Isabeau
Encyclopedia
Isabeau is a leggenda drammatica or 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 three parts by Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...

, 1911, from 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...

. Mascagni conducted its first performance on June 2, 1911 at the Teatro Coliseo, Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

.

A retelling of the medieval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 English legend of Lady Godiva
Lady Godiva
Godiva , often referred to as Lady Godiva , was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants...

, Mascagni described it in an interview as his attempt to "return to the romanticism which inspired so much of Italian opera."

Roles

Role Voice type Premiere Cast, 2 June 1911
(Conductor: - Mascagni )
King Raimondo bass Carlo Galeffi
Isabeau, his daughter 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...

Maria Farneti
Cornelius, the king's minister 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...

Giuseppe La Puma
Folco, a falconer 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...

Antonio Saluda
Ermyntrude soprano Olga Simnis
Ermyngarde soprano Amalia Columbo
Giglietta soprano Maria Pozzi
il cavalier Faidit baritone Dentale Teofido
l'araldo maggiore baritone

Synopsis

King Raimondo tries to find a husband for the princess Isabeau by holding a tournament, but she is unwilling to choose a husband. When the king forces her to ride naked through the city, the people refuse to look at her out of respect. Furthermore, they demand from the king an edict condemning to blindness anyone who dares to look at her. Unaware of the edict, the falconer Folco accidentally looks upon Isabeau during her ride and is arrested. When Isabeau visits him in prison, she falls in love with him and begs her father to pardon him. However, the king's minister stirs up the passions of the people who rise up in a vigilante mob and kill Folco. Isabeau kills herself over his dying body.
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