M. W. Balfe's_'Continental'_Operas
Paris-Brussels-Vienna-Berlin-Leipzig-Trieste-Milan
‘ WORK IN PROCESS’
“The primary purpose of this BLOG is to make the case for reviving a selected number of the important Victorian composer, MICHAEL W. BALFE’S foreign language operas which had premieres or early performances in, Paris, Vienna, Milan, Trieste, London, Bologna, Berlin, Dublin, New York, San Francisco and other places during the 19th century and beyond.”
BASIL WALSH, Florida
basilw2@gmail.com
_______________________________________
BACKGROUND/OVERVIEW
The Young Balfe
Dublin born Michael William Balfe (1808-1870) composed twenty-eight operas mostly for the London stage during a career that spanned forty years. However, when his augmented operas with foreign language (French, German and Italian) librettos are added, his total life-time output is more than forty operas.
Balfe was a child prodigy violinist and musician. He gave his first concert as a violinist at the Rotunda “Round” room in Dublin at age nine. By age fourteen his first song, The Lover’s Mistake was published by Willis & Co of Dublin and London.
Rotunda Concert Rooms, Dublin
Balfe left London for Paris in 1825. For the next ten years of his early life he set about learning his craft as a composer and musician along with taking singing lessons in Paris and Milan. His mentors in Paris became, Luigi Cherubini (1760-1742) with whom he studied music and the great Italian composer, Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) whom he met through Cherubini in the late 1820s. Rossini played a significant role in the advancement of Balfe’s career both as a singer and a composer.
After more than a year of vocal study with the great singer and teacher, Giulio Bordogni (1789-1856) in Paris, Balfe made his singing debut at the Theatre-Italien in the role of
Theatre-Italien, Paris
Figaro in Rossini’s, Il barbiere di Siviglia early in 1828 with the renowned Henriette Sontag (1806-1854) as Rosina. He performed several other roles during this same period with great success.
Balfe moved on to Italy in December 1828 with a letter of introduction from Rossini. For the next several years he took on several new major singing roles in the operas of Rossini, Bellini,
Balfe’s opera Enrico IV., Teatro Carcano, Milan, February 1833
During his time in Continental Europe, Balfe became fluent in French and Italian. He also acquired some knowledge of the German language. All of which helped him become a successful international composer in places such as, Paris, Vienna, Milan, Trieste, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Munich in addition to London, Dublin and elsewhere.
BALFE THE “British Rossini”
When Balfe died outside London in in October 1870 the London Times music critic (J.W.Davison) in his extensive obituary called Balfe, the “British Rossini.” The late Sir Thomas Beecham said of Balfe in 1951—“Balfe was the most interesting British musical figure of the nineteenth-century… he was a very good, highly intelligent and cultivated musician.”
PRESERVATION OF BALFE’S OPERATIC SCORES
We are very fortunate in one fact, that Lina Roser Balfe (1810-1888), Balfe’s wife of thirty-nine years was able to collect and donate virtually all of Balfe’s autograph scores to the British Library(Museum) in 1873, shortly after the composer’s death.
As a result these complete autograph scores are available today for opera directors, musicians and others who might have an interest in performing some of these important works in concert format. Musicologists experienced in creating the orchestral parts from nineteenth-century manuscript scores are also available to handle the task.
The Balfe scores are an amazing collection, beautiful maintained and probably one of the largest of any nineteenth-century operatic composer’s that is located at one venue— i.e. the British Library in London. In making this donation, Lina Balfe recognized the importance of her husband’s lifetime work and wanted future generations to have access to as much of his music as possible. We should not disappoint her!
Lina Roser Balfe
Lina Roser Balfe was a trained musician and had been a young singer (soprano) of importance in Milan, Venice, Parma, Turin and other places who sang opposite famous singers such as, Malibran, Rubini, Pasta, David and Ronconi in major Italian opera houses in the 1820/30s. She had been a pupil of one of Mozart’s sons, Karl Thomas Mozart, (1754-1858), in Milan for a year or more. Her father Franz de Paula Roser (1780-1830) was a successful composer of operettas (65) in Vienna and a theatre manager. Lina Roser and Balfe married in Lugano, Switzerland in 1831.
BALFE’S “CONTINENTAL” OPERAS
There were twenty (21) Balfe foreign language works that were composed primarily for Continental cities with Italian librettos, as appropriate. two (2) were created for Trieste, three (3) for London’s Royal Italian Opera and one (1) each for Milan, Palermo and Pavia.
:
- I rivale di se stessi (Palermo, 1829)
- Un avvertimento di gelosi (Pavia, 1831)
- Enrico IV al passo della Marna (Milan, 1833 – Teatro Carcano)
- Falstaff (Italian libretto – London, 1838) – NOTE: Produced/recorded in Dublin in 2008
- Pittore e Duca (Trieste, 1854)
- Il Talismano (London 1874)
– Die Zigeunerin (Vienna: 1846)
– La Zingara (R. Paderni libretto, Trieste 1854)
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- La Zingara (Paris, 1869 – G. Zaffira Italian libretto/Paris score)
- I Quattro Fratelli, Italian libretto/augmented score (London 1851)
BALFE”S CONTINENTAL LIBRETTISTS
In contrast to Balfe’s London experience he has some of the very best, most experienced librettists in Trieste for his operas.
For example, with his first opera for Paris he worked with the important much sought after, Eugène In Italy, Verdi’s great librettist, Francesco Maria Piave (1810-1876) worked with Balfe on a new opera for that city.
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