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35-527: La gazzetta, ossia Il matrimonio per concorso ( The Newspaper, or The marriage contest) is an opera buffa by Gioachino Rossini . The libretto was by Giuseppe Palomba after Carlo Goldoni 's play Il matrimonio per concorso of 1763. The opera satirizes the influence of newspapers on people's lives. There is critical disagreement as to its success, although the New England Conservatory 's notes for their April 2013 production state that

70-608: A quintet from largest musical contributor, Il Turco in Italia (1814), as well as other pieces, such as a second-act trio from La pietra del paragone (1812), plus a Largo from Torvaldo e Dorliska (1815). All would have been unknown to audiences in Naples. The lost Quintet Musicologist Philip Gossett, who oversaw the preparation of the critical edition in 2002 and who, in 2012, identified music found in Palermo as belonging to

105-419: A separate genre, an early precursor having been the operatic comedy, Il Trespolo tutore , by Alessandro Stradella , in 1679. Opera buffa was a parallel development to opera seria , and arose in reaction to the so-called first reform of Apostolo Zeno and Pietro Metastasio . It was, in part, intended as a genre that the common man could relate to more easily. Whereas opera seria was an entertainment that

140-580: Is a critical edition?: Answers to Questions You Never Thought to Ask" – which focuses primarily on Rossini, musicologist Patricia Brauner of the Center for Italian Opera Studies at the University of Chicago explains several different aspects of a critical edition, including the process of producing published editions and the ultimate value of them for performers and conductors. Musicologists such as Gossett and Roger Parker represent parallel approaches to

175-528: Is the founding co-editor (with Arthur Groos ) of the Cambridge Opera Journal , and he continues as General Editor (with Gabriele Dotto, who headed the editorial division of Ricordi until 2001) of The Critical Edition of the Operas of Gaetano Donizetti published by Casa Ricordi of Milan. Gossett clarifies how the existence of these editions may affect performances: The pioneering work of

210-595: Is the one intermezzo still performed with any regularity today, and provides an excellent example of the style. Lo frate 'nnamorato (1732) and Il Flaminio (1735), by Pergolesi as well, are examples of the three-act commedia per musica . Apart from Pergolesi, the first major composers of opera buffa were Alessandro Scarlatti ( Il trionfo dell'onore , 1718), Nicola Logroscino ( Il governatore , 1747) and Baldassare Galuppi ( Il filosofo di campagna , 1754), all of them based in Naples or Venice . The work of these

245-1043: The critical edition of the opera containing the recently found quintet were presented at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège in Belgium in June 2014. The opera was also given at the Royal College of Music in London in late June 2014. A new production of the opera was presented at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro in August 2015, when the chorus and orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna were conducted by Enrique Mazzola The opera tells

280-399: The primo ottocento —written by Gioachino Rossini , Vincenzo Bellini , Gaetano Donizetti , and Giuseppe Verdi , in addition to many other relatively minor composers who composed many works. But, as musicologist Ellen Rosand also notes, "the editing of operatic works from the 17th century, the 18th century and 19th century provides many considerable challenges. In an online essay – "What

315-721: The Vienna Chamber Opera in 1976. The UK premiere was given by the Garsington Opera in Oxfordshire on 12 June 2001, with the first performances of the new critical edition prepared by Fabrizio Scipioni and Philip Gossett which, at that time, did not contain the act 1 quintet. La gazzetta was presented by the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro that summer and Pesaro repeated it during the summer of 2005, directed by Dario Fo . Because

350-524: The ability to "patter", must also extend to the baritone for the purposes of comic duets. The type of comedy could vary, and the range was great: from Rossini's The Barber of Seville in 1816 which was purely comedic, to Mozart 's The Marriage of Figaro in 1786 which added drama and pathos. Another example of Romantic opera buffa would be Donizetti's The Elixir of Love of 1832. While opera seria deals with gods and ancient heroes and only occasionally contained comic scenes, opera buffa involves

385-667: The first and last appearances of the genre, although the term is still occasionally applied to newer work (for example Ernst Krenek 's Zeitoper Schwergewicht ). High points in this history are the 80 or so libretti by Carlindo Grolo, Loran Glodici, Sogol Cardoni and various other approximate anagrams of Carlo Goldoni , the three Mozart / Da Ponte collaborations, and the comedies of Gioachino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti . Similar foreign genres such as French opéra comique , English ballad opera , Spanish zarzuela or German Singspiel differed as well in having spoken dialogue in place of recitativo secco , although one of

