La romanziera e l'uomo nero (also known as La romanzesca e l'uomo nero) is an 1831 one-act farsa with music by Gaetano Donizetti and an Italian libretto by Domenico Gilardoni, possibly based on the 1819 play La donna dei romanzi by Augusto Bon.Ashbrook & Hibberd 2001, p. 231. Other suggested sources include L'homme noir (1820) by Eugene Scribe and Jean-Henri DupinOsborne 1994, pp. 201–202, and Ashbrook 1982, p. 551. and Le coiffeur et le perruquier (1824) by Scribe, Édouard-Joseph-Ennemond Mazères and Charles Nombret Saint-Laurent.Michele Zurletti, Rovigo.
Performance history The opera was premiered on 18 June 1831 at the Teatro del Fondo, Naples, and there was only one further performance. The words and music of the arias and ensembles have survived, but the spoken dialogue has been lost. The opera's music was performed in 1982 at the Camden Festival, and in Fermo in 1988. In November 2000, staged performances took place in Rovigo with dialogue re-created by Michelangelo Zurletti from the Scribe plays on which the opera may have been based.
Of this work Ashbrook writes: The plot is a satire on Romanticism: in the rondo-finale Antonina assures her father that she will give up willows, cypresses, urns and ashes, and take up more appropriate pursuits like singing and dancing and going to the opera.
He also points out that Filidoro's canzonetta is a parody of the Gondolier's song from Rossini's Otello.Ashbrook 1982, p. 324.
Roles
RoleVoice typePremiere Cast, 18 June 1831Premiere cast list from Casaglia 2005. Note that Ashbrook 1982, p. 511, and Weinstock 1963, p. 328, have incomplete premiere cast lists with Tamburini as Carlino rather than Filidoro.The Count (il Conte) bassGennaro AmbrosiniAntonina, his daughtersopranoLuigia BoccabadatiChiarina, his niecemezzo-sopranoMarietta Gioia-TamburiniFedele, hoping to marry ChiarinatenorFrancesco SalvettiCarlino, the son of a friend of the CounttenorLorenzo LombardiFilidoro, the man in black (l'uomo nero)baritoneAntonio TamburiniTommaso, his unclebassGennarino LuzioTrappolina, Antonia's governesssopranoAnna Manzi-SalvettiGiappone, the Count's majordomobassTauroNicola, a servantbass
List of musical numbers SceneDescriptionPerformed byFirst lines of sections1IntroductionGiappone, Carlino, Il Conte, Fedele,Chiarina, Trappolina, Tommaso"Vi prego, avanti avanti" ... "M'insulta, corbella!"2CavatinaAntonia, Tommaso, Trappolina"Oh Elodia solitaria"3CanzonettaFilidoro"Non v'e maggio dolore"3DuetAntonia, Filidoro"Ciel! Fia ver? Mio Filidoro!" ... "Ahi la mia nascita" ..."Fuggir da queste mura"4TrioTommaso, Chiarina, Fedele"Cinque sensi appena nato" ... "L'occhietto semi-chiuso" 5DuetChiarina, Filidoro"Che paura! Che paura!" ... "Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!"6TrioNicola, Antonia, Tommaso/Tommaso, Nicola, Trappolina"Fuggiam, fuggiam!" ... "Ei stresso! La mia vittima" ..."Destrieri infocati"7Rondo finaleAntonia, Conte, Fedele, Carlino, Filidoro/Filidoro, Antonia, All"Si, colpevole son io" ... "Lascio l'ombre ed I fantasmi"
Recordings Year Cast:(Antonia, Chiarina, Fedele, Carlino, Filidoro, Tommaso) Conductor, Orchestra, Chorus Label 2000 Elisabetta Scano,Adriana Cicogna,Bruce Ford,Paul Austin Kelly,Pietro Spagnoli,Bruno PraticòDavid Parry,Academy of St Martin in the Fields Audio CD: Opera RaraCat: ORC19 2000 Patrizia Cigna,Claudia Marchi,Giovanni Gregnanin,Patrizio Saudelli,Alessandro Calamai,Gian Paolo FiocchiFranco Piva,Orchestra Filarmonica Veneta "G. F. Malipiero",Coro del Teatro Sociale di Rovigo Audio CD: BongiovanniCat: GB 2287/88-2 (2 CDs)Recorded live on 25 and 26 November 2000
References Notes
Cited sources Ashbrook, William (1982). Donizetti and His Operas. Cambridge University Press. (hardcover). (paperback). Snippet view at Google Books. Ashbrook, William; Hibberd, Sarah (2001). "Gaetano Donizetti", pp. 224–247 in The New Penguin Opera Guide, edited by Amanda Holden. New York: Penguin Putnam. .
Osborne, Charles (1994). The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. . Weinstock, Herbert (1963). Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy, Paris, and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, New York: Pantheon Books. .
External links (original at the Naples Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella)