Loreley (opera)

Loreley
Opera by Alfredo Catalani
Cover of the libretto published by Ricordi for the world premiere
Librettist	Angelo Zanardini Carlo D'Ormeville
Premiere	16 February 1890 (1890-02-16) Teatro Regio, Turin

Loreley is an opera (azione romantica) in three acts composed by Alfredo Catalani to a libretto by Angelo Zanardini, Carlo D'Ormeville and others. It premiered on 16 February 1890 at the Teatro Regio in Turin. Based on the German legend of the Lorelei, the opera is an extensive reworking of Catalani's four-act opera Elda which had premiered in Turin ten years earlier.

The praise received by Catalani's La falce, a one-act opera written while he was a student at the Milan Conservatory, led to Giovannina Lucca offering him a contract for more operas. Lucca ran the music publishing house Casa Musicale Lucca that had acquired the rights to publish Wagner's works in Italy. Elda, his first opera for Lucca premiered to critical success in 1880, followed by Dejanice in 1883 and Edmea in 1886. Neither of them had the critical success of Elda, but Edmea went on to be performed both in Italy and internationally. This prompted Lucca to commission a fourth opera from Catalani. Instead of finding a new libretto, he decided on a complete reworking of Elda which had based on the Lorelei myth. Carlo D'Ormeville's original libretto for Elda was primarily re-worked by Angelo Zanardini who had written the libretto for Dejanice, but the new Loreley libretto also had input Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica, and the music critic and impresario Giuseppe Depanis. Loreley kept the essential story of Elda but moved the setting back from the Baltic Sea to the Rhine River of the original myth.

Catalani completed the score of Loreley by November 1987. However, in early 1888, Casa Lucca was acquired by Ricordi. Catalani, by this time seriously ill with tuberculosis, fretted that Ricordi was ignoring his work and primarily concentrating on Puccini. Ricordi had published Puccini's Le Villi in 1884 and commissioned his Edgar for a La Scala production in 1889. The world premiere of Loreley finally took place on 16 February 1890 at the Teatro Regio in Turin conducted by Edoardo Mascheroni. The production, with Virginia Ferni-Germano in the title role, had sets by Ugo Gheduzzi and costumes designed by Adolf Hohenstein. It proved to be Catalani's most enduring work, surpassed only by his last opera La Wally. In the years following the Turin premiere, Loreley was performed in multiple Italian cities, including Milan where it was first performed at La Scala in 1905. It subsequently premiered at London's Royal Opera House on 12 July 1907. The first American performance was presented by the Chicago Opera Association at the Auditorium Building in Chicago on 17 January 1919 with Anna Fitziu in the title role.