Assassinio nella cattedrale (Murder in the Cathedral) is an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in two acts and an intermezzo

Intermezzo

In music, an intermezzo , in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work...

 by the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 composer Ildebrando Pizzetti

Ildebrando Pizzetti

Ildebrando Pizzetti was an Italian composer of classical music.- Biography :Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions...

. The libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 is an adaptation by the composer of an Italian translation of T.S. Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral

Murder in the Cathedral

Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, first performed in 1935...

. The opera was first performed at La Scala

La Scala

La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

, Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 on 1 March 1958. The opera was performed for the first time in Canada the following year at the Montreal Festivals

Montreal Festivals

The Montreal Festivals was an arts festival held annually in Montreal, Canada from 1936-1965. The festival was originally dedicated to the performance of classical music, presenting concerts of symphonic works, operas, oratorios, chamber music, and recitals...

.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast (per La Scala archive) Conductor: Gianandrea Gavazzeni Gianandrea Gavazzeni Gianandrea Gavazzeni was an Italian pianist, conductor , composer and musicologist.Gavazzeni was born in Bergamo. For almost 50 years, starting from 1948, he was principal conductor at La Scala, Milan, in 1966-68 being its music and artistic director.He had his Metropolitan Opera debut on 11... 1 March 1958
Thomas Becket	bass	Nicola Rossi-Lemeni Nicola Rossi-Lemeni Nicola Rossi Lemeni, , was a basso opera singer of mixed Italian-Russian parentage.Rossi Lemeni was born in Istanbul, Turkey, the son of an Italian colonel and a Russian mother. In his prime he was one of the most respected bassos in Italy...
Herald	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Aldo Bertocci
First tempter	tenor	Rinaldo Pelizzoni
Second tempter	bass	Antonio Cassinelli
Third tempter	bass	Nicola Zaccaria
Fourth tempter	bass	Lino Puglisi
First priest	tenor	Mario Ortica
Second priest	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Dino Dondi
Third priest	bass	Adolfo Cormanni
First knight	tenor	Rinaldo Pelizzoni
Second knight	bass	Enrico Campi
Third knight	bass	Silvio Maionica
Fourth knight	bass	Marco Stefanoni
First coryphée Coryphaeus Coryphaeus, or Koryphaios , and often corypheus in English. In Attic drama, the coryphaeus was the leader of the chorus. Hence the term is used for the chief or leader of any company or movement...	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Leyla Gencer Leyla Gencer Leyla Gencer, or Ayşe Leyla Çeyrekgil was a world-renowned Turkish operatic soprano.Known as "La Diva Turca" and "La Regina" in the opera world, Gencer was a notable bel canto soprano who spent most of her career in Italy, from the early 1950s through the mid-1980s, and had a repertoire...
Second coryphée	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Gabriella Carturan

Recordings

Key: aacond/corifea 1/corifea 2/araldo/tentatore 1/tentatore 2/becket

• Gavazzeni/Gencer/Carturan/Bertocci/Pelizzoni/Cassinelli/Rossi-Lemeni, live in Milan, 1958, Opera d'Oro
• Pizzetti/Zeani/Rota/Bertocci/Pelizzoni/Montarsolo/Rossi-Lemeni, live in Turin, 1958, Stradivarius
• Karajan/Zadek/Ludwig/Dermota/Stolze/Schöffler/Hotter, live in Vienna, 1960, Deutsche Grammophon
• Morandi/Marrocu/Zaramella/Casalin/Cordella/Valleggi/Raimondi, live in Bari, 2007, Decca DVD, specifically: Ruggero Raimondi
  Ruggero Raimondi
  Ruggero Raimondi is an Italian bass-baritone opera singer who has also appeared in motion pictures.-Early training and career:Ruggero Raimondi was born in Bologna, Italy, during World War II...
  
  , Orchestra Sinfonica della Provincia di Bari conducted by Piergiorgio Morandi, released 2008

Sources

• The Viking Opera Guide ed. Holden (Viking, 1993)
• Del Teatro (in Italian)
• Amadeus Online