The Visitors (opera)

The Visitors is an opera in three acts and a prologue composed by Carlos Chávez to an English libretto by the American poet Chester Kallman. The work was Chávez's only opera. Its first version, with the title Panfilo and Lauretta, premiered in New York City in 1957. The final version with the title The Visitors was premiered in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1999, twenty years after the composer's death. The story is set in 14th century Tuscany during the time of the Black Death. The libretto (like those for Pagliacci and Ariadne auf Naxos) uses the device of a play within a play to reflect and intensify the relationships between the protagonists, who in this case are loosely based on characters in The Decameron.

The Visitors was originally commissioned in 1953 by Lincoln Kirstein, with the intention of premiering it in 1954 in New York City. Chávez began working on the score with the provisional title of The Tuscan Players in the spring of 1953 and continued working on it until 1956. The opera finally premiered with the title Panfilo and Lauretta on 9 May 1957 in the Brander Matthews Theatre at Columbia University, conducted by Howard Shannet. It was then presented on three occasions in Mexico, conducted by the composer: in October 1959 (in English) in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City; in 1963, again at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, but in a Spanish translation by Noel Lindsay and Eduardo Hernández Moncada with the title El amor propiciado (Love Propitiated); and in 1968 with the title of Los Visitantes (The Visitors) as part of the cultural programme for the XIX Olympic Games.

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