''Adina'' is an operatic

farsa Farsa (Italian language, Italian, literally: ''farce'', plural: ''farse'') is a genre of opera, associated with Venice in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is also sometimes called ''farsetta''. Farse were normally one-act operas, some ...

in one act by

Gioachino Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. He gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote man ...

with a

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

by Marchese Gherardo Bevilacqua-Aldobrandini. The opera develops the popular theme of the "abduction from the

seraglio A seraglio, serail, seray or saray (from , via Turkish, Italian and French) is a castle, palace or government building which was considered to have particular administrative importance in various parts of the former Ottoman Empire. "The S ...

". The première took place on 22 June 1826 at the

Teatro Nacional de São Carlos The ''Teatro Nacional de São Carlos'' () (''National Theatre of Saint Charles'') is an opera house in Lisbon, Portugal. It was opened on June 30, 1793 by Queen Maria I as a replacement for the Tejo Opera House, which was destroyed in the 1755 ...

, Lisbon.

Composition history

''Adina'' was commissioned in 1818 by Diego Ignazio de Pina Manique, police superintendent of Lisbon and inspector of Portuguese theatres. The opera was intended as a gift for a now unknown soprano who had apparently enthralled the superintendent with her performances at São Carlos. The contract Rossini made was for a quick completion of the work, and the opera was finished in the same year it was commissioned. Rossini did not write an overture for the opera because none was specified in the contract, and indeed he took little interest in the project. The plot is very similar to that of Francesco Basili's 1819 opera, ''Il califfo e la schiava'', for which the libretto was written by

Felice Romani Giuseppe Felice Romani (31 January 178828 January 1865) was an Italian poet and scholar of literature and mythology who wrote many librettos for the opera composers Donizetti and Bellini. Romani was considered the finest Italian librettist betw ...

, and some passages occur in both librettos - a mystery which has not yet been unravelled. Not all of the music is entirely original. According to the 2001

critical edition Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may range i ...

of the score by Fabrizio della Seta, "Rossini composed anew only four of the work's nine numbers: the Introduction, the disarming Cavatina for Adina "Fragolette fortunate" (Lucky little strawberries), the Quartet, and the Finale; for three others he turned to the opera ''

Sigismondo ''Sigismondo'' is an operatic 'dramma' in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa. The opera was not a success and Rossini later re-used some of its music in '' Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra'', ''The Barb ...

'' written in 1814; the remaining two were written by a collaborator."

Performance history

There is no apparent explanation for the eight-year gap between its completion in 1818 and its first performance in 1826. It was not revived until 1963, when it was performed at the Accademia Chigiana of

Siena Siena ( , ; traditionally spelled Sienna in English; ) is a city in Tuscany, in central Italy, and the capital of the province of Siena. It is the twelfth most populated city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 52,991 ...

. It was staged at the

Rossini Opera Festival The Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) is an international music festival held in August of each year in Pesaro, Italy, the birthplace of the opera composer Gioachino Rossini. Its aim, in addition to studying the musical heritage of the composer, is to re ...

Pesaro Pesaro (; ) is a (municipality) in the Italy, Italian region of Marche, capital of the province of Pesaro and Urbino, on the Adriatic Sea. According to the 2011 census, its population was 95,011, making it the second most populous city in the ...

, Italy, in 2018, with

Lisette Oropesa Lisette Oropesa (born September 29, 1983) is an American operatic soprano of Cuban ancestry. Her repertoire includes works from Gluck, Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Wagner, Verdi, Bizet, Massenet, Bellini and Puccini. With her lyric colorat ...

in the title role. The music of ''Adina'' has been described as "somewhat more serious genre than might be expected for a one-act opera, especially one designated a ''farsa'' (perhaps better considered a semi-serious opera in the 'rescue' vein)" with the opera itself managing "to escape pure conventionality of archetypes and stereotypes and achieve a stylistic unity." Richard Osborne in his "Master Musicians: Rossini" describes ''Adina'' as not only "...a pen-and-ink sketch rather than a full scale drawing...", but also "...a winning reminder that he had not lost his old skill as a composer of ''farse''."

Roles

References

Notes Sources * * * * *

External links

*
Plot description at the Rossini Opera Festival homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adina (Opera) Operas by Gioachino Rossini Italian-language operas Farse One-act operas Operas Operas set in Mesopotamia 1818 operas