Saverio Mercadante

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Saverio Mercadante, portrait by Template:Ill

Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (baptised 17 September 1795Template:Spaced ndash17 December 1870) was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as prolifically as either and his development of operatic structures, melodic styles and orchestration contributed significantly to the foundations upon which Giuseppe Verdi built his dramatic technique.

BiographyEdit

Early yearsEdit

Mercadante was born illegitimate in Altamura, near Bari in Apulia; his precise date of birth has not been recorded, but he was baptised on 17 September 1795.<ref name="zucker">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Mercadante studied flute, violin and composition at the conservatory in Naples, and organized concerts among his compatriots.<ref name="RCAFluteConcertos">Michael Rose, "Mercadante: Flute Concertos", booklet accompanying the 2004 RCA CD recording with James Galway and I Solisti Veneti under Claudio Scimone.</ref> The opera composer Gioachino Rossini said to the conservatory Director, Niccolo Zingarelli, "My compliments, Maestro – your young pupil Mercadante begins where we finish".<ref name="RCAFluteConcertos" /> In 1817 he was made conductor of the college orchestra, composing a number of symphonies, and concertos for various instruments – including six for flute about 1818–1819, and whose autograph scores are in the Naples conservatory, where they were presumably first performed with him as soloist.<ref name="RCAFluteConcertos" />

File:Saverio Mercadante - birthplace and house.jpg

Mercadante's birthplace and house located on the street corso Federico II di Svevia, Altamura (the plaque dates back to Italy's fascist period)

The encouragement of Rossini led him to compose for the opera, where he won considerable success with his second such work (Violenza e Constanza), in 1820. His next three operas are more or less forgotten, but an abridged recording of Maria Stuarda, Regina di Scozia was issued by Opera Rara in 2006. His next opera Elisa e Claudio was a huge success, and had occasional revivals in the twentieth century, most recently by Wexford Festival Opera in 1988.

File:Mercadante-young.jpg

Mercadante

He worked for a time in Vienna, in Madrid, in Cádiz, and in Lisbon, but re-established himself in Italy in 1831. He was invited by Rossini to Paris in 1836, where he composed I Briganti for four of the best-known singers of the time, Giulia Grisi, Giovanni Battista Rubini, Antonio Tamburini and Luigi Lablache, all of whom worked closely with Bellini. While there, he had the opportunity to hear operas by Meyerbeer and Halévy, which imparted a strong influence on him, especially the latter's La Juive. This influence took the form of greater stress on the dramatic side.

Return to Italy, 1831Edit

When Mercadante returned to Italy after living in Spain and Portugal, Donizetti's music reigned supreme in Naples,<ref name="Couling">Template:Harvnb</ref> an ascendancy which did not end until censorship problems with the latter's Poliuto caused a final break. But Mercadante's style began to shift with the presentation of I Normanni a Parigi at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1832: "It was with this score that Mercadante entered on the process of development in his musical dramaturgy which, in some aspects, actually presaged the arrival of Verdi, when he launched, from 1837 on, into master works of his artistic maturity: the so-called "reform operas".<ref name="Couling" />

The beginnings of the so-called "reform movement", of which Mercadante was part, arose from the publication of a manifesto by Giuseppe Mazzini which he wrote in 1836, the Filosofia della musica.<ref name="Blaha">Blaha, Peter 2006, (trans. Stewart Spencer), "A gratifying experience", Booklet accompanying the 1979 live Orfeo recording of Il giuramento</ref>

In the period after 1831 he composed some of his most important works. These included Il giuramento which was premiered at La Scala to 11 march 1837. One striking and innovative characteristic of this opera has been noted:

..it marks the first successful attempt in an Italian opera premiered in Italy of depriving the prima donna, or some other star singer, of her until-then inalienable right of having the stage to herself at the end. By doing this, Mercadante sounded what was to be the death knell of the age of bel canto.<ref name="Kaufman">Kaufman, Tom, "The Neglected Bel Canto Composers", The Meyerbeer Fan Club, online at meyerbeer.com</ref>

Early in following year, while composing Elena da Feltre (which premiered in January 1839), Mercadante wrote to Francesco Florimo, laying out his ideas about how opera should be structured, following the "revolution" begun in his previous opera:

I have continued the revolution I began in Il giuramento: varied forms, cabalettas banished, crescendos out, vocal lines simplified, fewer repeats, more originality in the cadences, proper regard paid to the drama, orchestration rich but not so as to swamp the voices, no long solos in the ensembles (they only force the other parts to stand idle to the detriment of the action), not much bass drum, and a lot less brass band.<ref name="Kaufman" />

Elena da Feltre followed; one critic found much to praise in it: Template:Quote

These temporarily put him in the forefront of composers then active in Italy, although he was soon passed by Giovanni Pacini with Saffo and Giuseppe Verdi with several operas, especially Ernani.

