipanov.

Synopsis
Act 1
St. Petersburg, 1881. A winter’s night in the palace of Count Vladimir Andrejevich

Princess Fedora, who is to marry Count Vladimir Andrejevich the following day, arrives and sings of her love for him (“Quanti fior … Ed ecco il suo ritratto”), unaware that the dissolute Vladimir has betrayed her with another woman. The sound of sleigh-bells is heard and Vladimir is brought in, mortally wounded. Doctors and a priest are summoned, and the servants are questioned (Dimitri: “Signore, alle otto e mezzo”; Cirillo: “Egli mi disse”). Fedora swears on the jeweled Byzantine cross she is wearing (aria: “Dite coragio … Su questa santa Croce”) that Andrejevich’s death will be avenged. It is proposed that Count Loris Ipanov, a suspected Nihilist sympathizer, was probably the assassin. De Siriex (a diplomat) and Gretch (a police inspector) plan an investigation.

Act 2
Paris

Fedora has followed Ipanov to Paris to avenge Vladimir’s death. There is a reception at Fedora’s house, where the Countess Olga Sukarev introduces the virtuoso Polish pianist Boleslao Lazinski. De Siriex sings about Russian women (“La donna russa è femmina due volte”); Olga counters with an aria comparing Parisian gentlemen with the wine of the widow Veuve Clicquot (“Eccone un altro più somigliante ancor”). Ipanov arrives and declares his love for Fedora (“Amor ti vieta”). While Lazinski plays for the party-goers, Fedora tells Ipanov that she is returning to Russia the following day. He is desperate because he has been exiled from Russia and cannot follow her; he confesses that he killed Vladimir. Fedora asks him to return after the reception is over to tell her the whole story. When she is alone, Fedora writes a letter to the chief of the Imperial Police in Russia accusing Ipanov of Vladimir’s murder. Ipanov returns and explains that he killed Vladimir because Vladimir and Ipanov’s wife Wanda were lovers. Ipanov had discovered them together. Vladimir shot at Ipanov and wounded him. Ipanov returned fire, killing Vladimir. Fedora realizes that she has fallen in love with Ipanov and that he killed not for political ends, but to defend himself and his honor. They embrace and she convinces him to spend the night with her.

Act 3
The Bernese Oberland in Switzerland

Ipanov and Fedora are now lovers (his brief aria: “Te sola io guardo”) and living in her villa. With them is her friend, Olga, who sings an aria about bicycling (“Se amor ti allena”, sometimes omitted). De Siriex arrives. He teases Olga about her previous lover Lazinski (“Fatevi cor, Contessa!”) and invites her on a bicycle ride. He tells Fedora that as a result of the letter she wrote to the police chief, Ipanov’s brother Valeriano was arrested for his role in the plot to murder Vladimir and imprisoned in a fortress on the Neva river. One night the river flooded and Valeriano drowned. When Ipanov’s mother heard the news, she collapsed and died. Fedora is anguished – she has caused two deaths (“Dio di giustizia”). Ipanov receives a letter from a friend in Russia informing him of his mother’s and brother’s deaths and that the cause was a woman living in Paris who had written a letter denouncing him to the police. Fedora confesses to writing the letter and begs Ipanov’s forgiveness. When he initially refuses and curses her, Fedora swallows poison which she keeps hidden in the cross she always wears. Ipanov begs the doctor to save her but it is too late. Fedora dies in Ipanov’s arms.

Quoted from Wikipedia