Germania (opera)
Encyclopedia
Germania is an opera
tic dramma lirico consisting of a prologue, two acts, an intermezzo
and an epilogue by Alberto Franchetti
to an Italian
libretto
by Luigi Illica
. The opera premiered on March 11, 1902 at the Teatro alla Scala
in Milan
.
Illica, known for penning the librettos for some of Giacomo Puccini's
best loved operas, originally gave the libretto for Tosca
to Franchetti after the latter had obtained the rights to the Victorien Sardou
play on which it was based. However, after Puccini expressed interest in it, Franchetti relinquished his rights, and Illica gave the composer Germania instead. The composer and librettist, who were long-time close friends, had previously collaborated on the opera Cristoforo Colombo
(1892).
The plot of the libretto, which was written in grand opera
style, was set during Napoleonic
times and involves a love triangle
among students who are working secretly underground for the liberation of a Germany
then under occupation by France
. In composing the music, Franchetti quoted
widely from German and student's popular songs and from the work of several German composers in order to create a German color to his work.
Germania premiered under the baton of Arturo Toscanini
and featured famed tenor
Enrico Caruso in the role of the student Federico. The opera would go on to become Franchetti's most successful work.
A group of students are hiding the bookseller and publisher Giovanni Filippo Palm, who is wanted by the police for disseminating the anonymous book 'Germania'. The instigators of the hunt for Palm are Napoleon's occupying forces, who, along with a number of German princes, have been severely criticised in Palm's book. Philosophers, poets and students appeal to the inhabitants of the German territories to rise up against their exploitation and to unite their divided country. The students cannot agree on how to pursue their struggle: with the sword or the pen. Their leader Carlo Worms, an idealist, invokes the words of the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte
and is in favour of demanding human rights and freedom of speech and thought in the spirit of Friedrich Schiller
. Pitted against him in the debate are the members of a more radical group including Federico Loewe, a friend of Carlo Worms and an adversary in more ways than one, for they are in love with the same woman, Ricke, already betrothed to Loewe. Worms seduces Ricke while Loewe is away. Ricke is desperate because Worms warns her that Loewe and he will have to settle the matter in a duel if she confesses the act to Loewe. She agrees not to reveal her disloyalty even though plagued by her conscience. Meanwhile a young lad, Jebbel, has accepted a bribe from the police and revealed Palm's hiding place.
Worms is alive. Students from across Germany are assembled, united behind one slogan: GERMANIA! Jebbel, now a young man, appears before the League tribunal and confesses to having betrayed Palm to the police years ago. Many League members call for his execution, but one of their most respected underground figures, Luigi Adolfo Guglielmo Lützow, takes Jebbel's side and enlists him for the impending battle against Napoleon's forces. Suddenly Loewe appears, swearing vengeance against Worms. He challenges him to a duel. Worms is resolved to end the feud by letting Loewe kill him, but before it comes to this the Queen makes an impressive entrance. Together they declare their hopes for a future Germany free of tyranny. This collective vision finds expression in wild fanaticism. Worms, Loewe and the assembled volunteers head off to the Battle of the Nations outside Leipzig.
Ricke has been caught up in the fray of events. She discovers Worms dead and finds Loewe gravely wounded. Without shedding tears Ricke tenderly arranges the body of her beloved and lies down beside him. As dusk gathers, her head sinks to his now-still breast as they spend their single, unending wedding night together.
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...
tic dramma lirico consisting of a prologue, two acts, 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...
and an epilogue by Alberto Franchetti
Alberto Franchetti
Alberto Franchetti was an Italian opera composer.-Biography:Alberto Franchetti was born in Turin, a Jewish nobleman of independent means. He studied first in Venice, then in Dresden under Felix Draeseke, and finally at the Munich Conservatory under Josef Rheinberger. His first major success...
to an Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
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...
by Luigi Illica
Luigi Illica
Luigi Illica was an Italian librettist who wrote for Giacomo Puccini , Alfredo Catalani, Umberto Giordano, Baron Alberto Franchetti and other important Italian composers. His most famous opera librettos are those for La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Andrea Chénier.Illica was born at...
. The opera premiered on March 11, 1902 at the Teatro alla 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...
in 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 ,...
.
Illica, known for penning the librettos for some of Giacomo Puccini's
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
best loved operas, originally gave the libretto for Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
to Franchetti after the latter had obtained the rights to the Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play...
play on which it was based. However, after Puccini expressed interest in it, Franchetti relinquished his rights, and Illica gave the composer Germania instead. The composer and librettist, who were long-time close friends, had previously collaborated on the opera Cristoforo Colombo
Cristoforo Colombo (opera)
Cristoforo Colombo is an opera in four acts and an epilogue by Alberto Franchetti to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica...
(1892).