Later worksEdit

File:Saverio Mercadante by F. Garibotti - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON010747 B.jpg

Portrait of Saverio Mercadante, composer (1836-1870).

Some of Mercadante's later works, especially Orazi e Curiazi, were also quite successful. Many performances of his operas were given throughout the nineteenth century and it has been noted that some of them received far more than those of Verdi's early operas over the same period of time.<ref>Template:Harvnb: For example, Il giuramento received 400 performances and La vestale 150 compared to Giovanna d'Arco, Don Carlo (in all its versions), and AroldoTemplate:'s approx. 90 each.</ref>

Throughout his life he generated more instrumental works than most of his contemporary composers of operas due to his lifelong preoccupation with orchestration, and, from 1840, his position as the Director of the Naples conservatory for the last thirty years of his life.<ref name="RCAFluteConcertos"/> From 1863 he was almost totally blind and dictated all his compositions.<ref name="zucker" />

In the decades after his death in Naples in 1870, his output was largely forgotten, but it has been occasionally revived and recorded since World War II, although it has yet to achieve anything like the present-day popularity of the most famous compositions by his slightly younger contemporaries: see Donizetti's compositions and Bellini's compositions.

The French soloist Jean-Pierre Rampal notably recorded several Mercadante concertos for flute and string orchestra,Template:Efn including the grand and romantic E minor concerto, which has since gained some popularity among concert flautists. Template:Notelist

