Composition History
The play which forms the basis for the libretto was immensely popular in its day. Written in Neapolitan dialect, it was first performed at the Teatro San Fernando in Naples on 20 January 1900. Giordano, who had seen the play in Milan, was deeply touched by it and asked Di Giacomo to adapt it for an opera. Di Giacomo accepted and agreed to make some changes from the original drama. The setting of the opening scene which allowed Giordano to include a children's chorus was changed to the sunny courtyard in the orphanage with views of the Neapolitan landscape in the distance. The roles of the nuns also became more prominent, making the opera largely one of female voices. In this respect and in terms of its plot, Giordano's work pre-figures Puccini's Suor Angelica which was composed some seven years later.
Read more about this topic: Mese Mariano
Famous quotes containing the words composition and/or history:
“Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)