Re Lear

"Re Lear" ("King Lear") is an Italian operatic libretto in four acts written by Antonio Somma [ [http://opera.stanford.edu/librettists/Somma.html Antonio Somma] Bio at [http://opera.stanford.edu/ OperaGlass] .] for Giuseppe Verdi , based on "King Lear", "the Shakespeare play with which Verdi struggled for so many years, but without success" [ Martin Chusid, "Verdi's Middle Period 1849-1859: source studies, analysis, and performance practice", 1997, (ISBN 0226106586), p.3 .] . The "Re Lear" project is widely considered paradigmatic of Verdi's complex and enduring fascination with Shakespeare ["I prefer Shakespeare to all dramatists, not excepting the Greeks". Verdi to Somma, Letter of April 22, 1853.] ["At first sight, "Lear" is so broad, so intricated, that it seems impossible to get an opera out of it. However, after examining it carefully, it seems to me that the difficulties, while undoubtedly great, are not insuperable. You know that we need not turn "Lear" into a drama of the kind that has been customary up to now. We must treat it in a completely new fashion, broad, without any regard for convention." Verdi to Cammarano, Letter of February 28, 1850.] [C. Springer, op. cit.] .

Verdi commissioned the libretto first to Salvatore Cammarano, who died in 1852 before he could complete it [In his last letter to Cammarano, on June 19, 1852, Verdi wrote "Cheer up, Cammarano, we have to make this Re Lear which will be our masterpiece".] , although a detailed sketch survives. Subsequently Somma, under close supervision by Verdi, as documented by their extensive correspondence, completed two still extant versions of the libretto, in 1853 and 1855 respectively [ "Per il “Re Lear”", G. Carrara Verdi ed., op.cit. .] .

The "Re Lear" project kept haunting Verdi to the end of his life. In 1896, he offered his "Lear" material to Pietro Mascagni who asked "Maestro, why didn't you put it into music?". According to Mascagni, "softly and slowly he replied 'the scene in which King Lear finds himself on the heath scared me'". [ [http://www.pietromascagni.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60 Mascagni site] in Italian.] [G.A. Mendelsohn [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0148-2076(197903)2%3A3%3C214%3AVTMAVT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6 Verdi the Man and Verdi the Dramatist (II)] 19th-Century Music, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Mar., 1979), pp. 214-230 ]

Notes

References

*Gary Schmidgall, [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0148-2076(198523)9%3A2%3C83%3AV%22LP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B "Verdi's "King Lear" Project"] , 19th-Century Music, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1985), pp. 83-101
*Giuseppe Verdi - Antonio Somma, "Per il “Re Lear”", G. Carrara Verdi ed., Parma, Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani, 2002.
*Christian Springer, "Re Lear - Shakespeare bei Verdi" in "Verdi-Studien", 2005, Praesens Verlag (ISBN 3706902923).