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| Teresa e Gianfaldoni by Gaetano Donizetti: Cantata
a due voci con accompagnamento di Piano-forte Merit
Ostermann - Mezzo-soprano German première: 22 November 2008, Municipal Theatre Ingolstadt (Germany)
The piece, a prime example of the music genre salon cantata, was probably composed around 1821. During that time, Donizetti's compositions were still under the stylistic influence of his teacher Johann Simon Mayr. Teresa e Gianfaldoni is the composer's first ever printed and published opera. It was edited by the Roman publisher Ratti e Cencetti. The cantata gives an account of an historical incident which occurred on the 30 May 1770 near Lyon and caused an éclat throughout Europe: A desperate couple of lovers committed suicide at the altar of a chapel because the father of the girl did not accept their relationship. By coincidence, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was staying at the hotel of the girl's parents in Lyon at the very moment the tragedy happened. He wrote a moving epitaph for the ill-starred lovers. Voltaire reported the case in a new edition of his Dictionnaire Philosophique, but the tragedy was immortalised in 1783 by the French writer Nicolas-Germain Léonard in his novel Les lettres de deux amants habitants de Lyon - Letters of two lovers living in Lyon. Donizetti's
cantata is based on an Italian adaptation of this very novel. It describes
the last encounter of the lovers and their desperate decision to die together.
Formally and musically it is structured like the final act of a tragic
Bel canto opera. Live recording of the concert:
Feedback: The Night of Romanticism in the Ingolstadt Theatre convinces with outstanding artists Donaukurier
No. 274 (Bavarian newspaper), Tragic Love Death
"[...]The German première of the early cantata Teresa e Gianfaldoni by Gaetano Donizetti - a tragic story of love and death - was a dramatic success. Tenor Timothy Fallon sang with a particularly captivating and flexible voice with a clear timbre, and gave a performance of dramatic descriptiveness. But also the resonant Mezzo of Merit Ostermann and the balmy and beautiful voice of Bass-baritone Randal Turner (in Canto XXXIII) left brilliant impressions - one of the outstanding highlights of the evening. [...]"
http://www.donaukurier.de/nachrichten/kultur/art598,1976793
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