Gli affetti di Maometto da Voltaire al melodramma di primo Ottocento

This essay focuses on the opera «Maometto» by Felice Romani, first performed at the Scala in Milan on 28 January 1817 with music by Peter von Winter. The subject of the libretto was inspired by the tragedy «Le fanatisme, ou Mahomet le prophète» by Voltaire, performed for the first time in Lille on 25 April 1741. «Maometto» is directly based on this French source, notwithstanding the first two prose translations of the work which appeared anonymously in 1746, by Marchese Alfonso Vincenzo Fontanelli, and in 1752 (a thorough rewriting) by the Jesuit priest Antonio Maria Ambrogi. Romani also made only marginal use of two later blank verse translations by Melchiorre Cesarotti (1762) — whose numerous reprints would later constitute the Italian «vulgata» of the work — and by Agostino Paradisi (1764). As a connection with Romani–Winter’s melodrama, it is also important to remember Goethe’s German version of the tragedy, written in September–October 1799 and published in 1802.
By comparing Voltaire’s «Mahomet» and Romani’s «Maometto», one can enter into the compositional workshop of the librettist and shed light on the consummate dramaturgic ability present in the treatment of a five–act tragedy with its perfect fidelity to operatic forms that have clearly been coordinated with the musician. Reviewing the individual scenes of the opera, one can see the complex work of synthesis, specularity and invention achieved by the librettist. In «Maometto», Romani’s language — accompanied by the music of the classicist Winter — is not yet “della passione” as will be found in the libretti for Bellini and Donizetti that follow, but rather “degli affetti” thae echoes a Metastasian tradition through recourse to contemporary dramaturgic and operatic forms.
The essay pays particular attention to the vocal typologies of the first performers of the opera, which were naturally linked the interpretive typologies used to create characters. Beginning with the range of different roles («soprano lirico di agilità», «contralto en travesti», «baritenore eroico», «basso nobile», «basso antagonista vilain», «tenore comprimario di mezzo carattere»), these vocal attributes were modeled on the specific characteristics of the chosen singers.
The essay ends with a bibliographic note divided into three sections, preceded by two appendices, the first of which offers an intertextual illustration of Romani’s adaptation of the original source. The second deals with two performances, those given in Naples at the Teatro San Carlo in the summer of 1817, and in Rome at the Accademia Filarmonica in the autumn of 1826; and with a “palimpsest” of the opera (by the same Romani, who adapted the subject under the title of «Palmira» with music by Francesco Stabile), given at the Teatro San Carlo on 3 January 1836.