Maria de Rudenz

Maria de Rudenz
Opera by Gaetano Donizetti
The composer in 1835
Description	dramma tragico
Librettist	Salvadore Cammarano
Language	Italian
Based on	La Nonne Sanglante by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Julien de Mallian
Premiere	30 January 1838 (1838-01-30) Teatro La Fenice, Venice

Maria de Rudenz is a dramma tragico, or tragic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The Italian libretto was written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the 5-act French Gothic melodrama La Nonne Sanglante (Paris, 1835), by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Julien de Mallian, and elements from The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis. It premiered at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, on 30 January 1838 with Caroline Ungher as Maria, Giorgio Ronconi as Corrado di Waldorf, and Napoleone Moriani as Enrico.

• Caroline Unger was born in Vienna in 1803, and later studied voice in Milan with her future co-star’s father, the famous voice teacher Domenico Ronconi. She made her debut in 1821 as Dorabella in Così fan tutte in Vienna, then sang in the 1824 premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Sympathy, where she famously turned the deaf composer around to acknowledge the audience’s thunderous applause. One of the most important prima donnas of the 19th century, that she created for Donizetti the leading roles in Parisina, Maria de Rudenz, and Belisario indicates the dramatic nature of her voice; Donizetti admired her intense acting, which is crucial to the essentially dramatic soprano role of Maria de Rudenz. Liszt’s lover, the Countess Marie d’Agoult, wrote of Unger’s 1838 La Fenice performance as Parisina, “…an admirable singer, pathetic, full of intelligence…” She died in Florence on March 23, 1877, and was buried there in the cemetery of the basilica of San Miniato al Monte.

• Isabella Casali was a young soprano from Bologna, Italy. In 1837 she made her successful debut at Lugo in Giuseppe Persiani's opera Ines di Castro (28 January 1835, Teatro San Carlo), singing the role of Bianca, Princess of Castile, a role not dissimilar to Matilde di Wolf (Teatri, arte e letteratura, no. 717, vol. 28, 1837).