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420-460: The initial performances there was only one revival of the opera in the 19th century, when it was performed during the 1828 Carnival in Palermo. 20th century and beyond While Osborne does not mention a revival in 1828, Philip Gossett's recent work would seem to support its existence. But, as Osborne notes, the opera did not re-appear until a 1960 Italian radio performance and a staging in Vienna by

455-455: The lost quintet When La gazzetta was given its American premiere on 6 April 2013, it was conducted by Joseph Rescigno . Singing (and sharing) the major roles were Conservatory students Leroy Y. Davis and Kyle Albertson as on Pomponio. His daughter Lisetta was sung by sopranos Bridget Haile and Soyoung Park and the baritone role of Filippo, the innkeeper, was shared between Jason Ryan and David Lee. The tenors Marco Jordao and James Dornier sang

490-508: The lower male voices to the exclusion of the castrati . This led to the creation of the characteristic " basso buffo ", a specialist in patter who was the center of most of the comic action. (A well-known basso buffo role is Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni .) Critical edition (opera) A critical edition of an opera has been defined by American musicologist Philip Gossett as "an edition that bases itself wherever possible on

525-673: The major Italian music publishing house, Casa Ricordi , reveals how extensive the company's involvement in restoring the work of 19th-century composers Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi has been. Since 2007, the German publishing house Bärenreiter-Verlag has been producing editions of Rossini's operas, having become the successor to the Fondazione Rossini Pesaro, which produced many editions between 1979 and 2005. Today, many are still published by Ricordi in Europe and in

560-624: The misbinding of "the Recitative after the Quintet [....] in Rossini's autograph manuscript of the opera. It is found in the second act [...] where it makes no sense whatsoever." To get around this problem, Gossett suggests that: Next, in discussing performance practice, Gossett states that: Gossett continues by noting that he has now revised the critical edition with the new-found discoveries and states: Premiere performances which included

595-656: The most influential examples, Pergolesi 's La serva padrona (which is an intermezzo , not opera buffa), sparked the querelle des bouffons in Paris as an adaptation without sung recitatives . Opéra bouffon is the French term for the Italian genre of opera buffa (comic opera) performed in 18th-century France, either in the original language or in French translation. It was also applied to original French opéras comiques having Italianate or near-farcical plots. The term

630-572: The opera "was an immediate hit, and showed Rossini at his comic best". Following the success of his Il Barbiere di Siviglia in Rome, the composer arrived in Naples in February 1816 to discover that fire had destroyed the Teatro San Carlo , that he was obliged to compose a cantata to celebrate a royal wedding, plus supervise a production of his Tancredi . And the music for La gazzetta

665-584: The opera (in fact, it was the lost act 1 quintet) discussed the preparation for the US premiere performances in an interview in The Boston Globe : The lost Quintet and the critical edition In an essay originally published in German in the Rossini studies journal, Gossett describes the evolution of the Quintet: He continues by noting the absence of music for the Quintet, in spite of the presence of

700-445: The overture was written specifically for this opera, it is probably the best known piece from the work, because, along with other music from La gazzetta , it was incorporated into La Cenerentola . These borrowings may have speeded up the process of composition, but Charles Osborne notes that "on this occasion, Rossini failed to complete the opera with his usual alacrity" and speculates that it may have been caused by his attraction to

735-510: The predominant use of comic scenes, characters, and plot lines in a contemporary setting. The traditional model for opera seria had three acts, dealt with serious subjects in mythical settings, as stated above, and used high voices (both sopranos and castrati ) for principal characters, often even for monarchs. In contrast, the model that generally held for opera buffa was having two acts (as, for example, The Barber of Seville ), presenting comic scenes and situations as earlier stated and using

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770-621: The quintet "was just identified in the Spring of 2012, after the librarian at the Palermo Conservatory , Dario Lo Cicero, found the manuscript [so] in Pesaro [and all other productions prior to 2013], the stage director, Dario Fo, arranged something else for the spot where the Quintet should have gone." Fo's production for Pesaro was later presented at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2005. This production has been recorded on DVD. It

805-668: The role of Alberto. Notes Sources Opera buffa Especially associated with developments in Naples in the first half of the 18th century, whence its popularity spread to Rome and northern Italy , buffa was at first characterized by everyday settings, local dialects, and simple vocal writing (the basso buffo is the associated voice type), the main requirement being clear diction and facility with patter . The New Grove Dictionary of Opera considers La Cilla (music by Michelangelo Faggioli , text by Francesco Antonio Tullio  [ it ] , 1706) and Luigi and Federico Ricci 's Crispino e la comare (1850) to be

