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''La donna del lago'' (''The Lady of the Lake'') is an opera composed by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola (whose verses are described as "limpid" by one critic) 〔Osborne, Charles 1994, p. 95〕 based on the French translation〔Osborne, Charles 1994, p. 94〕 of ''The Lady of the Lake'', a narrative poem written in 1810 by Sir Walter Scott, whose work continued to popularize the image of the romantic highlands. Scott's basic story has been noted as coming from "the hint of an incident stemming from the frequent custom of James V, the King of Scotland, of walking through the kingdom in disguise".〔The legend quoted in Mays 2013, p. 9〕 It was the first of the Italian operas to be based on Scott's romantic works,〔Gossett and Brauner (2001), in Holden (Ed.), p. 785〕 and marked the beginning of romanticism in Rossini's work. It was "deeply influential in the development of Italian romantic opera"〔Commons 2007, pp. 9 - 12〕 to the extent that by 1840 (barely 20 years after this opera), there were 25 Italian operas based on his works, the most famous being Donizetti's ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' of 1835. Others in German, French and English followed.〔 Written for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, this was the seventh of nine operas which Rossini wrote for that house between 1815 and 1822.〔 Although the première on 24 September 1819 was not a success, there followed many performances throughout major European venues (as well as being presented in Cuba and by major South American houses) until about 1860, after which the opera disappeared until 1958. In modern times, performances have been given fairly frequently. ==Composition history== The period between ''La gazza ladra'' (1817) and ''Semiramide'' (1823) was marked by the production of twelve operas of little significance, with the exception of ''La donna del lago''. After being obliged to leave Pesaro hurriedly in May 1819 (it turned out to be his last visit there), Rossini returned to Naples in early June with no projects in the offing, except to become involved with overseeing a new production of his ''La gazza ladra'' there. Also, a commission from Milan's La Scala for an opera, which would become ''Bianca e Falliero'', had been offered and was planned for December of that year. Suddenly, the Italian composer Gaspare Spontini withdrew from a commitment to write two operas for the Naples house that season, thus leaving a huge gap. Rossini was quickly asked to write an opera for a September premiere; rather than use an existing libretto, the house insisted upon a wholly new opera and he accepted the challenge.〔Osborne, Richard 2007, pp. 61 - 62〕 It seems Rossini was initially attracted to Scott's poem when, in musicologist Philip Gossett's opinion,〔Gossett 1983, p. 12〕 he was introduced to it in translation by the young French composer Désiré-Alexandre Batton, a student of his and Prix de Rome winner then in Italy. On hearing about the poem from Batton, Rossini asked for a copy and within a few days informed Batton he was so delighted with it he would compose an opera based on it. He then immediately called upon the Naples-based librettist Andrea Leone Tottola (who is described as "a comparative mediocrity when set against the likes of a Felice Romani)".〔Pistone (1995), p. 3〕 Later, the librettist claimed the topic for "this difficult task" had been chosen by the Naples impresario.〔 As he worked on the libretto, Tottola "was also intrigued by the epic Celtic tales of Ossian"〔Mays 2013, pp. 17 - 18〕 published in 1760 by James Macpherson, who claimed to have found poems written by an ancient bard. The published translations acquired international popularity and set off a craze for idealising and romanticizing the Scottish Highlands.〔Morère 2004, pp. 75-6.〕〔Ferguson 1998, p. 227.〕 Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson read the Ossian poems, Goethe included them in ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'', and Schubert and Mendelssohn both composed music to them. The young Walter Scott was also greatly influenced by them.〔 Initially, Tottola was well aware of the difficulties which he faced in reducing Scott's epic poem, with its detailed descriptions of the Scottish landscape and culture as well as its many characters. In his preface, the librettist summed it up by stating: :It is, in fact, no easy task to simplify the many beauties and many moments of interest of a poem in order to arrive at the regular conduct of a drama and to observe the strict laws of the stage. It therefore became unavoidable that I should make some arbitrary changes in the original ...〔Tottola's preface to the libretto quoted in Commons, p. 29〕 But together, composer and librettist, reflecting the poetic meter of the Ossian tales, "strove to interweave a sense of these very rhythms into the score and libretto."〔 Richard Osborne describes what they accomplished: :It is astonishing what he and Tottola achieved in so short a time: a complex and sophisticated theatrical structure, an unusually rich vein of dramatically viable melody, exquisite orchestrations, and a striking use of the kind of off-stage effects Rossini had been experimenting with in the royal pageants of ''Ricciardo e Zoraide''.〔 Osborne also notes the way in which "the source materials have been interwoven, giving the sense of a music drama that has in some measure been 'through-composed'."〔Osborne, Richard (2007), p. 280〕 Gossett is less enthusiastic, noting that "it is almost impossible for Italian poetry to capture the quality of Scott's characteristic verse," but he does agree that "the spirit of the poem is there".〔 With the original September deadline missed, the new opera was presented in October and "was an enormous success",〔A letter from Stendhal to his friend De Mareste, quoted in Osborne, R. 2007, p. 62〕 although it was not without some early disruptions from the audience. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「La donna del lago」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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