Luci mie traditrici (My Traitorous Eyes) is an opera in two acts by Salvatore Sciarrino, who also wrote the libretto. It was first performed under the German title Die tödliche Blume (The Deadly Flower) on 19 May 1998 in the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen at the Schwetzingen Festival. The title is taken from a line in the opera by the countess. The couple's name 'Malaspina' is of an Italian noble family, but it translates as 'evil thorn'. A performance lasts about 1 1/4 hours.

Luci mie traditrici
Opera by Salvatore Sciarrino
Sciarrino in 2016
TranslationMy Traitorous Eyes
Other titleDie tödliche Blume
LanguageItalian
Based onIl tradimento per l'onore
Premiere
19 May 1998 (1998-05-19) (in German)

Composition history

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Sciarrino started composing the opera in 1996. He based the libretto on the 1590 murder by the composer Carlo Gesualdo of his wife and her lover, but while working on it he discovered that Alfred Schnittke was also composing an opera (Gesualdo, 1993) on the same story. Deleting the references to Gesualdo, Sciarrino turned to a play, Il tradimento per l'onore, by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini,[a] and also used an elegy of Claude Le Jeune, based on a text by Pierre de Ronsard.[3] Sciarrino dedicated the opera to Marilisa Pollini,[4] Maurizio Pollini's wife.

Roles

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Roles, voice types, premiere cast
Role Voice type Premiere cast, 19 May 1998[4]
Conductor: Pascal Rophé
La Malaspina (Countess Malaspina) soprano Sharon Spinetti
Il Malaspina (Count Malaspina) baritone Paul Armin Edelmann
L'Ospite (The Guest) countertenor Kai Wessel
Un servo della casa (The Servant) tenor Georg Nigl
Voce dietro il sipario (The voice behind the scene) countertenor Kai Wessel

Synopsis

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Place: The home of the Count and Countess
Time: Late sixteenth century
Act 1
In the prologue, a backstage voice sings Le Jeune's French elegy. It is morning, and the count and countess declare their eternal love. The servant announces the arrival of the guest. After a short intermezzo, it is now mid-day. The countess and the guest make love. As darkness descends, the guest leaves and the countess is alone with the servant.
Act 2
In the evening, the count forgives the countess. Later that night, the countess opens the curtains of her bed, discovering the dead body of the guest. The count stabs the countess and she collapses on the body of the guest.

Performance history

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Following the Schwetzingen premiere, the opera has been performed at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels and in New York with choreography by Trisha Brown (2001),[5] as well as by the Ensemble Risognanze (2003) and at the Salzburg Festival (2008), the Berlin Festival of Contemporary Music (2010), a co-production between the Festival of Contemporary Art in Montepulciano (2010) and Oper Frankfurt (2011) as well as at the Berlin State Opera (2016).

Recordings

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Year Cast
La Malaspina,
Il Malaspina,
L'Ospite
Un servo
Conductor,
opera house and orchestra
Label
2000 Anette Stricker,
Otto Katzameier,
Kai Wessel,
Simon Jaunin
Beat Furrer,
Klangforum Wien
CD: Kairos
Cat: KAI0012222
2002 Junko Saito,
Timothy Sharp,
Galina Tchernova,
Ralph Heiligtag
Tito Ceccherini,
ensemble Risognanze
CD: Stradivarius
Cat: STR33645
2010 Nina Tarandek,
Christian Miedl,
Roland Schneider,
Simon Bode
Marco Angius,
Ensemble Algoritmo
DVD Video: EuroArts
Cat: 2059038
(2011) CD: Stradivarius
Cat: STR33900

Notes

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  1. ^ Diego Simini from the University of Salento attributed this play in 2012 to the Venetian lawyer Francesco Stramboli.[1][2]

References

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  1. ^ Simini, Diego (September 2012). Il corpus teatrale di Giacinto Andrea Cicognini. Opere autentiche, apocrife e di dubbia attribuzione (in Italian). Pensa Multimedia. p. 126. ISBN 978-88-8232-951-8 – via ResearchGate.
  2. ^ "Luci mie traditrici" (Teatro Malibran) La Fenice, September 2019 (in Italian)
  3. ^ David Patmore: Salvatore Sciarrino: Luci mie traditrici (liner notes in the 2010 EuroArts DVD of the opera).
  4. ^ a b "Salvatore Sciarrino: Luci mie traditrici'" (work details) (in French and English). IRCAM.
  5. ^ Luci mie traditrici (2001), Trisha Brown Dance Company [dead link]
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