Antonio Somma (28 August 1809,

Udine Udine ( ; ; ; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in northeastern Italy, in the middle of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic Sea and the Carnic Alps. It is the capital of the Province of Udine, Regional decentralization entity ...

– 8 August 1864,

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

) was an Italian playwright who is most well known for writing the

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 ...

of an opera which ultimately became

Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( ; ; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi, his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma ...

's '' Un ballo in maschera'' in 1859. While a student, his tragedy, ''

Parisina Laura Malatesta (140421 May 1425), better known as Parisina Malatesta, was an Italian marchioness. She was the daughter of Andrea Malatesta, lord of Cesena, and his second wife, Lucrezia Ordelaffi. She had an affair with her illegitimate ste ...

'', gave him quite a success. Initially, his contact with Verdi came about when the composer was seeking to continue work on his proposed ''

Re Lear ' (; ''King Lear'') is an Italian operatic libretto in four acts written by Antonio Somma for the Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi. It was based on ''King Lear'', "the Shakespeare play with which Verdi struggled for so many years, but witho ...

'', an adaptation of the

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

play, ''

King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...

'', for the opera stage which had begun under his long-time collaborator

Salvadore Cammarano Salvadore Cammarano (19 March 1801 – 17 July 1852) was an Italian librettist and playwright perhaps best known for writing the text of ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' (1835) for Gaetano Donizetti. For Donizetti he also contributed the libretti for ''L ...

who had died. Under Verdi's supervision, Somma wrote the libretto for ''Re Lear'', a project that Verdi never realised musically although extensive work was done and a full libretto completed to the point where Verdi was considering this to be the opera he wrote for Naples for the 1858 season.Budden 1984, pp. 362–363 However, ''Ballo'' had a troubled history and, originally, Somma wrote the libretto under the title of '' Gustavo III''. As a result of required changes by, firstly, the

Bourbon Bourbon may refer to: Food and drink * Bourbon whiskey, an American whiskey made using a corn-based mash * Bourbon, a beer produced by Brasseries de Bourbon * Bourbon biscuit, a chocolate sandwich biscuit * Bourbon coffee, a type of coffee ma ...

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and, then, the

Papal The pope is the bishop of Rome and the visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the pope was the sovereign or head of sta ...

ones, it became transformed into ''Un vendetta in domino'' (with a different setting and characters' names).Letter to Somma, 7 February 1828 in Werfel and Stefan, p.207 Finally, for its Rome premiere, the opera became ''Un ballo in maschera'', but with another location change (this time to

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

in colonial times) and further title and name changes. Overall, Somma then specialized in stage plays and wrote no further libretti.

References

Notes Sources
Antonio Somma
Bio a
OperaGlass
*Budden, Julian (1984), "''Un ballo in maschera''", ''The Operas of Verdi'', Volume 2. London: Cassell, Ltd., pp. 360–423. * Gossett, Philip (2006), ''Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera'' Chicago: University of Chicago. *Schmidgall, Gary (1985)
"Verdi's ''King Lear'' Project"
''19th-Century Music'', Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 83–101 *Werfel, Franz and Paul Stefan (ed. & selected; trans. Edward Downes) (1973), ''Verdi: The Man and His Letters'', New York: Vienna House. 1809 births 1864 deaths Italian opera librettists People from Udine Italian male dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Italian dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Italian male writers Dramatists and playwrights from the Austrian Empire {{Opera-bio-stub