''I briganti'' is an opera (''

melodramma ''Melodramma'' (plural: ''melodrammi'') is a 17th-century Italian term for a text to be set as an opera, or the opera itself. In the 19th century, it was used in a much narrower sense by English writers to discuss developments in the early Italia ...

'') in three acts by

Saverio Mercadante Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (baptised 17 September 179517 December 1870) was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond ...

, first performed on 22 March 1836 by the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, with an Italian libretto by based on Schiller's ''

Die Räuber ''The Robbers'' (', ) is the first drama by German playwright Friedrich Schiller. The play was published in 1781 and premiered on 13 January 1782 in Mannheim, Germany, and was inspired by Leisewitz' earlier play ''Julius of Taranto''. It was ...

''. The lead roles were written for bass

Luigi Lablache Luigi Lablache (6 December 1794 – 23 January 1858) was an Italian opera singer of French and Irish ancestry. He was most noted for his comic performances, possessing a powerful and agile bass voice, a wide range, and adroit acting skills: Lepo ...

, tenor

Giovanni Battista Rubini Giovanni Battista Rubini (7 April 1794 – 3 March 1854) was an Italian tenor, as famous in his time as Enrico Caruso in a later day. His ringing and expressive coloratura dexterity in the highest register of his voice, the ''tenorino'', insp ...

, baritone

Antonio Tamburini Antonio Tamburini (28 March 1800 – 8 November 1876) was an Italian operatic baritone.Randel (1996) p. 900. Biography Born in Faenza, then part of the Papal States, Tamburini studied the orchestral horn with his father and voice with Aldo ...

and soprano

Giulia Grisi Giulia Grisi (22 May 1811 – 29 November 1869) was an Italian opera singer. She performed widely in Europe, the United States and South America and was among the leading sopranos of the 19th century.Chisholm 1911, p. ? Her second husband was Gio ...

. The opera did not do well in Paris, and the cast departed for London. Ashbrook 1983, p. 233. "On the strength of these scores Mercadante was invited in 1836 by Rossini to compose for the Theatre-Italien. In the same way that Rossini had offered advice and practical suggestions to Bellini for I puritani and to Donizetti for Marin Faliero, so he performed the same office for Mercadante with I briganti, and it seems indisputable that this experience formed the point of departure for Mercadante's ..."

Performance history

The opera was also performed in Italian at

The King's Theatre Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Haymarket in the City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established t ...

in London with the same lead singers, beginning on 2 July 1836; at the

Teatro San Benedetto The Teatro San Benedetto was a theatre in Venice, particularly prominent in the operatic life of the city in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It saw the premieres of over 140 operas, including Rossini's ''L'italiana in Algeri'', and was the th ...

in Venice on 30 September 1836; in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

on 6 November 1837; in

Cagliari Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitant ...

, Sardinia, in the autumn of 1837; in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

on 16 September 1838; at the

Teatro San Carlo The Real Teatro di San Carlo ("Royal Theatre of Saint Charles"), as originally named by the Bourbon monarchy but today known simply as the Teatro (di) San Carlo, is an opera house in Naples, Italy, connected to the Royal Palace and adjacent t ...

in Naples in the winter season of 1839; in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

on 12 December 1839; in

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

in 1840; and in

Corfu Corfu (, ) or Kerkyra ( el, Κέρκυρα, Kérkyra, , ; ; la, Corcyra.) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The isl ...

in 1844. It was revived in Malta in 1886.Loewenberg 1978, columns 779–780. It was revived for the

Rossini in Wildbad Rossini in Wildbad is a bel canto opera festival in Bad Wildbad, Baden-Württemberg, specialising in the lesser-known operas of Gioachino Rossini and his contemporaries. The festival commemorates a stay by Rossini at the town's spa in 1856, which ...

festival in 2012 and an audio recording was issued.

Roles

File:Giovanni Battista Rubini Litho.jpg,

File:Giulia Crisi AEhrlichSängerinnen1895.jpg,

File:Antonio Tamburini II Litho.jpg,

File:Ludwig Lablache Litho.jpg,

Recording

* 2012: (Massimiliano),

Maxim Mironov Maxim Vyacheslavovich Mironov (russian: Макси́м Вячесла́вович Миро́нов; born 30 September 1981 in Tula), is a Russian tenor, best known for his interpretation of the bel canto repertoire. In 2001, he joined the He ...

(Ermano), Vittorio Prato (Corrado), Petya Ivanova (Amelia), Rosita Fiocco (Teresa). Virtuosi Brunensis, conducted by

Antonino Fogliani Antonino Fogliani (born in Messina, June 29, 1976) is an Italian conductor. Biography Fogliani studied composition at the Conservatorio "G. B. Martini" in Bologna with and graduated with honors in orchestral conducting at the Milan Conservato ...

. Live recording at

on 14, 18 and 21 July 2012.

Naxos Records Naxos comprises numerous companies, divisions, imprints, and labels specializing in classical music but also audiobooks and other genres. The premier label is Naxos Records which focuses on classical music. Naxos Musical Group encompasses about 1 ...

."MERCADANTE I Briganti"
'' Gramophone'' (October 2014);

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

audio recording bibliographic entry: ''I briganti melodramma serio in three parts'', .

Notes

Bibliography

* Ashbrook, William (1982). ''Donizetti and His Operas''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . * Loewenberg, Alfred (1978). ''Annals of Opera 1597–1940'' (third edition, revised). Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield. . * Marek, Dan H. (2013). ''Giovanni Battista Rubini and the Bel Canto Tenors: History and Technique''. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. . * Ripley, George; Dana, Charles Anderson, editors (1879)
"Mercadante, Saverio", vol. 11, p. 398
in ''The American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge'', 2nd edition, revised. New York: D. Appleton. * Rose, Michael (1992a)
"I Briganti"
vol. 1, p. 603, in ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...

'', four volumes, edited by

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...

. London: Macmillan. . * Rose, Michael (1992b). "Mercadante, (Giuseppe) Saverio (Raffaele)", vol. 3, pp. 334–339, in ''

'', four volumes, edited by Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan. . * Wittmann, Michael (2001)
"Mercadante, (Giuseppe) Saverio (Raffaele)"
in ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'', 2nd edition, edited by Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan. (hardcover). (eBook).

External links

*
"The Italian opera at Paris"
''The Musical World'', vol. 1, no. 4 (8 April 1836)
Libretto for London (1836)
in Italian with English translation
Libretto for Milan (1837)
in Italian {{DEFAULTSORT:Briganti, I Operas 1836 operas Operas by Saverio Mercadante Operas based on works by Friedrich Schiller