Maritana
Encyclopedia
Maritana is a 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...

 in three acts composed by William Vincent Wallace
William Vincent Wallace
William Vincent Wallace was an Irish composer and musician.-Early life:Wallace was born at Colbeck Street, Waterford, Ireland. Both parents were Irish, his father, of County Mayo, was a regimental bandmaster....

, with a 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 Edward Fitzball (1792–1873). The opera is based on the play Don César de Bazan by Adolphe d'Ennery
Adolphe d'Ennery
Adolphe Philippe d'Ennery or Dennery was a French Jewish dramatist and novelist.Born in Paris, his real surname was Philippe...

 and Philippe François Pinel Dumanoir (1806–1865), which was also the source material for Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

's opéra comique
Opéra comique
Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...

 Don César de Bazan
Don César de Bazan
Don César de Bazan is an opéra comique in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Adolphe d'Ennery, Jean Henri Dumanoir and Jules Chantepie, based on the drama Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo...

. (The character of Don César de Bazan first appeared in Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

's Ruy Blas
Ruy Blas
Ruy Blas is a tragic drama by Victor Hugo. It was the first play presented at the Théâtre de la Renaissance and opened on November 8, 1838. Though considered by many to be Hugo’s best drama, the play initially met with only average success....

.)

The first of six operas by Wallace, the work is often cited as an inspiration for a plot device in Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

's comic opera The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...

in which a man weds a woman while awaiting execution in prison, escapes and, while he is disguised, the couple falls in love.

Performance history

Maritana was first produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

 on 15 November 1845, conducted by Julius Benedict
Julius Benedict
Sir Julius Benedict was a German-born composer and conductor, resident in England for most of his career.-Life:...

. It was then produced the following year in Dublin and Philadelphia, then in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 in 1848. In 1873, Maritana became the first opera produced by the Carl Rosa Opera Company
Carl Rosa Opera Company
The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl August Nicholas Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company survived Rosa's death in 1889, and continued to present opera in English on tour until 1960, when it was...

. It was revived in Dublin in 1877, and in London at Her Majesty's in 1880, in an Italian version by Mattei. A 1902 production was seen at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

. It was produced again at the London Lyceum in 1925 and at Saddler's Wells in 1931, remaining popular until the middle of the 20th century.

The Royal Dublin Society revived the work in concert form in 2006, with an orchestra conducted by Proinnsias O Duinn and singers led by Mairead Buicke
Mairead Buicke
Maireaed Buicke is an Irish operatic soprano active in concert and recital work as well as opera. She is currently a Company Principal with the English National Opera and a member of their Young Singers Programme...

 and Robin Tritschler. The abiding Irish interest in the work is reflected in the works of James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

, in his novel Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...

, and his stories The Dead
The Dead (short story)
"The Dead" is the final short story in the 1914 collection Dubliners by James Joyce. It is the longest story in the collection and is often considered the best of Joyce's shorter works. At 15,672 words it has also been considered a novella....

and A Mother (in Dubliners
Dubliners
Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century....

).

Film versions of the opera were produced in 1922 and 1927.

Roles

Role Voice type Premiere Cast, 15 November 1845
(Conductor: )
Charles II, King of Spain 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...

 
Borrani
Don José de Santarém, his minister bass H. Phillips
Don Cæsar de Bazan 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...

 
William Harrison
Marquis de Montefiori bass H. Horncastle
Lazarillo, a poor boy 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...

 
Miss Poole
Alcalde bass Morgan
Captain of Guards 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...

 
Maritana, a gypsy 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...

Elizabeth Rainforth ('Emma Romer')
Marchioness de Montefiori mezzo-soprano or soprano Mrs. Selby
Boatman
Soldiers, populace, and gipsies (chorus)

Synopsis

Maritana is a street singer in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

. The King of Spain is taken with her beauty, and his minister, Don José, agrees to help him with his affections. Don José intends to reveal the king's infidelity to further his own favour with the queen.

Don Cæsar de Bazan is a down-on-his-luck nobleman who is arrested and sentenced to death for duel
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...

ling during Holy Week
Holy Week
Holy Week in Christianity is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter...

. Earlier, Don Cæsar had aided a poor boy named Lazarillo. On the day of Don Cæsar's execution, a pardon arrives from the king. It is maliciously intercepted by Don José, however, who offers Don Cæsar a soldier's death if he agrees to marry a veiled girl before his execution; Don Cesar agrees. Don José brings the veiled Maritana to marry Don Cæsar before the execution with the intention of making her a nobleman's widow. During the wedding feast, Lazarillo removes the bullets from all the weapons. The execution is carried out, and de Bazan feigns death.

Don José brings Maritana to see the Marquis and Marchioness de Montefiori. Maritana believes that she has married the king. Don José brings her to meet the king at their appointed time. Maritana is disappointed to find that he is not the dashing Don Cæsar that she had expected. Don Cæsar arrives at the villa and demands his bride. Don José brings the old Marchioness to see him. Since Don Cæsar has never seen his bride, he believes that this is she, and is so disappointed that he agrees to sign away his rights to her. Just as he is about to do this, he hears Maritana's voice and announces that she was the woman he married. He is promptly arrested.

Don Cæsar comes before the king, announces that he is Don Cæsar de Bazan and learns of his original pardon. While the king steps away for a few moments, Maritana and Don Cæsar discover their mutual love. Don Cæsar, realising Don José's treachery, kills him. To show his gratitude, the king makes Don Cæsar the governor of Valencia
Valencia (province)
Valencia or València is a province of Spain, in the central part of the Valencian Community.It is bordered by the provinces of Alicante, Albacete, Cuenca, Teruel, Castellón, and the Mediterranean Sea...

.

Musical numbers

Act I
  • 'It was a Knight' - Maritana
  • Tis the harp in the air' - Maritana
  • 'Of fairy wand had I the power' - Maritana and Don José
  • 'All the world over' - Don Cæsar
  • 'Pretty Gitana, tell us what the fates decree' - Chorus
  • Finale - ensemble


Act II
  • 'Alas, those chimes so sweetly stealing' - Lazarillo
  • 'Yes, let me like a soldier fall' - Don Cæsar
  • 'The Mariner in his barque' - The King
  • Finale - "What Mystery"


Act III
  • 'Scenes that are the brightest' - Maritana
  • Duet - Don Cæsar and the King
  • 'Holy Mother, guide his foot-steps' - Maritana
  • 'There is a flower' - Don Cæsar
  • Finale

Other associations

A beach resort in St. Pete Beach, Florida
St. Pete Beach, Florida
St. Pete Beach is a coastal city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States famous for its status as a tourist destination. St. Pete Beach was formed from the Towns of Pass-a-Grille, Don CeSar, Belle Vista, St. Petersburg Beach and unincorporated Pinellas County. At the time of its incorporation...

, the Don Cesar
Don Cesar
Loews Don CeSar Hotel is a Loews hotel located in St. Pete Beach, Florida, in the United States. Developed by Thomas Rowe and opened in 1928, it gained renown as the Gulf playground for America's pampered rich at the height of the Jazz Age and it still serves as a popular retreat for the rich and...

, is named for the character Don Cæsar, and the restaurant there is named Maritana.

Recordings

Wallace: Maritana, RTE Concert Orchestra and RTE Philharmonic Choir
  • Conductor: Proinnsías O'Duinn
  • Principal singers: Majella Cullagh, Lynda Lee, Paul Charles Clarke, Ian Caddy, Damien Smith, Quentin Hayes
  • Recording date: 1996
  • Label: Marco Polo, 8223406

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK