LIBRETTO - Naxos Music Library

ooklet472.qxd 18/02/2005 14.34 Pagina 11
atto, hanno spesso una grandiosità di disegno degna
di Verdi, e talvolta sono vicini allo stile verdiano anche
nell'accento specifico, tanto che ad un primo ascolto
potrebbero quasi essere scambiati, con un po' di
superficialità, per opera del Bussetano. Il ruolo di
Masaniello - un popolano assurto, come Simon
Boccanegra, al vertice del potere - è sviluppato con
notevole acutezza ed ha un profilo musicale molto
ben delineato; la sua aria del secondo atto, Povero
nacqui, presenta un declamato di indiscutibile forza
espressiva. Una delle migliori pagine dell'intera partitura
è poi l'aria del Duca d'Arcos (basso), “Di sposo, di
padre”, una delle poche arie di Gomes ad essere
rimasta in repertorio fino ad oggi; ma splendida è
anche l'ampia e articolata scena tra il Duca d'Arcos e
la figlia Isabella, “Sola il mio bianco crine”, che conclude
il terzo atto, in tutto e per tutto una pagina di alta
qualità musicale e di sicuro effetto teatrale.
Danilo Prefumo
11
F
or almost three and a half centuries Italian
opera was probably the most international
music genre. This is not, as it may seem, a
contradiction, for having quickly become a product to
be exported to all of Europe, opera attracted many
foreign composers to Italy, where they sought to master
its music language and rules so that they could
then take and reproduce them around the world. The
list of composers who spent various lengths of time in
Italy to that purpose is quite long, and includes such
names as Handel, Gluck, J.C. Bach, Mozart,
Meyerbeer and Nicolai. The success of Wagner, at the
end of the 19th century, virtually put an end to the
Italian pilgrimage, which was gradually superseded by
another peregrination, this time towards the hill of
Bayreuth. The Brazilian composer António Carlos
Gomes, author of Salvator Rosa, was one of the last
musicians to go to Italy to perfect his operatic style,
and there he composed operas on Italian librettos.
Gomes was born in Campinas, in the state of São
Paulo, in 1836. He was the son of a band conductor of
Portuguese origin and received his first musical training
from his father. Around 1860 he entered the
Conservatory of Rio de Janeiro and in 1861 he made
his debut with an opera in Portuguese, A noite do
castelo, which was followed, two years later, by
Johanna de Flandres. In 1864 he won a scholarship to
study in Milan, Italy. There he perfected his training
under the guidance of Lauro Rossi and Alberto
Mazzucato and in 1866 obtained a diploma in composition.
He reaped his first successes as a composer of
light music – among his works of this genre was the
revue Se sa minga, dating from 1867; then, in 1870, he
succeeded in having his first opera on an Italian libretto,
Il Guarany, staged at La Scala of Milan, to a triumphant
response. From that moment on, his career
was that of any Italian composer. Of his operas –