Leoncavallo, Ruggiero

Ruggero Leoncavallo – I Medici, opera in four acts (full opera score with Italian libretto)

23 April 1857 (Naples, Italy) – 9 August 1919 (Montecatini Terme, Italy)

Opera in four acts
Text by the composer

Premiere:
6 November 1893 at the Teatro Dal Verme

Ten Solo Roles:
Giuliano de’ Medici a nobleman, tenor
Lorenzo de’ Medici, a nobleman, baritone
Simonetta Cattaneo [loosely based on the real woman], a beautiful noblewoman, lyric soprano
Fioretta de’ Gori [Fioretta Gorini, 1454-1476), her friend, the mistress of Guilio, dramatic soprano
Simonetta’s mother [loosely based on Cattocchia Spinola de Candia of Genoa], mezzo-soprano
Francisco de’ Pazzi, a Florentine banker plotting to displace the Medici family, bass
Giambattista da Montesecco (1450-1478), assassin hired by Pope Sixtus V, bass
Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli, a Florentine merchant, tenor
Poliziano (1454-1494), a poet and translator who served as a Medici family tutor, baritone
Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa and Pazzi family member, bass

Preface
An almost exact contemporary of opera composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), Ruggiero Leoncavallo is now best known for his verismo opera hit, Pagliacci, premiered in 1892 at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme under the direction of the 25-year-old Arturo Toscanini. Leoncavallo composed eleven Italian operas, ten operettas, symphonic poems, and popular songs, mainly supported by Ricordi and the Victor Talking Machine Company (later RCA Victor). By 1910, Pagliacci’s tragic aria “Vesti la giubba” became the first recording to ever sell one million copies, as sung by Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) for Victor. …

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