FULL LE MASCHERE (Mascagni) Livorno 1983 Anna Baldasserini, Carlo Bosi, Alexandru Agache
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Le maschere
- Composer: Mascagni Pietro
- Libretto: Luigi Illica Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Teatro Goldoni, Livorno, Italy
- Recorded: December 2,1983
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Piero Mazzinghi, Franco Federici, Elena Baggiore, Tamás Daróczi, Giorgio Lormi, Anna Baldasserini, Carlo Bosi, Alexandru Agache, Viorel Baciu, Ettore Cresci
- Conductor: Petru Sbîrcea
- Orchestra: Orchestra Filarmonica del Tirreno
- Chorus: Coro del C.E.L.
- Chorus Master: Gherardo Gherardini
- Ballet: Corpo di ballo delle scuole Kodokan e Evans
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Format: Unknown
- Quality Video: 1 Audio:2
- Subtitles: nosubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Le maschere is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the composer Pietro Mascagni to a libretto by Luigi Illica.
The work, partly based on earlier elements contained in the early First Symphony in F major [1], was Mascagni’s homage to Rossini’s opera buffa and to the tradition of the commedia dell’arte. It was given its first performance, simultaneously in six different Italian cities, on 17 January 1901: Teatro alla Scala (with Caruso in the role of Florindo, Carelli in that of Rosaura under the direction of Toscanini with Claudio Leigheb reciting); at the Carlo Felice Theater in Genoa; at the Teatro Regio in Turin; at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome; at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona. Two days later it was given at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples interpreted by Angelica Pandolfini.
With the exception of the performance at the Costanzi in Rome conducted by Mascagni himself The Masks received a subdued reception, with the Genoa performance suspended midway due to noisy public demonstrations. The opera was performed sporadically in Italy for the next four years and then sank into obscurity. When Mascagni decided to revise the setting of the opera and presented it again in 1931, the success was slightly better but it didn’t last long.
In the prologue, a traveling company of commedia dell’arte actors and their impresario introduce the characters they are about to play. In the remaining three acts an action takes place between all the characters, and after many vicissitudes, Florindo and Rosaura, helped by Colombina and Arlecchino, manage to avoid the wedding that Rosaura’s father, Pantalone, had planned for her.
Quoted from Wikipedia