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Gianni Schicchi

opera · opera in un atto

Composer Giacomo Puccini

Librettist Giovacchino Forzano

Synopsis

Buoso Donati has died and left his money to a monastery. His relatives ransack the house for the will, find it, and read the worst. Rinuccio has sent for the one man in Florence quick enough to get them out of it, who is also the father of the girl he wants to marry.

Key facts

Premiere
14 December 1918, Metropolitan Opera House (39th Street), New York
Acts
1
Language
Italian (it)
Setting
Buoso Donati's house in Florence, in 1299.

Notes

The only version, and the last of the three given that evening. Puccini wrote it in seven months, faster than either of its companions, and it is the one of the three that has kept a life of its own away from them. One later change is recorded and it makes no second text: Rinuccio's solo Firenze è come un albero fiorito was raised by a semitone in 1919. That is a transposition rather than a difference of material, the same kind of change as the retouching Puccini went on making to Tosca. The catalogue heads the Florence performance of 10 May 1919 the first of the definitive version, and the semitone is all that anything records of it.

Dramatis personae

Role Voice Created by
Gianni Schicchi Lauretta's father, fifty years old. baritone Giuseppe De Luca
Lauretta Gianni Schicchi's daughter, twenty-one years old. soprano Florence Easton
Zita Buoso Donati's cousin, sixty years old, called the old woman. contralto Kathleen Howard
Rinuccio Zita's nephew, twenty-four years old. tenor Giulio Crimi
Gherardo Buoso's nephew, forty years old. tenor Angelo Badà
Nella Gherardo's wife, thirty-four years old. soprano Marie Tiffany
Gherardino Gherardo and Nella's son, seven years old. contralto Mario Malatesta
Betto di Signa Buoso's brother-in-law, poor and badly dressed, of no guessable age. bass Paolo Ananian
Simone Buoso's cousin, seventy years old. bass Adam Didur
Marco Simone's son, forty-five years old. baritone Louis D'Angelo
La Ciesca Marco's wife, thirty-eight years old. mezzo-soprano Marie Sundelius
Maestro Spinelloccio A doctor. bass Pompilio Malatesta
Ser Amantio di Nicolao A notary. baritone Andrés de Segurola
Pinellino A cobbler. bass Vincenzo Reschiglian
Guccio A dyer. bass Carl Schlegel

Source

Written from