L'arlesiana
L'arlesiana is an opera in three acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Leopoldo Marenco. It was originally written in four acts, and was first performed on 27 November 1897 at the Teatro Lirico di Milano in Milan. It was revised as a three-act opera in 1898, and a prelude was added in 1937.
The opera is based on the play L'Arlésienne (1872) by Alphonse Daudet, which was itself inspired by a short story from his collection Letters From My Windmill (Lettres de mon moulin) and is best known for the incidental music composed by Georges Bizet.
Three famous arias from this opera are the Lamento di Federico: È la solita storia del pastore written for a tenor, Come due tizzi accesi for a baritone, and for a mezzo-soprano, Esser madre è un inferno. Additionally in 2011, the aria "Una mattina" from the 4-act version was added to the present score by the publisher.
Performance history
In 2006, the Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti discovered among the composer's papers in the Museo Francesco Cilea in the Casa del Cultura in Palmi a manuscript of an aria, "Una mattina", whose lyrics he recognized as having been part of the first libretto in the original four-act version of L'Arlesiana.
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