Donizetti, Gaetano

comprising a draft of the first section of No.3, the duet 'Per tornarti a riveder', the short score, with vocal parts for baritone and soprano and instrumental bass, notated in dark brown ink on up to eight two-stave systems, with the words complete, with deleted passages (six bars in all), revisions and alterations, comprising two verses, with the concluding cadential passages to each represented by "Cadenza", ending just before the start of the following 'Andantino', the music containing many differences and divergent passages compared with the final version of this opera, comprising about fifty-five bars of music in all

2 pages, oblong 4to (c.22 x 28.5cm), 16-stave paper, pot watermark, untrimmed, [Naples, 1831], trace of guard to left-hand margin, old collector's stamp and marking, later foliation in pencil 

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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This and the following lot contain two of the most important working sketch-leaves by Donizetti to have been offered for sale in recent years.

This is part of the composing manuscript of a one-act comic opera (farsa) written by Donizetti at the time of his first great successes, between Anna Bolena and L’elisir d’amore.   It is a largely continuous and complete draft of the opening 'Larghetto' section of the duet for the main protagonists, the credulous Antonia (soprano), a Count’s daughter, and Filidoro (baritone), the scheming "man in black" of the title, who seeks to gain her inheritance.  The manuscript begins with Filidoro telling Antonia that he has returned to declare his love ("Per tornarti a riveder").  She begs him to reveal it to her father ("Il tiranno genitor"), but he explains that fate has decreed that his lips are sealed.  This final passage ("no! si viva"), on the verso, contains a different setting and accompaniment compared with the final version found in Donizetti's autograph manuscript.   

The opera was written for the Teatro del Fondo, Naples, and premiered there on 18 June 1831, when Filidoro was sung by Antonio Tamburini.  Despite its sparking music, this short farsa is little known and rarely performed, because the spoken dialogue, linking the sung numbers and essential to the plot, is lost.  There is no surviving libretto and until recently even the title was incorrectly given as "La romanziera e l’uomo nero"; however Antonia is not a novelist herself, but a girl who has read too many novels and whose head is full of Romantic ideals.

We are grateful to Jeremy Commons for his advice in cataloguing this lot. See also his booklet for the Opera Rara recording of La romanzesca e l’uomo nero (2000), which is included in the lot.