Jerusalem

Jérusalem is a grand opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was to be an adaptation and partial translation of the composer's original 1843 Italian opera, I Lombardi alla prima crociata. It was the one opera which he regarded as the most suitable for being translated into French and, taking Eugène Scribe's advice, Verdi agreed that a French libretto was to be prepared by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, who had written the libretto for Donizetti's most successful French opera, La favorite. The opera received its premiere performance at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris on 26 November 1847. The maiden production was designed by Paul Lormier (costumes), Charles Séchan, Jules Diéterle and Édouard Desplechin (sets of Act I, Act II, scene 1, Act III scene 1, and Act IV), and Charles-Antoine Cambon and Joseph Thierry (sets for Act II, scene 2 and Act III, scene 2). The director of the Paris Opéra, Léon Pillet, had invited Verdi to compose an opera for the company in November 1845 and February 1846, but initially Verdi declined. This was the composer's first encounter with the Académie Royale de Musique, as the Paris Opéra was officially known. Among 19th-century Italian composers, there had been an increasing interest in writing for Paris, where the combination of money, prestige, and flexibility of style were appealing. Musicologist Julian Budden provides examples of those composers who had crossed the Alps, the most well-known being Rossini and Donizetti (as well as Vincenzo Bellini who, before he died in 1835, was planning a French grand opera.) However, Verdi had given some consideration of the idea of adapting one of the librettos written by Temistocle Solera in earlier years, librettos which music historian David Kimball regards as having something of grand opera in their structure. After conducting the premiere of I masnadieri in London and within a week of Verdi's arrival in Paris on 27 July 1847, he received his first commission from the company, agreeing to adapt I Lombardi to a new French libretto. The adaptation meant that Verdi could "try his hand at grand opera" without having to write something entirely new, a strategy which both Donizetti and Rossini had employed for their Paris debuts. There are significant changes in the location and action of the French version of Lombardi, especially given the need to set the story for French involvement in the First Crusade of 1095–1099. Characters' names changed from Italian to French and one, Arvino (who was renamed as the Count of Toulouse, though elements of his character were given to the principal tenor role, Gaston) was now a baritone instead of a tenor. Several roles present in the original version were deleted, including the leading tenor role of Oronte. In the restructured libretto, the central romance is given more prominence, and a happier ending. In addition, Verdi added a standard ballet and new music, but re-shaped much of the structure by removing inappropriate material he felt to be weak. As musicologist Roger Parker notes, "only a few of the original numbers [remain] in their former positions." Verdi himself described the new work as having "transformed [I Lombardi] out of recognition". During this period in Paris, Verdi was to work on and complete the score for Jérusalem. From Paris, he fulfilled the obligation to write the opera Il corsaro from a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave which took place in Trieste in October 1848. Also, he worked with Salvadore Cammarano on two librettos, one for La battaglia di Legnano (then attend its January 1849 Rome premiere), the other being Luisa Miller which was presented in Naples in December 1849 after Verdi's return to Italy. Many writers, including Baldini and Frank Walker, have speculated on supposed relationships which Verdi, a man then close to (and then in) his thirties, might have had (or did have) with women in the years following his first wife's death. However, the only real evidence, visible in Walker's The Man Verdi and Baldini's The Story of Giuseppe Verdi, relates to Giuseppina Strepponi, the singer who Verdi first encountered at the time he was writing Nabucco in 1842. She sang the first Abigaille, and continued on and off with that role in spite of her declining voice up to her retirement and move to Paris in October 1846 where she became a singing teacher in November and also planned a concert of Verdi's music for the following June. It is known that the two had conducted friendly correspondence over several years and that Strepponi had offered various pieces of advice to the composer. As is known, Verdi and Emanuele Muzio had arrived in Paris on 2 June 1847 en route to London for I masnadieri, and the composer had sent Muzio on to London to make sure that Jenny Lind, about whom rumours of her reluctance to come to England abounded, was already present and ready to go to work. While Verdi remained in the city, Mary Jane Phillips-Matz in her massive biography of the composer, speculates that Verdi saw her in the three days he was present. On 27 July 1847, having left London, Verdi returned to Paris. To friends in Italy, he had written from London (or wrote from Paris) about "being able to lead the life I wish" and "intend[ing] to stay a month in Paris, if I liked it". With the exception of a return to Italy after the 18 March 1848 bloody uprising in Milan against the Austrians (when the composer was away from early April to mid-May) and the period of overseeing the rehearsals of La battaglia di Legnano in Rome (from before Christmas 1848 to early February 1849 after its premiere on 27 January 1849), Verdi remained in Paris. However, as far as the relationship with Strepponi proceeded, Phillips-Matz recounts that Verdi was "living in an apartment around the corner from Strepponi's house", that the news of this had reached Italy ("Verdi had been seen chez Strepponi"), and that, in writing the music for Jérusalem, he had received her help to the extent that a handwritten love duet in the composer's autograph score contains alternative lines in her handwriting and in his. This is described by British music critic Andrew Porter as "one of the more romantic discoveries of recent years". Baldini tells us that "at the end of 1847 Verdi rented a little house in Passy, and went to live there with Giuseppina", but Phillips-Matz does not go so far, noting only that "he may have moved into her apartment or a separate apartment in her building", but later does confirm the move to Passy, dating it to June 1848. However, the couple were to remain together for many years, and when the time came to leave Paris, Verdi left in late July and "made straight for Busseto to wait for her there", while it appear that Strepponi visited her family in Florence and Pavia before joining him. 19th century Given by the Opéra at the Salle Le Peletier, the premiere of the opera took place on 26 November 1847, but even while writing the French version and before its premiere, Verdi had contacted his publisher, Giovanni Ricordi, regarding an Italian version. He did not find a translator while in Paris, but in 1850, the French text was translated into Italian by Calisto Bassi and performed as Gerusalemme at La Scala, Milan on 26 December 1850. However, "it failed to supersede I Lombardi in the affections of Italian audiences" and certainly, as Parker comments, while overall being superior to Lombardi in various ways, "it failed to establish itself in either the French or the Italian repertory". However, the opera was given in Turin in 1850 and between 1854 and 1865, in Venice, Verona and Rome (twice). The US premiere was presented at the Théâtre d'Orleans in New Orleans on 24 January 1850. 20th century and beyond In Italy, conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni staged the opera in Italian at La Fenice in Venice in 1963. Two years later, in May 1965, when the La Fenice company were in Munich, they gave a performance in Italian under Ettore Gracis, the Gaston being