Sunday, July 16, 2023
Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University

Thursday, July 20, 2023
Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center

Libretto: Francesco Maria Piave
Premiere: 28 February 1850, Teatro San Benedetto, Venice

Teatro Nuovo Chorus and Orchestra
Jonathan Brandani, maestro al cembalo e direttore 

When Your Fairy Godmother Sends You To Hell

If you ask operagoers how many Italian comedies they can think of between Don Pasquale (1843) and Falstaff (1893), most would have to answer “none.” Did one of Italy’s most beloved traditions simply disappear for a full half-century? 

Of course it didn’t; the comic theaters were busy and full of successes. The problem is simply that none of the new composers established a long enough hold on the public to be remembered today. Only Verdi did that, in those years, and Verdi stayed away from opera buffa until the very end.

Quite a few of the others were very good, however, and their best pieces combine the sparkle inherited from Rossini and Donizetti with the intriguing new harmonies and orchestral colors of the later Romantics. 

Two of the best were the Ricci brothers from Naples, Luigi (1805-1859) and Federico (1809-1877). Between them they produced 49 operas, comic and serious alike. Mostly they worked separately, but on four occasions they helped each other out to fill a commission. One of those was Crispino e la Comare, their biggest “hit” among many. 

The libretto was by Francesco Maria Piave, author of La Traviata, Rigoletto, La Forza del Destino and so many others for Verdi. 

The Story

Crispino, a poor cobbler, is drowning in debts. His wife Annetta, a street vendor who sells songs and stories, isn’t doing so well either. Their landlord, Don Asdrubale, wants the rent (though he hints that he would accept alternate forms of payment from the pretty Annetta). 

Crispino decides to throw himself down a well to end it all–but instead, up from the well pops a Fairy Godmother. 

She tells Crispino she’ll pay off his debts, because she intends to use Crispino to teach a lesson to all the pompous and greedy doctors of Venice. She will set him up as a doctor himself, and magically advise him whether each patient will live (in which case Crispino can “cure” them with cheap wine) or die (in which case his judgment will be hailed as infallible). 

Meanwhile Don Asdrubale wants to marry the rich orphan Lisetta who is in his custody as a ward. She would prefer to wed the Contino del Fiore, but barred from doing so, she is wasting away with melancholy. The doctors have tried everything, to no avail. Fabrizio, the cleverest of the doctors, thinks it is all in her mind and that the proper cure would be a dose of the Contino’s love. 

The rest unfolds predictably, but with a twist at the end. Doctor Crispino is able to “cure” the stonemason Bortolo but, alerted by the fairy, pronounces the next case hopeless. Conveniently, the patient is Don Asdrubale, who duly expires. This allows Crispino to seem to heal Lisetta as well. The other doctors are vexed: the ex-cobbler is poaching their best patients and raking in the money. 

However, Crispino gets a little full of himself, and Annetta’s flirtatious tendencies make him jealous to boot. He gets drunk, insults his wife, and tells the Fairy he doesn’t need her help any more. She promptly drags him down to the underworld to witness his own funeral, dictating the will and testament he must write. 

When the terrified Crispino repents, he is forgiven and allowed to return to the world above; Annetta, also remorseful, welcomes him back, and all ends in celebration.  

L’annetta

Crispino boasts one of the catchiest coloratura tunes ever penned, “Io non sono più l’Annetta,” a lilting waltz sung by the cobbler’s wife as she contemplates non-poverty. It’s one of the main reasons divas like Adelina Patti, Luisa Tetrazzini, Maria Galvany, and Frieda Hempel kept the opera in their repertories and kept the opera popular for so long. 

Hempel sang Annetta in the Metropolitan Opera production of 1919-1920, and left a primitive Edison recording of it Galvany and Tetrazzini recorded it as well, and Joan Sutherland used it as an encore in almost every recital. 

Laughter in the Shadow of Verdi

The Ricci brothers were not the only ones keeping Italy amused while Verdi wrote his tragedies. Lauro Rossi, Errico Petrella, Antonio Cagnoni, Emiglio Usiglio, Serafino de Ferrari, Carlo Pedrotti…forgotten names today, but their sparkling music is well worth revival. 

When Verdi compiled his list of Italy’s leading composers to join him in writing a Requiem Mass for Rossini in 1868, he included Rossi, Cagnoni, Pedrotti, and Federico Ricci. (Luigi had passed away and some of the others were too young to have made their mark yet.) Don’t miss Teatro Nuovo’s “pre-opera serenade” before the Crispino performances, when highlights from this delightful repertory will be performed by our Resident Artists!