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He chose the subject and commissioned Lorenzo da Ponte, then official poet to the imperial theatres of Austria, to write the book of words. In doing so, the latter made free use of a version of the same story made by an Italian theatrical poet named Bertati, and Dr. The title of the opera by Bertati and Gazzaniga was "Il Convitato di Pietra."
The most eminent men who treated it at various times were the Spaniard known as Tirza di Molina, the Frenchman Moliere, the Italian Goldoni, and the Englishman Thomas Shadwell, whose "Libertine Destroyed" was brought forward in 1676. Before Mozart, Le Tellier had used it for a French comic opera, Righini and Gazzaniga for Italian operas, and Gluck for a ballet.
From the splendid halls where Grisi and Gazzaniga and La Borde and La Grange have by turns translated into sound the ideas of Meyerbeer and Bellini and Donizetti and Mozart, to the little rooms where sixpenny tickets procure lager-beer as well as music for the purchaser, the drama is worshipped.
Vernon, Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. McClure, Mary Taylor, Clara Fisher, Mrs. Richardson, Mrs. Flynn. Then the singers, English, Italian and other: Mrs. Wood, Mrs. Seguin, Mrs. Austin, Grisi, La Grange, Steffanone, Bosio, Truffi, Parodi, Vestvali, Bertucca, Jenny Lind, Gazzaniga, Laborde.
He tried to persuade the management to give Mozart's opera instead, and, failing in that, had the malicious satisfaction of helping to turn the work of Bertati and Gazzaniga into a sort of literary and musical pasticcio, inserting portions of his own paraphrase of Bertati's book in place of the original scenes and preparing occasion for the insertion of musical pieces by Sarti, Frederici, and Guglielmi.
These, with Gazzaniga, the charming, lively, natural Gazzaniga, whose voice is fresh, and who can sing and act so charmingly in genial music, such as Donizetti's "Elisir d' Amore," with also Assoni, the buffo, and Coletti, the bass, compose the year-old and tried nucleus of the Philadelphia opera, which opened the first Monday in October.
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