II Giuramento
From the Theatre Royal, Wexford, Sean Rafferty introduces a performance of Saverio Mercadante 's // Giuramento, a melodrama in three acts to a libretto by Gaetano Rossi after Victor Hugo 's play Angelo. This opera, regarded as the composer's masterpiece, marks a turning point in Mercadante's dramatic approach. in a letterto the musicologist and composer Francesco Rorimo , written during the composition of Elena da Feltre, Mercadante says: "I have continued the revolution I began with // Giuramento: forms varied, trivial 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." II Giuramento was first performed at La Scala, Milan, in 1837, and tonight's production is directed by Joseph Rochlitz.
Wexford Festival Opera Chorus, Belarus National PO, conductor Paolo Arrivabeni Acts land 2
9.15 Twenty Minutes: Mercadante-the Missing Link
Patric Schmid , artistic director of Opera
Rara, talks to Sean Rafferty about Saverio Mercadante , and how for a few years in the 1840s, before the arrival of Verdi, he was the leading light of Italian opera
9.35 Act 3