840-435: The serious genre and the set numbers were linked by recitativo secco, the exception being Donizetti 's Don Pasquale in 1843. With Rossini, a standard distribution of four characters is reached: a prima donna soubrette (soprano or mezzo); a light, amorous tenor; a basso cantante or baritone capable of lyrical, mostly ironical expression; and a basso buffo whose vocal skills, largely confined to clear articulation and

875-493: The soprano Isabella Colbran . It opened a month later than originally scheduled. 19th century performances The opera was first performed on 26 September 1816 at the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples , where it ran for 21 performances. Osborne would appear to disagree, since he notes that "after a few performances it was withdrawn, the general opinion being that its libretto was clumsy and its music undistinguished." Following

910-659: The story of a pretentious Neapolitan, Don Pomponio Storione, who travels the world in search of a husband for his daughter, putting ads in the newspapers. He arrives in a city, and after a series of ridiculously inadequate suitors, such as the Quaker Monsù Traversen or the waiter at the hotel, who usually end up beating poor Pomponio, he finally resigns to let his daughter marry her lover, the only suitor he seems to consider inappropriate. Borrowings from earlier operas As has been noted, Rossini borrowed melodic fragments from some of his previous works. These include

945-452: The text in the printed libretto: "[The libretto] was "without the "virgolette" which generally indicate that a passage of text was not set to music by the composer." Then he notes other factors: Gossett continues by saying that maybe the reviewer was mistaken "since the Finale I opens with a Quintet of voices", suggesting, then, that the reviewer had mixed them up. The second issue concerns

980-417: The very finest and most accurate sources for an opera. That means that it must study the entire performance history of a work." Gossett continues: The emergence of critical editions of many works from the 19th-century Italian operatic repertory did not begin until the 1950s and resulted from the revival of interest from that time forward in the bel canto era—early 1800s to approximately 1850 and known as

1015-516: The works of the Italian bel canto era. The former is now General Editor of The Critical Edition of the Works of Giuseppe Verdi at the University of Chicago's Center for Italian Opera Studies – in addition to being an acknowledged expert in preparing critical editions of the operas of Rossini – while the other is Professor of Music at King's College London and editor of many of the operas of Donizetti, as well as having written extensively on Verdi. He

1050-685: Was also given by the Rossini in Wildbad Festival. The American premiere of not only the critical edition but the newly found act 1 quintet of La gazzetta was presented by the New England Conservatory between 6 and 9 April 2013 in Boston, the first time since the 19th century that the opera was given in its complete form. Prior to the performances, Dr. Gossett led two panels at the Conservatory. The first professional presentations of

1085-424: Was also later used by Jacques Offenbach for five of his operettas ( Orphée aux enfers , Le pont des soupirs , Geneviève de Brabant , Le roman comique  [ fr ] and Le voyage de MM. Dunanan père et fils ), and is sometimes confused with the French opéra comique and opéra bouffe . Comic characters had been a part of opera until the early 18th century, when opera buffa began to emerge as

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1120-436: Was both made for and depicted kings and nobility, opera buffa was made for and depicted common people with more common problems. High-flown language was generally avoided in favor of dialogue that the lower class would relate to, often in the local dialect, and the stock characters were often derived from those of the Italian commedia dell'arte . The 1701 scherzo drammatico (dramatic jest), Il mondo abbattuto by Nicola Sabini

1155-459: Was due for August performances. It would be Rossini's second opera written for Naples and the only comedy he wrote there. As was his wont, Rossini borrowed music from some of his previous works, These included Il Turco in Italia (1814), La pietra del paragone (1812), and also from Torvaldo e Dorliska (1815). None of these pieces would have heard by Naples' audiences of the time. However, musicologist Philip Gossett stresses that: While

1190-420: Was particularly influential in Naples, creating a popular model due to its use of both Tuscan and Neapolitan dialects. In the early 18th century, comic operas often appeared as short, one-act interludes known as intermezzi that were performed in between acts of opera seria. There also existed, however, self-contained operatic comedies. La serva padrona (1733) by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736),

1225-454: Was then resumed and expanded by Niccolò Piccinni ( La Cecchina , 1760), Giovanni Paisiello ( Nina , 1789) and Domenico Cimarosa ( Il matrimonio segreto , 1792). The genre declined in the mid-19th century, despite Giuseppe Verdi 's Falstaff staged in 1893. The importance of opera buffa diminished during the Romantic period . Here, the forms were freer and less extended than in

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