The plot of the libretto, which was written in grand opera
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
style, was set during Napoleonic
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
times and involves a love triangle
Love triangle
A love triangle is usually a romantic relationship involving three people. While it can refer to two people independently romantically linked with a third, it usually implies that each of the three people has some kind of relationship to the other two...
among students who are working secretly underground for the liberation of a Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
then under occupation by France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. In composing the music, Franchetti quoted
Musical quotation
Musical quotation is the practice of directly quoting another work in a new composition. The quotation may be from the same composer's work , or from a different composer's work ....
widely from German and student's popular songs and from the work of several German composers in order to create a German color to his work.
Germania premiered under the baton of Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
and featured famed 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...
Enrico Caruso in the role of the student Federico. The opera would go on to become Franchetti's most successful work.
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere cast 11 March 1902 (Conductor: Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory... ) |
|---|---|---|
| Carlo Teodoro Körner | 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... |
Oreste Lombardi |
| Carlo Worms | 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... |
Mario Sammarco Mario Sammarco Mario Sammarco was an Italian operatic baritone noted for his histrionic ability.-Biography:... |
| Crisogono | baritone | Michele Wigley |
| Federico Loewe | tenor | Enrico Caruso |
| Giovanni Filippo Palm | bass Bass (voice type) A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C... |
Oreste Gennari |
| Head of German police | bass | Arcangelo Rossi |
| Jane | 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... |
Jane Bathory |
| Jebbel | 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... |
Bice Silvestri |
| Hedvige | mezzo-soprano | Adele Ponzano |
| Lene Armuth | mezzo-soprano | Teresa Ferraris |
| Luigi Adolfo Guglielmo Lützow | bass | Carlo Ragni |
| Peters | bass | Ettore Gennari |
| Ricke | soprano | Amelia Pinto |
| Stapps | bass | Giovanni Gravina |
| A young boy | contralto Contralto Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above... |
E. d'Alessandro |
| A woman | contralto | Bruna Properzi |
Prologue
- Time and place: in and around Nuremberg, in the year 1806.
A group of students are hiding the bookseller and publisher Giovanni Filippo Palm, who is wanted by the police for disseminating the anonymous book 'Germania'. The instigators of the hunt for Palm are Napoleon's occupying forces, who, along with a number of German princes, have been severely criticised in Palm's book. Philosophers, poets and students appeal to the inhabitants of the German territories to rise up against their exploitation and to unite their divided country. The students cannot agree on how to pursue their struggle: with the sword or the pen. Their leader Carlo Worms, an idealist, invokes the words of the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a German philosopher. He was one of the founding figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, a movement that developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant...
and is in favour of demanding human rights and freedom of speech and thought in the spirit of Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
. Pitted against him in the debate are the members of a more radical group including Federico Loewe, a friend of Carlo Worms and an adversary in more ways than one, for they are in love with the same woman, Ricke, already betrothed to Loewe. Worms seduces Ricke while Loewe is away. Ricke is desperate because Worms warns her that Loewe and he will have to settle the matter in a duel if she confesses the act to Loewe. She agrees not to reveal her disloyalty even though plagued by her conscience. Meanwhile a young lad, Jebbel, has accepted a bribe from the police and revealed Palm's hiding place.
Act 1
Loewe, Ricke, her sister Jane, their elderly mother and the student Crisogono, adjutant of Worms, have fled to the Black Forest. When word goes round that Worms has died in battle Ricke looks optimistically to an untroubled future with her husband Loewe. Yet on the very day of their wedding Worms suddenly appears, gravely wounded. Realising that the ceremony is over, he runs off. Shortly afterwards Loewe notices that Ricke has vanished. He discovers a farewell letter from her in which she declares her love for him but also confesses to her affair with Worms. She pleads for forgiveness, but Loewe swears to avenge himself on Worms.Act 2
- Time and place: years later, an underground meeting of the anti-Napoleon Queen Louise League in Königsberg.
Worms is alive. Students from across Germany are assembled, united behind one slogan: GERMANIA! Jebbel, now a young man, appears before the League tribunal and confesses to having betrayed Palm to the police years ago. Many League members call for his execution, but one of their most respected underground figures, Luigi Adolfo Guglielmo Lützow, takes Jebbel's side and enlists him for the impending battle against Napoleon's forces. Suddenly Loewe appears, swearing vengeance against Worms. He challenges him to a duel. Worms is resolved to end the feud by letting Loewe kill him, but before it comes to this the Queen makes an impressive entrance. Together they declare their hopes for a future Germany free of tyranny. This collective vision finds expression in wild fanaticism. Worms, Loewe and the assembled volunteers head off to the Battle of the Nations outside Leipzig.
Epilogue
- Aftermath of the battle.
Ricke has been caught up in the fray of events. She discovers Worms dead and finds Loewe gravely wounded. Without shedding tears Ricke tenderly arranges the body of her beloved and lies down beside him. As dusk gathers, her head sinks to his now-still breast as they spend their single, unending wedding night together.