Edited by Roberta Montemorra Marvin (2000)
Two-volume set: score pp. LXXIV, 495 + critical commentary
NR 138561
Piano vocal score available
CP 138564
Verdi’s eleventh opera, I masnadieri was the first he composed expressly for a foreign theater. The result of a joint commission from the Milanese publisher Francesco Lucca and the English impresario Benjamin Lumley, the work had its premiere at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London on 22 July 1847. Its libretto was based on a more or less faithful adaptation of Friedrich Schiller’s play Die Räuber, prepared by Verdi’s esteemed friend (but reluctant and inexperienced librettist) Andrea Maffei, a noted author and translator.
The principal source for this edition is Verdi’s autograph full score. It is the only source in the composer’s hand known to have survived. Bound into three volumes, the autograph is housed in the archives of Casa Ricordi in Milan. This score preserves the definitive version of the opera, as performed at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London in 1847. As with all of Verdi’s operas, the autograph manuscript does not represent a fair copy of a finished work but rather a composing score. The autograph score for I masnadieri is a document of clarity and accuracy, presenting the information the composer deemed indispensable for a successful performance of the opera. Interpretation of the notation, however, is not always without uncertainties: it testifies to the presence of various compositional layers, the fruit of a compositional process in successive stages typical of Verdi. This way of writing gave rise to a series of inconsistencies in the form of contrasting or contradictory markings in parallel parts, in particular markings of phrasing, articulation, dynamics and at times even the length of notes. The edition generally eliminates these inconsistencies aligning the text to the predominant model, but it maintains the discrepancies where they seem to have a musical significance or a convincing justification.
The first manuscript copy of the full score of I masnadieri, now on deposit at the British Library, London, was prepared for the opera’s premiere at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London in 1847. In addition to the orchestral score, the theater’s copyists extracted a full set of materials used for rehearsals and the first performances, also preserved at the British Library, and including a Suggeritore or prompter’s part, choral parts, a violin leader’s part, and orchestral parts. These sources have proved invaluable in two respects for establishing the musical text of the critical edition.
Five other manuscript copies of the full score were examined; none shows evidence of Verdi’s direct intervention. Thus they have had limited signficance for establishing the opera’s definitive text, although several do bear on the work’s performance history. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the orchestral score of I masnadieri circulated in manuscript copies; because of the lack of demand, no printed score was ever issued. The present edition constitutes the first publication of I masnadieri in full orchestral score.
A discerning performance of I masnadieri requires careful consideration of the circumstances under which the opera was written and first performed. These include general performance conventions of the era, vocal style and predilections of the singers, orchestral practices, and the physical space used for the performance. Pertinent to I masnadieri are not only the customs of Ottocento Italy, with which Verdi would have been most familiar, but also those of Victorian London, for which he composed the opera.