Una cosa rara

Vicente Martín y Soler (Valencia, 2-V-1754; St. Petersburg, 11-II-1806) is one of the great classics of Spanish dramatic music. Born in Valencia, Martín y Soler rose to fame during his stay in Naples and other Italian cities, and finally at the Viennese court. From Vienna he travelled to St. Petersburg, where he would spend the longest period of his life.

Known as “Martini, lo Spagnuolo”, he made an outstanding contribution to the development of eighteenth-century opera. The composer’s best known and most noteworthy works were written and premièred in Vienna during the second half of the 1780’s in collaboration with the great librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, the Valencian composer’s personal friend. Some of Martín y Soler’s operas such as Il burbero di buon cuore (1786), Una cosa rara (1786) and L’arbore di Diana (1787), were even more…

Contenido exclusivo para suscriptores

Inicia sesión o crea tu cuenta gratuita para desbloquear hasta 10 lecturas mensuales de contenido reservado.

Iniciar sesión Crear cuenta

Notas

Dorothea E. Link. The Da Ponte Operas of Vicente Martín y Soler. Ph. D. Thesis, The University of Toronto. 1991, p. 6.

Ibid, p. 9.

Lorenzo Da Ponte. An Extract from the life of Lorenzo Da Ponte…, (New York, 1819), p. 10.

Arjiv Imperatorskij Teatrov. Vol. II. St. Petersburg, 1892, p. 433.

Lorenzo Da Ponte: Memoirs, translated by Elizabeth Abbott from the Italian; edited and annotated by Arthur Livingston, (Philadelphia; J. B. Lippincott, 1929).

The bass Stefano Mandini not only sang in Martín y Soler’s operas in Vienna but also in St Petersburg. In 1799 he was invited to perform with the Italian company in St Petersburg, where he sang in Martín y Soler’s new Italian opera La festa del villagio. (Arjiv Imperatorskij Teatrov). Vol. III. St Petersburg, 1892.

The Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte, translated by Elizabeth Abott…, pp. 169-172.

O. Michtner: Das alter Burgtheater als Opernbühne: Von der Einführung des deutschen Singspiels (1778) bis zum Tod Kaiser Leopold II (1792), (Vienna, Böhlav in Komm, 1970), p. 405.

Ibid, p. 406.

“Na predstavlenii operi Redkaya vetsh”, (In the performance of the opera Una cosa rara”, Aglaya. St Petersburg, 1810. Vol. 12, p. 73.

Arjiv Imperatorskij Teatrov. Vol. III. St. Petersburg, 1892.

T. Livanova, B. Protopopov: Opernaya kritika v Rossii (Opera criticism in Russia), Moscow, 1966, p. 295.

De Kalve: “O teatre”, Sorevnovatel (“About the theatre”, The Competitor), 1819, Vol. 6, no. 6, p. 336.

None of the researchers and editors of Martín y Soler’s output have taken into account the “Russian manuscripts” of Una cosa rara and other Viennese works by the composer which were performed in St Petersburg for many years and featured the composer’s direct participation. It is thus reasonable to believe they contain hs last will about these works.

Dorothea E. Link. The Da Ponte Operas of Vicente Martín y Soler…, p. 69.

Ibid, p. 71-74.