Don Sanche
- Don Sanche (Tenor)
- Princess Elzire (soprano )
- Zélise, confidante of Elzire (soprano )
- Alidor, a magician (baritone )
- Page (soprano )
- Dame ( soprano)
- Ritter ( Tenor)
Don Sanche, or The Castle of Love ( in the original French Don Sanche ou le château d' amour ) is the only opera by Franz Liszt and was composed in the years 1824-1825. It is a one-act play and carries the Searle number S.1. The fabric, which is based on the time the popular tales of chivalry, comes from Jean -Pierre Claris de Florian. The opera was long-term success and was quickly forgotten.
Action
After the wizard Alidor lost his lover, but experienced a beautiful love has time he builds a castle in honor of love, where all residents live happy, to which, however, have only loving couples access. The from far away Come knight Don Sanche wants to enter, but must not, as his lady love, the princess Elzire not cherishes the same feelings for him. Feeling sorry about Don Sanche Alidor can stand up a storm, causes the Elzire to break the journey for your own wedding with a king to search the love castle hideout. But it must not occur. The players try to seize the opportunity to seduce Elzire in all possible ways: Alidor stimulates her confidante Zelis to support and lets Elzire of the inner life of the castle dream. But Elzire still is not ready to marry Don Sanche, and therefore stayed outside the castle walls, where the knight she sings.
Finally, the ruthless, shameless Knight Romualde occurs, the Elzire urges brutal way to marriage. Don Sanche want to protect them through a fight, but is mortally wounded in battle and asks Elzire then to be allowed to divorce her side. His death makes it affected and continues her love freely to him, Elzire is even willing to die in his place. Finally the game is, however, unmasked: The evil knight was played by Alidor only. Nevertheless, both reaffirm their vow of love and finally get into the inlet love lock granted.
Creation and reception
Liszt wrote the opera at the age of 13 years, with a certain amount of creativity and performance pressure from his father Adam Liszt is not to deny well. The support of his teacher, Ferdinando Paër, particularly in the area of instrumentation, is considered highly probable; but how much influence they had concrete on the result, can not be said with certainty. A preview of the overture was held in Manchester on 16 June 1825. The premiere of the opera on 17 October 1825 at the Paris Opera under the direction of Rodolphe Kreutzer was enthusiastically received. Nevertheless followed only three more performances, then the piece disappeared from the game plan. The opera is now performed only rarely, but was seen as part of the Liszt year 2011, many German theaters.
End of the 19th century was suspected, the original performance materials are like the fire at the Paris Opera from 1873 to the victim. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, she was found in the library of the Opéra Garnier, where they are still preserved today. In addition, in Vienna, there is a autograph orchestral score.