Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamace

Template:Salieri operas Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamace (Don Quixote at Camacho's Wedding) composed by Antonio Salieri (1750–1825), is an Italian-language opera in one act (five scenes), originally denoted a divertimento treatrale. The libretto was written by Giovanni Gastone Boccherini, dancer, poet and stage manager, brother of the composer Luigi Boccherini. The work was a hybrid opera buffa and ballet with the ballet's chorographed by Jean-Georges Noverre.

This opera was the third of Salieri's to be publicly performed, as well as his third collaboration with Boccherini. This was Salieri's fourth complete opera.

Performance history

Salieri, wrote Don Chisciotte in Vienna in 1770, according to his first biographer Mosel it may have been the second work he wrote. It received its first performance during Carnival season the next year at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, most likely on January 6, 1771.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, Carnival, 1770 or 1771 (Conductor: Antonio Salieri (most likely))
Gamace, peasant, Bridegroom of Chitteria	tenor	Francesco Bussani
Chitteria, bride of Gamace	mezzo-soprano	Teresa Eberardi
Don Chisciotte, wandering knight	bass	Vincenzo Schiettini
Sancio Pancia, his squire	tenor	Antonio Boscoli
Menco, peasant	tenor	Kurzin
Lena, peasant in love with Menco	soprano	Gabriella Tagliafferi
Il Cavalier del Bosco, knight	tenor	Rizzoli
Nasone, his squire	bass	Santini
Rosa, a peasant's wife	soprano	Clementina Chiavacci
Gnocco, head of the cooks	tenor	Deville
Alfeo, a male peasant who dances	non-singing role
Giocondina, a female peasant who dances	non-singing role
Chorus of peasants (male and female) and cooks
Ballet of peasants

Synopsis

Time: the 17th century

Place: rural Spain, the wedding near the farmhouse of Gamace.

Summary:

Recordings

There is no known studio recording of the complete opera; however, Antonio Salieri: Overtures, (Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), conducted by Michael Dittrich, Naxos 8.554838) has a recording of the overture.

See also

Main articles: List of compositions by Antonio Salieri and List of operas by Salieri

References

• Rudolph Angermüller, Antonio Salieri, 3 Vol. (Munich 1971–74)
• Volkmar Braunbehrens, Maligned Master – the Real Story of Antonio Salieri, transl. Eveline L. Kanes (New York 1992)
• V. Della Croce/F. Blanchetti, Il caso Salieri (Turin 1994)
• I. F. Edler v. Mosel, Über das Leben und die Werke des Anton Salieri (Vienna 1827; reprinted Bad Honnef 1999, edited with notes by Rudolph Angermüller)
• John A. Rice, Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera (Chicago 1998), ISBN 0-226-71125-0, ISBN 978-0-226-71125-6
• Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Salieri: Rival of Mozart (Kansas City 1989)

External links

• Libretto of Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamace, by Giovanni Gastone Boccherini, 1770
• Fullscore manuscript copy of Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamace, by Antonio Salieri, 1770