Versão Digital - UFRJ

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name is found, Bernardo Girard, as are the names of other companies that did not exist in
the 1820s, such as Clausetti (who ultimately became a partner of Ricordi’s) or Fabricatore.
The Fratelli Fabricatore and Bernardo Girard were important sources for manuscripts and
parts in Rio, and many scores (such as several of the music for Giovanni Pacini) have their
labels, often with double addresses, such as the following from Girard: “Deposito per la
vendita delle proprie edizioni, e di quelle di fondo estero, Largo S. Ferdinando n. 49, /
Copisteria e Archivio di Spartiti manoscritti per uso di rappresentazione, Largo del Castello
n. 73,” clearly differentiating the publisher’s activities as a purveyor of printed editions
and of copies for performance.
Just by way of indicating something of the scope of the collection, it should be
said that there exist some thirteen manuscripts of operas (either complete or of at least a
full act) by Rossini. Not all are usable. There are manuscripts, for example, of Act I of one
of Rossini’s early operas (from 1812), Ciro in Babilonia and of practically the whole of his
later, largely pastiche opera, Edoardo e Cristina, of which autograph manuscripts do not
seem to survive, and so these sources are potentially very useful. But they are in such very
bad shape (worms, in particular, seem to have delighted in eating their paper and paste)
that it is hard to know how it would be possible to employ them effectively. Digital copies
could help: work with the originals would clearly be impossible, for every turn of a page
would destroy more of the volumes. 30
While these scores do not always provide significant information for textual
purposes, they do tell important stories. We know, for example, that the censors were not
happy with a chorus in L’Italiana in Algeri of 1813. It was hard enough to stomach Isabella’s
Rondò, “Pensa alla patria,” which was often changed to “Pensa allo sposo” or “Pensa allo
scampo,” but what was truly unacceptable was the text of the preceding chorus, where
Rossini set the text “Quanto vaglian gl’Italiani, nel cimento si vedrà.” In the Rio manuscript
this text has been modified to “Che l’ardir non torna vano nel cimento si vedrà.” The idea
of what Italians are worth disappears altogether. This manuscript is actually entitled not
L’Italiana in Algeri but instead Il naufragio felice, a title in which the opera was known in
Naples. This comes as no surprise since the manuscript was prepared in the copy-house
of “B. Girard,” as written into the source. (Other operas exist in versions modified for
Naples: one source in Rio for Verdi’s Ernani is known, for example, under its Neapolitan
name, as Elvira d’Aragona). There are many indications, though, that the copy of L’Italiana
in Algeri represents a fairly late version of the opera. Rossini wrote L’Italiana in Algeri
without trombones (he did not start using three trombones in his operas until several
years later, in Naples), yet this copy of his score has parts for three trombones. If we look
at copies of the opera found in the library of the Naples Conservatory, we find that some
later copies also have added parts for three trombones, but early copies have no such
parts. In short, this is a dead give-away that the manuscript is a late copy, certainly no
earlier than the 1830s.
I was not surprised to see that the copies of French operas written by Italian
composers in the Rio collection are all to be found in Italian translation. We knew that
these translations were widely used by theaters throughout the world. What surprised
me, on the other hand, was that some of the translations did not agree with what I have
always taken to be the “standard” translations (those preserved in the Ricordi printed
editions and performed continuously until our own time). Thus, even though the translation
of Guillaume Tell as Guglielmo Tell comes from the workshop of Giovanni Ricordi, the last
words of Tell’s response to the Fisherman’s initial song (“Il chante et l’Hélvétie / Pleure,
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30 The library is very kindly providing me with just such digital copies, which allow access to the manuscripts as
they exist today and do not create further damage with each use.
Atualidade da Ópera - Série Simpósio Internacional de Musicologia da UFRJ