Puccini Le villi 1885 La Scala Version 1- Per te Quaggiù

Here is the dramatic scene for Roberto including the little-known "Per te quaggiù sofferse ogni amarezza" from the 1885 La Scala version of Puccini's first opera, "Le villi." (Edition: Michael Kaye and Herbert Handt © 2008, available from Masters Music Publications, Inc., Boca Raton, Fl.)

See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WtA88UqEHc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpUjfzWMaRc

Background and Chronology
1884
31 May: First performance of "Le willis" (the original title) as an "opera-ballo in one act" at the Teatro dal Verme, Milan, with Rosina Caponetti-Bassi (Anna), Antonio D'Andrade (Roberto), Erminio Peltz (Guglielmo); conducted by Arturo Panizza.

27 December: First performance of the two-act version at the Teatro Regio in Torino, with Elena Boronat (Anna), Enrico Filippi-Bresciani (Roberto), Agostino Gnaccarini (Guglielmo); conducted by Giovanni Bolzoni

1885
January--February: Puccini composed Roberto's romanza, "Torna ai felici dì," for inclusion in Roberto's "scena drammatica" (No. 9), which had already earned approval from the press.

24 January: Première of the two-act version at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, with Romilda Pantaleoni (Anna), Andrea Anton (Roberto), Delfino Menotti, and later Angelo Tamburlini (Guglielmo); conducted by Franco Faccio.

"... the most admirable pages, especially from the dramatic point of view, are those newly composed for the tenor, in which the distracted, broken hearted, humiliated and fearful Roberto is dragged into a catastrophic situation by the Villi. In the piano-vocal score, which was already published by Ricordi, this piece fills eighteen pages and is very aptly designated as a 'Dramatic Scene' (Scena drammatica). Roberto's uncertainty, his fears and agonies are stupendously expressed in this touching, sometimes almost terrfying, passage."
(Excerpt from the review of the La Scala production, published in "La Perseveranza" of 26 January, 1885.)

In the course of that La Scala production, Puccini decided to add the new romanza ("Torna ai felici dì") to the scena drammatica; see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WtA88UqEHc

21 February: Puccini gave the manuscript of "Torna ai felici dì" to his librettist Ferdinado Fontana to finalize the lyrics. It was published for the first time in second Italian edition of the piano-vocal score, which still included the "Per te quaggiù sofferse ogni amarezza" section of the scena drammatica.

The resulting soliloquy is of Wagnerian proportions in terms of length alone, requiring the tenor to exhibit passion, anxiety, remorse, hope, anger and terror as he obsesses about his seduction by a vile courtesan ("cortiganna vil").

Very much influenced by Wagner, the young Puccini was sent by his publisher to Bayreuth to prepare an abridged performing edition of DIE MEISTERSINGER for the first time that work would be given in Italy.

Category:

Music

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• Puccini
• Villi
• Palombi
• Scala
• opera
• Kaye