Il Templario

Il templario is an Italian-language opera by the German composer Otto Nicolai from a libretto written by Girolamo Maria Marini based on Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.

It has been noted that Nicolai's work for the opera stage, which followed the successful Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor) (his only German opera), included three others, all of which were in Italian (two being Gilippede ed Odoardo and Il proscritto) and all "are all firmly cast in the bel canto style, with gracefully flowing melodies in the manner of Bellini". Marini was a part-time poet when not employed by the government tobacco monopoly, and is best remembered today for being called in to rewrite the third act of Donizetti's Adelia.

Il templario received its premiere performances at the Teatro Regio, Turin in 1840, and continued on a successful run through Italy, rivaling Pacini's Saffo. However, it disappeared for over 160 years until it was reconstructed in 2006 and performed in 2008.

The success of Nicolai's opera had an unintended contributing indirect effect on the failure of Verdi's early attempt at the opera buffa genre, Un giorno di regno, in 1840. The Teatro alla Scala impresario Merelli insisted on using the opera seria singers previously assembled for Nicolai's opera, which had toured in Milan, thus contributing to the disaster experienced by Verdi.

Following its first Italian performances

Laviska notes that:

After its original highly successful run in Italy, Il templario was forgotten, as fashion moved on and Nicolai's early death reduced interest in his work outside Germany. His father sold his autographs to Bote & Bock, who then filed and forgot them until 1937 when Joseph Goebbels was seeking pure-German operas to replace the removal of works by composers such as Meyerbeer from the German stage. Goebels was attracted to the story of Ivanhoe but sought to have Nicolai's opera rewritten to remove the flattering elements around the Jewish heroine Rebecca. However, the Second World War intervened before such a version could be made.

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