Dom Sébastien

• Don Sebastien, (Tenor ), King of Portugal
• Dom Antonio ( tenor), his uncle
• Dom Juam since Sylva ( bass), Grand Inquisitor
• Camoes (baritone ), soldier and poet
• Selim Ben ( bass), Governor of Fez
• Abayaldos (baritone ), Army leaders
• Zayla ' (mezzo- soprano), daughter of Ben- Selim
• Soldiers, sailors, courtiers (chorus )

Dom Sébastien, roi de Portugal is an opera in five acts by Gaetano Donizetti in the style of grand opéra. The libretto was written based on a drama by Paul Henri Foucher Eugène Scribe. The premiere of the French first edition was held on November 13, 1843 at the Opera Peletier in Paris, in German language on 6 February 1845 Kärtnertortheater in Vienna. The second version The playing time is approximately two hours 45 minutes ( 1st version ) or two hours 15 minutes ( 2nd version ).

Formation

The libretto is based on the story of Dom Sebastião I, the " unfortunate king" of Portugal, with a force of 16,000 men undertook an expedition to Morocco in 1578, which was defeated in the battle of Alcácer - Quibir. Only 50 Portuguese were able to escape, 9,000 died, the other went into captivity and slavery. In the following years, a number of legends that said that King Sébastien, whose body was not found to have survived the battle ( Sebastianismus ) formed.

On these legends is also based the drama Don Sébastien de Portugal by Paul Henri Foucher, which was premiered in 1838 in Paris. At the instigation of Léon Pillet, director of the Paris Opera, Eugène Scribe began the development of a libretto for a five-act grand opera, which was first offered Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, but both refused. In December 1842, the piece finally Donizetti was presented, which signed the contract for completion in early 1843 to year-end. Following this he began the composition of Act.

As Donizetti Coming arrived in Paris on July 20, 1843 in Vienna, the opera was indeed essentially finished, but the instrumentation and work on Act V nor retreated back to September, with the samples had already started in August. In this case, both the collaboration with Scribe and the Prima Donna Rosine Stoltz proved difficult. Again and again had rewritten parts, added and changed. Now also showed the weaknesses of Scribes text that Donizetti had underestimated at the beginning, about the " neglect of a mandatory action management aid impressive tableau effects that pre- exaggerated to grotesque exaggeration of all sensations, the absence of any careful motivation of sudden mood swings. ". Since there except the main character Zayda are no other female roles, Donizetti and Scribe tried to bring this possible in each ensemble scene on the stage, even when it seems dramatically justified.

Performance history

For the Paris premiere on November 13, 1843, the Opera was with Rosine Stoltz and Gilbert Duprez indeed exert an outstanding cast, but the work was received only cautious about Donizetti himself felt as a fiasco. After all, the opera was then still 32 performances and was played in 1844 in Lille, Lyon and Marseille. As Donizetti had already started the revision of the opera for the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna for the translated into German by Leo Heart libretto, which turned out so profound ( it is, for example, half an hour shorter), that this is a second version. " The revision, however, was ill-fated, as Donizetti had to adapt to him incomprehensible German Text (Leo) heart his music and at the same time had to be considerate of the prescribed time limit. So is the 2nd version, although not unconditional to see a significant advance over the first as the final version of the opera in parts. "

The premiere of the Vienna version was a great success, almost all numbers had to be repeated. The opera remained a long time in the game plan and was listed until 1882 about 150 times. 1846 this version was played ( 1857) in Prague, 1848 in Dresden and Hamburg, and later in Linz, Graz, Riga, Helsinki, Munich. An Italian version was presented in 1845 in Lisbon, which spread in the 1840s and 1850s in the Italian and Spanish speaking countries.

At the end of the 19th century Don Sébastien was only played rarely, gradually became the opera into oblivion. For the first half of the 20th century, only two performances are called (Bergamo 1909 and Rome 1911). The bel canto revival from the 1960s, which made ​​numerous operas of Donizetti known again, it changed very little. After Florence (1955 ) and New York (1984 ), there was again only from the 1990s to several performances, so in 1996 in Stuttgart, 1998 in Aachen, Bergamo and Bologna, as well as in London in 2005, 2006 in New York and 2009 in Nuremberg. Also, now are several CD recordings. Somewhat known by Don Sébastien ultimately only the aria Seul sur la terre ( Italian: Deserto in terra ) that occasionally appears as a solo number in the repertoire of tenors, so already with Enrico Caruso, in recent times about Luciano Pavarotti or Alfredo Kraus.

Although Donizetti made ​​his last opera for one of his most important works, Don Sébastien is now largely forgotten. In addition to the above shortcomings of the libretto her liable still the stigma that it was created at a time when the Donizetti " no longer possessed the unrestricted disposal of his imagination " have, the opera was thus already marked by the onset of disease Donizetti.

Discography (selection)

The recording from 2005 was nominated for the 2008 Grammy Awards for a prize as " Best Opera Recording".