Gaetano Donizetti | Autograph scena for Settimio from "L’esule di Roma", [1828], unrecorded and unpublished

Gaetano Donizetti.

Autograph manuscript of Settimio's scena "Ah Muretta, sei tu? ... S'io finor bell' idol mio" from the opera L'esule di Roma, written for the December 1828 revival, signed ("Donizetti"), UNRECORDED AND UNPUBLISHED IN A MODERN CRITICAL EDITION

AN EXTRAORDINARILY RICH COMPOSING MANUSCRIPT, notated in brown ink on systems of between 18 and 19 staves per page, the recitative ("Ah Murena sei tu?") headed and signed the composer on the first page ("Scena att.^o 2d.^o settimio /L'Esule / Donizetti"), the preceding entry "dopo il duetto subito", scored for piccolo, flutes, oboes, clarinets, horns (E flat and B flat), trumpets, bassoons, trombones, timpani, cimbasso, tenor (Settimio) and bass (Publio), and strings, extensive deletions, corrections, and revisions, including the cancellation of whole pages (fol.191r and 192v), the re-writing of the solo part in a large number of passages, and an unidentified cancelled autograph sketch on fol.199v

38 pages, oblong 4to (c.22.5 x 28.5cm), 20-stave paper, apparently later ink foliation "188" to "207" (the presumably cancelled folio 193 not present), modern pencil pagination "1" to "38", modern green half morocco, no place or date [Naples, end of 1828], the last leaf lacking, pinholes, some creasing, light browning to edges

AN IMPORTANT DONIZETTI DISCOVERY.

THIS IS A KEY SOURCE FOR THE OPERA WHICH WAS DONIZETTI'S GREATEST EARLY SUCCESS.

THE SCORE HAS NOT BEEN AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION BY MODERN SCHOLARSHIP AND IS UNPUBLISHED IN A CRITICAL EDITION.

Donizetti's two-act melodramma eroico L'esule di Roma was first performed at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, on 1 January 1828. For the revival in Milan in the summer of that year, Donizetti wrote an additional aria, "S'io finor bell' idol mio", for the tenor Berardo Calvari Winter (Settimio). In the original version of the opera there was no such aria, the music going straight from no.6 (the duetto for Murena and Argelia) to the final number (the rondò for Argelia). This aria is preserved today in the Ricordi archives in Milan. The present autograph represents a different version of the same number, written for the legendary Giovanni Battista Rubini for the Naples revival on 26 December 1828.

The foliation numbers of the aria and preceding recitative ("188" to "207") indicate that it was at one time present in the score of the opera (now in the library of the Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella, Naples; in that score the foliation goes straight from fol.187 to 209). It is likely that the score of the opera was put in to order and foliated at the time of the December 1828 performances. Fol.208, which would have contained the closing bars of the aria, is missing, its whereabouts unknown.

The present manuscript captures in extraordinary fashion the breakneck speed and white heat of Donizetti's inspiration. Particularly notable are the extensive deleted passages in the recitative and the revisions to the vocal line in a number of passages in the aria.

We are pleased to acknowledge the kind assistance of Professor Roger Parker in our cataloguing of this lot.

LITERATURE:

Not included in the Opera Rara recording (2024), based on the forthcoming Donizetti critical edition; Herbert Weinstock, Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy, Paris and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (1964), passim