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Maometto II

Dramma per musica in two acts by
CESARE DELLA VALLE

First performance:
Naples – Teatro San Carlo
3 December 1820

Critical Edition by
PATRICIA B. BRAUNER
PHILIP GOSSETT
CLAUDIO SCIMONE

FONDAZIONE ROSSINI PESARO 1985
[rental only]

CHARACTERS:
PAOLO ERISSO, Governor of the Venetians in Negroponte, bass
ANNA, his daughter, soprano
CALBO, Venetian general, mezzo-soprano
CONDULMIERO, another general, tenor
MAOMETTO II, bass
SELIMO, his confidant, tenor
Mixed chorus of Muslim ladies, Venetian soldiers, Muslim soldiers

The scene is laid in Negroponte

Instrumentation: 2 Flutes/2 Piccolos, 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets, 2 Bassoons, 4 Horns, 2 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, Serpent, Timpani, Bass Drum, Cymbals, Triangle, Bells, Strings. Onstage: Band, Side Drum, Harp
Performance time: 3h

Rossini wrote Maometto II at the height of his Neapolitan career: He chose it to open the Venetian Carnival season of 1823 and, revised as Le Siège de Corinthe, to make his début at the Paris Opéra in 1826. In this penultimate Neapolitan work, Rossini avoids many of the formal conventions of Italian opera, while expanding many forms internally. That he knew he carried his art beyond the capability of his audience is shown in his gradual retrenchment after Maometto II and in his revisions of it, which smoothed the more audacious parts. It is a work that brings together Rossini's gift for music of immediate appeal and vocal splendor with a profound understanding of musical and dramatic structure.

Extraordinary for its dramatic power and the nobility of its musical content, Maometto II is also an opera that poses many textual problems, since Rossini's successive revisions were made directly in the autograph score. Using copies of the score dating back to the original productions of each of these versions, the critical edition reconstructs the text of the first version (Naples, 1820), which reflects the composer's original intentions. When the volume appears in print, it will provide the material pertaining to the Venetian production of 1823 in an appendix.

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