Torvaldo e Dorliska 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...

tic dramma semiserio

Opera semiseria

Opera semiseria is an Italian genre of opera, popular in the early and middle 19th century.Related to the opera buffa, opera semiseria contains elements of comedy but also of pathos, sometimes with a pastoral setting. It can usually be distinguished from tragic operas or melodramas by the presence...

 in two act by Gioachino Rossini 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 Cesare Sterbini

Cesare Sterbini

Cesare Sterbini was an Italian writer.Sterbini was born at Rome. He is known for two libretti for operas by Gioacchino Rossini: Torvaldo e Dorliska and The Barber of Seville ....

, based on Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by the revolutionary Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai

Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai

Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai was a French novelist, playwright, journalist, politician, and diplomat.-Early life and literary works:...

, whose work was the source of the Lodoïska

Lodoïska

Lodoïska is an opera by Luigi Cherubini to a French libretto by Claude-François Fillette-Loraux after an episode from Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai’s novel, Les amours du chevalier de Faublas. It takes the form of a comédie héroïque in three acts, and was a founding work of rescue opera...

libretto set by Luigi Cherubini

Luigi Cherubini

Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....

 (1791), and Lodoiska set by Stephen Storace

Stephen Storace

Stephen Storace was an English composer. His sister was the famous opera singer Nancy Storace. He was born in London in the Parish of St Marylebone to an English mother and Italian father...

 (1794), and Simon Mayr

Simon Mayr

Johann Simon Mayr , also known in Italian as Giovanni Simone Mayr or Simone Mayr was a German composer.- Life :...

 (1796).

Torvaldo e Dorliska is a rescue opera

Rescue opera

Rescue opera was a popular genre of opera in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in France and Germany. Generally, rescue operas deal with the rescue of a main character from danger and end with a happy dramatic resolution in which lofty humanistic ideals triumph over base motives...

 with an eventual happy ending. The inclusion of buffo

Opera buffa

Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...

 roles is the reason for its designation as a 'semiserio' work, similar to Rossini's La gazza ladra

La gazza ladra

La gazza ladra is a melodramma or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was by Giovanni Gherardini after La pie voleuse by JMT Badouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez....

.

Performance history

Torvaldo and Dorliska was first performed at the Teatro Valle

Teatro Valle

The Teatro Valle is a theatre and former opera house in Rome, Italy.Commissioned by the Capranica family, the architect Tommaso Morelli designed the theatre which was built in 1726. It was inaugurated with the staging of the tragedy Matilde by Simon Falconio Pratoli...

, Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, on 26 December 1815. It remained in the repertory in Italy for many years though it was never a great critical success.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, December 26, 1815 (Conductor: - )
Torvaldo	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...	Domenico Donzelli Domenico Donzelli Domenico Donzelli was an Italian tenor with a robust voice who enjoyed an important career in Paris, London and his native country during the 1808-1841 period.-Biography:...
Dorliska, wife of Torvaldo	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...	Adelaide Sala
Duke of Ordow	bass	Filippo Galli Filippo Galli (bass) Filippo Galli was an Italian opera singer who began his career as a tenor in 1801 but went on to become one of the most acclaimed basses of the Bel Canto era, with a voice known for its wide range, extreme agility, and expressivity, and a remarkable gift for acting-Early life:Born in Rome, Galli...
Giorgio, guardian of the castle	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...	Raniero Remorini
Carlotta, his sister	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...	Agnese Loiselet
Ormondo	bass	Cristoforo Bastianelli

Recordings

Year	Cast: Dorliska, Torvaldo, Il Duca d’Ordow, Giorgio, Carlotta	Conductor, Opera House and Orchestra	Label
2003	Paola Cigna, Huw Rhys-Evans, Michele Bianchini, Mario Utzeri, Annarita Gemmabella	Alessandro De Marchi Czech Chamber Soloists and the ARS Brunensis Chamber Choir	Audio CD: Naxos Cat: 8.660189-90
2006	Darina Takova, Francesco Meli, Michele Pertusi, Bruno Praticò, Jeannette Fischer	Victor Pablo Pérez, Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento and the Prague Chamber Chorus (Audio recording made at performances at the Rossini Opera Festival Rossini Opera Festival The Rossini Opera Festival is an opera festival held in August of each year in Pesaro, Italy, the birthplace of the opera composer Gioachino Rossini.... , Pesaro)	Audio CD: Dynamic Cat: CDS 528/1-2

External links

• Italian libretto at rossinigesellschaft.de