«Cendrillon», «Cenerentola», and «Agatina»: Plot structure and composition in operas by Nicolò Izouard, Stefano Pavesi and Gioachino Rossini

Original article
DOI: 10.56620/2227-9997-2023-4-56-69

Nina V. Pilipenko

Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, Russia,
n_pilipenko@mail.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5307-7197

Abstract: The purpose of the presented article is to compare the librettos of three operas: «Cendrillon» by Nicolò Izouard, «Agatina o la Virtù premiata» by Stefano Pavesi and «La Cenerentola ossia La bontà in trionfo» by Gioachino Rossini. In foreign research (there are no studies of this kind in Russian), it is customary to pay more attention to the relationship between Rossini’s opus and the second of these operas, while the first is usually only mentioned as the predecessor of both works and as one of the sources of the libretto. Indeed, the author of the text of Rossini’s opera, Jacopo Ferretti, most likely took his ideas from «Agatina». However, this does not in any way detract from the role that Izouara’s «Cendrillon» played in the emergence of its Italian namesake. The article is the first to compare the librettos of all three operas, which allows us to understand better the connections between them, as well as to identify differences due to both the variation in French and Italian traditions, and the individualities of the authors of the libretto and music.

Keywords: «Cendrillon», «La Cenerentola ossia La bontà in trionfo», «Agatina o la Virtù premiata», Nicolò Isouard, Stefano Pavesi, Gioachino Rossini, opera, libretto

For citation: Pilipenko N. V. «Cendrillon», «Cenerentola», and «Agatina»: Plot structure and composition in operas by Nicolò Izouard, Stefano Pavesi and Gioachino Rossini. Scholarly papers of Gnesin Russian Academy of Music. 2023;(4):56-69. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.56620/2227-9997-2023-4-56-69

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