OperasEdit

Operas by Saverio Mercadante
Title	Genre	Acts	Libretto	Premiere		Notes
Title	Genre	Acts	Libretto	Date	Venue	Notes
Template:HsL'apoteosi d'Ercole	dramma per musica	2 acts	Template:Hs Giovanni Schmidt	Template:Hs19 August 1819	Naples, Teatro San Carlo
Template:HsViolenza e costanza, ossia I falsi monetari	dramma per musica	2 acts	Template:Hs Andrea Leone Tottola	Template:Hs19 January 1820	Naples, Teatro Nuovo	Revised as: Il castello dei spiriti: Lisbon, 14 March 1825
Template:HsAnacreonte in Samo	dramma per musica	2 acts	Template:HsGiovanni Schmidt	Template:Hs1 August 1820	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Based on Anacréon chez Polycrate by Jean Henri Guy.
Template:HsIl geloso ravveduto	melodramma buffo	2 acts	Template:HsBartolomeo Signorini	Template:HsOctober 1820	Rome, Teatro Valle
Template:HsScipione in Cartagine	melodramma serio	2 acts	Template:Hs Jacopo Ferretti	Template:Hs26 December 1820	Rome, Teatro Argentina
Template:HsMaria Stuarda, regina di Scozia	dramma serio	2 acts	Template:Hs Gaetano Rossi	Template:Hs29 May 1821	Bologna, Teatro Comunale
Template:HsElisa e Claudio, ossia L'amore protetto dall'amicizia	melodramma semiserio	2 acts	Template:HsLuigi Romanelli	Template:Hs30 October 1821	Milan, Teatro alla Scala	Based on Rosella, ossia Amore e crudeltà by Filippo Casari
Template:HsAndronico	melodramma tragico	2 acts	Template:HsGiovanni Kreglianovich	Template:Hs26 December 1821	Venice, Teatro La Fenice
Template:HsIl posto abbandonato, ossia Adele ed Emerico	melodramma semiserio	2 acts	Template:Hs Felice Romani	Template:Hs Template:Nowrap	Milan, Teatro alla Scala
Template:HsAmleto	melodramma tragico	2 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs26 December 1822	Milan, Teatro alla Scala	Based on Shakespeare play Hamlet.
Template:HsAlfonso ed Elisa	melodramma serio	2 acts		Template:Hs26 December 1822	Mantua, Teatro Nuovo	Based on Filippo by Alfieri; Revised as Aminta ed Argira for Reggio Emilia, Teatro Pubblico, 23 April 1823
Template:HsDidone abbandonata	dramma per musica	2 acts	Template:HsAndrea Leone Tottola	Template:Hs18 January 1823	Turin, Teatro Regio	Based on Metastasio
Template:HsGli sciti	dramma per musica	2 acts	Template:HsAndrea Leone Tottola	Template:Hs18 March 1823	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Based on Les scythes by Voltaire.
Template:HsCostanzo ed Almeriska	dramma per musica	2 acts	Template:HsAndrea Leone Tottola	Template:Hs22 November 1823	Naples, Teatro San Carlo
Template:HsGli amici di Siracusa	melodramma eroico	2 acts	Template:HsJacopo Ferretti	Template:Hs7 February 1824	Rome, Teatro Argentina	Based on Plutarch.
Template:HsDoralice	melodramma	2 acts		Template:Hs18 September 1824	Vienna, Kärntnertortheater
Template:HsLe nozze di Telemaco ed Antiope	azione lirica	7 acts	Template:Hs Calisto Bassi	Template:Hs5 November 1824	Vienna, Kärntnertortheater	Pastice, with music by other composers.
Template:HsIl podestà di Burgos, ossia Il signore del villaggio	melodramma giocoso	2 acts	Template:HsCalisto Bassi	Template:Hs20 November 1824	Vienna, Kärntnertortheater	Under the title of Il signore del villaggio given in Naples at Teatro del Fondo on 28 maggio 1825 (in Neapolitan dialect); Titled Eduardo ed Angelica, given in Naples at the Teatro del Fondo in 1828.
Template:HsNitocri	dramma per musica	2 acts	Template:HsLodovico Piossasco Feys	Template:Hs26 December 1824	Turin, Teatro Regio	With recitatives by Apostolo Zeno
Template:HsIpermestra	dramma tragico	2 acts	Template:HsLuigi Ricciuti	Template:Hs29 December 1825	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Based on Eschilo
Template:HsErode, ossia Marianna	dramma tragico	2 acts	Template:HsLuigi Ricciuti	Template:Hs12 December 1824	Venice, Teatro La Fenice	Based on Voltaire
Template:HsCaritea regina di Spagna, ossia La morte di Don Alfonso re di Portogallo (Donna Caritea)	melodramma serio	2 acts	Template:Hs Paolo Pola	Template:Hs21 February 1826	Venice, Teatro La Fenice
Template:HsEzio	dramma per musica	2 acts	Template:Hs Pietro Metastasio	Template:Hs2 February 1827	Turin, Teatro Regio
Template:HsIl montanaro	melodramma comico	2 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs16 April 1827	Milan, Teatro alla Scala	Based on August Lafontaine
Template:HsLa testa di bronzo, ossia La capanna solitaria	melodramma eroicomico	2 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs3 December 1827	Lisbon, Teatro privato dei Baroni Quintella a Laranjeiras
Template:HsAdriano in Siria	dramma eroico	2 acts	Template:HsPietro Metastasio	Template:Hs24 February 1828	Lisbon, Teatro de São Carlos
Template:HsGabriella di Vergy	dramma tragico	2 acts	Template:Hs Antonio Profumo	Template:Hs8 August 1828	Lisbon, Teatro de São Carlos	Based on Gabrielle de Vergy by Dormont de Belloy; Revised with a text by Emanuele Bidera for Genoa, Teatro Carlo Felice, 16 June 1832
Template:HsLa rappresaglia	melodramma buffo	2 acts	Template:Hs Cesare Sterbini	Template:Hs21 February 1829	Cadiz, Teatro Principal
Template:HsDon Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamaccio	melodramma giocoso	1 atto	Template:Hs Stefano Ferrero	Template:Hs10 February 1830	Cadiz, Teatro Principal	Based on Miguel de Cervantes
Template:HsFrancesca da Rimini	melodramma	2 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs1831		Composed for Madrid but probably not performed there.
