Antonio Somma

Antonio Somma

born on 28/8/1809 in Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy

died on 8/8/1864 in Venezia, Veneto, Italy

Antonio Somma

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Antonio Somma (born Udine, 28 August 1809 - died Venice, 8 August 1864) was an Italian playwright who is most well known for writing the libretto of an opera which ultimately became Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera in 1859. While a student, his tragedy, Parisina, gave him quite a success.

Initially, his contact with Verdi came about when the composer was seeking to continue work on his proposed Re Lear, an adaptation of the Shakespeare play for the opera stage which had begun under his long-time collaborator Salvadore Cammarano who had died. Under Verdi's supervision, Somma wrote the libretto for Re Lear, a project that Verdi never realised musically although extensive work was done and a full libretto completed to the point where Verdi was considering this to be the opera he wrote for Naples for the 1858 season.[1]

However, Ballo had a troubled history and, originally, Somma wrote the libretto under the title of Gustavo III.[2] As a result of required changes by, firstly, the Naples censors and then the Rome censors, it became transformed into Un vendetta in domino (with a different setting and characters' names).[3] Finally, for its Rome premiere, the opera became Un ballo in maschera, but with another location change (this time to Boston in colonial times) and further title and name changes.

Overall, he then specialized in spoken plays and wrote no further libretti.

References

Notes

  1. Budden, pp. 362-363
  2. Gossett, p. 497
  3. Letter to Somma, 7 February 1828 in Werfel and Stefan, p.207

Sources

  • Antonio Somma Bio at OperaGlass.
  • Budden, Julian, "Un ballo in maschera", The Operas of Verdi, Volume 2. London: Cassell, Ltd., 1984, pp. 360423 ISBN 0-304-31059-X
  • Gossett, Philip, Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera Chicago: University of Chicago, 2006 ISBN 978-0-226-30482-3 ISBN 0-226-30482-5
  • Werfel, Franz and Paul Stefan (ed. & selected; trans. Edward Downes), Verdi: The Man and His Letters, New York: Vienna House, 1973 ISBN 0-8443-0088-8
This page was last modified 23.07.2013 14:27:35

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