Mosè in Egitto

Template:Rossini operasMosè in Egitto (known in the French version as Moïse et Pharaon, ou Le Passage de la Mer Rouge) is a three-act opera written by Gioacchino Rossini which premiered 5 March 1818 at the recently reconstructed Teatro San Carlo, Naples. It was loosely based on the Exodus from Egypt of the Israelites, led by Moses, rendered agreeable to the opera stage by introducing a love theme, in which Pharoah's son Amenophis (tenor) plans to prevent their departure, since he loves the Israelite Anaïs (soprano). The opera opens with a darkened stage, as the plague of darkness is dispelled by Moses' prayer , and it ends with the spectacle of the parting of the Red Sea and the drowning of Pharaoh's host, which produced laughter at the clumsy machinery oif its staging at the premiere, though the opera surmounted its technical failings and was a hit.

The libretto, by Andrea Leone Tottola, was based on a play by Francesco Ringhieri, L'Osiride, of 1760.^[1] Billed as an azione tragico-sacra, the sacred drama with some features of the oratorio circumvented proscriptions of secular dramatic performances during Lent.

Design for the décor of Act I for *Moïse et Pharaon* at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique. Paris, 1827

Rossini revised the opera for Naples in 1819, when he introduced Moses' prayer-aria '"Dal tuo stellato soglio", which became one of the most popular opera pieces of the day, inspired a set of variations for violin and piano by Niccolò Paganini, and survives in concert performance.

Parisian audiences had already seen the work, both in a performance by the Paris Opéra at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique and at the Théâtre des Italiens before Rossini revised it for the Paris Opéra, now in four acts with a ballet, where it premiered 26 March 1827, with the title Moïse et Pharaon, ou Le Passage de la Mer Rouge, with translations and additions to the libretto by Luigi Balocchi^[2] and Victor Joseph Etienne de Jouy, who would co-write the libretto for Rossini's final opera Guillaume Tell.

File:Moise3.jpg

Design for the décor of Act III for Moïse et Pharaon at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique. Paris, 1827

Recordings

Mosè in Egitto, with Ruggero Raimondi, June Anderson, conducted by Claudio Scimone (1981) (PHILIPS 420 109-2)

Mosè in Egitto, with Ruggero Raimondi, Carol Vaness, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch (Orfeo D'or)

Mosè in Egitto, with Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, Anita Cerquetti, conducted by Tullio Serafin (Eklipse)

Notes

^ Francesco Ringhieri (1721-1787), an Olivetan monk: L'Osiride. Tragedia del p.d. Francesco Ringhieri monaco ulivetano e lettore di teologia. (Padua: Conzatti) 1760. Eight volumes of Ringhieri's tragedies had been published more recently, in Venice 1788-89.
^ Balocchi, the conductor and director of the Théâtre des Italiens, had provided the libretto for Rossini's first Paris production, the coronation opera Il viaggio a Reims, 1825, and for Le siège de Corinthe, a French version of Maometto II.

References

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[1] Francesco Ringhieri (1721-1787), an Olivetan monk: L'Osiride. Tragedia del p.d. Francesco Ringhieri monaco ulivetano e lettore di teologia. (Padua: Conzatti) 1760. Eight volumes of Ringhieri's tragedies had been published more recently, in Venice 1788-89.

[2] Balocchi, the conductor and director of the Théâtre des Italiens, had provided the libretto for Rossini's first Paris production, the coronation opera Il viaggio a Reims, 1825, and for Le siège de Corinthe, a French version of Maometto II.

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