Template:HsZaira	melodramma tragico	2 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs31 August 1831	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Based on Voltaire
Template:HsI normanni a Parigi	tragedia lirica	4 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs7 February 1832	Turin, Teatro Regio
Template:HsIsmalia, ossia Amore e morte	melodramma	3 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs27 October 1832	Milan, Teatro alla Scala
Template:HsIl conte di Essex	melodramma	3 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs10 March 1833	Milan, Teatro alla Scala
Template:HsEmma d'Antiochia	tragedia lirica	3 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs8 March 1834	Venice, Teatro La Fenice
Template:HsUggero il danese	melodramma	4 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs11 August 1834	Bergamo, Teatro Riccardi
Template:HsLa gioventù di Enrico V	melodramma	4 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs25 November 1834	Milan, Teatro alla Scala	In part based on Shakespeare
Template:HsI due Figaro	melodramma buffo	2 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs26 January 1835	Madrid, Teatro Principe	Based on Les deux Figaro by Honoré-Antoine Richaud Martelly; Composed in 1826.
Template:HsFrancesca Donato, ossia Corinto distrutta	melodramma	3 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs14 February 1835	Turin, Teatro Regio	Based on Byron; Revised by Salvatore Cammarano for the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 5 January 1845.
Template:HsI briganti	melodramma	3 acts	Template:Hs Jacopo Crescini	Template:Hs22 March 1836	Paris, Théâtre-Italien	Based on Die Räuber by Schiller; Revised for Milan's Teatro alla Scala, 6 November 1837.
Template:HsIl giuramento	melodramma	3 acts	Template:HsGaetano Rossi	Template:Hs11 March 1837	Milan, Teatro alla Scala	Under the title of Amore e dovere given in Rome in 1839.
Template:HsLe due illustri rivali	melodramma	3 acts	Template:HsGaetano Rossi	Template:Hs10 March 1838	Venice, Teatro La Fenice	Revised for the Teatro alla Scala, 26 December 1839.
Template:HsElena da Feltre	dramma tragico	3 acts	Template:Hs Salvatore Cammarano	Template:Hs1 January 1839	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Completed in the autumn of 1837.
Template:HsIl bravo, ossia La veneziana	melodramma	3 acts	Template:HsGaetano Rossi	Template:Hs9 March 1839	Milan, Teatro alla Scala	Based on La vénitienne by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and The Bravo, a tale by James Fenimore Cooper.
Template:HsLa vestale	tragedia lirica	3 acts	Template:HsSalvatore Cammarano	Template:Hs10 March 1840	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Given under the title of Emilia in Rome in the autumn of 1842; As San Camillo given in Rome in 1851.
Template:HsLa solitaria delle Asturie, ossia La Spagna ricuperata	melodramma	5 acts	Template:HsFelice Romani	Template:Hs12 March 1840	Venice, Teatro La Fenice
Template:HsIl proscritto	melodramma tragico	3 acts	Template:HsSalvatore Cammarano	Template:Hs4 January 1842	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Based on Le proscrit by F. Soulié.
Template:HsIl reggente	dramma lirico	3 acts	Template:HsSalvatore Cammarano	Template:Hs2 February 1843	Turin, Teatro Regio	Based on Gustave III ou Le bal masqué by Eugène Scribe; Revised with changes for Trieste, 11 November 1843.
Template:HsLeonora	melodramma	4 acts	Template:Hs Marco D'Arienzo	Template:Hs5 December 1844	Naples, Teatro Nuovo	Based on Lenore by Gottfried August Bürger; Arranged as I cacciatori delle Alpi for Mantua in 1859.
Template:HsIl Vascello de Gama	melodramma romantico	1 prologo e 3 acts	Template:HsSalvatore Cammarano	Template:Hs6 March 1845	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Based on Le naufrage de la Meduse by Desnoyers de Biéville.
Template:HsOrazi e Curiazi	tragedia lirica	3 acts	Template:HsSalvatore Cammarano	Template:Hs10 November 1846	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Based on Horace by Pierre Corneille.
Template:HsLa schiava saracena, ovvero Il campo dei crociati	melodramma tragico	4 acts	Template:Hs Francesco Maria Piave	Template:Hs26 December 1848	Milan, Teatro alla Scala	Revised for Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 29 October 1850.
Template:HsMedea	tragedia lirica	3 acts	Template:HsSalvatore Cammarano Felice Romani	Template:Hs1 March 1851	Naples, Teatro San Carlo
Template:HsStatira	tragedia lirica	3 acts	Template:Hs Domenico Bolognese	Template:Hs8 January 1853	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Based on Olympie by Voltaire
Template:HsVioletta	melodramma	4 acts	Template:HsMarco D'Arienzo	Template:Hs10 January 1853	Naples, Teatro Nuovo
Template:HsPelagio	tragedia lirica	4 acts	Template:HsMarco D'Arienzo	Template:Hs12 February 1857	Naples, Teatro San Carlo
Template:HsVirginia	tragedia lirica	3 acts	Template:HsSalvatore Cammarano	Template:Hs7 April 1866	Naples, Teatro San Carlo	Based on Alfieri; Composed in December 1849 to March 1850.
Template:HsL'orfano di Brono, ossia Caterina dei Medici (Caterina di Brono)	melodramma	3 acts	Template:HsSalvatore Cammarano			Incomplete; only the first act exists. Composed in 1869/1870