Notre_Dame_(opera)

<i>Notre Dame</i> (opera)

Notre Dame (opera)

Add article description


Notre Dame is a romantic opera by Franz Schmidt, to a libretto by himself and Leopold Wilk (1876–1944), a professional chemist and amateur poet.[1] It is based loosely on the 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo.

Composition

The opera was written between 1904 and 1906.[2] Schmidt approached the opera by writing the orchestral parts of the score first, adding the vocal parts in later.[1] He incorporated some material from an unfinished fantasia for piano and orchestra.[1]

Notre Dame was first performed in Vienna on 1 April 1914. The principal female role of Esmeralda was created by Marie Gutheil-Schoder.

The work was popular till the early 1920s, then faded from view. It has been revived in Vienna and Dresden, and has been recorded at least twice.[1]

The opera is best known for its orchestral Intermezzo, which was first performed, along with the Carnival Music,[1] on 6 December 1903 in Vienna, as Zwischenspiel aus einer unvollständigen romantischen Oper.[3] These pieces were not composed with any opera in mind, but were later incorporated into Notre Dame, which he started writing in August 1904.[1] The composer and violinist Karl Goldmark described the Intermezzo as "the most beautiful of Gypsy music".[4]

Roles

More information Role, Voice type ...

Revivals

Recordings


References

  1. Notre Dame Classical Archives
  2. Franz Schmidt (Composer) bach-cantatas.com
  3. Ottner, Carmen (1991). Studien zu Franz Schmidt: Oper in Wien 1900-1925: Symposium 1989. Doblinger. p. 138. ISBN 9783900695200.

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Notre_Dame_(opera), and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.