He tells Edmea that he must leave in an hour, but that his heart will always be with her. Oberto arrives and dismisses the other women. Edmea joins them, but she is disconsolate, and she sings of the sadness of being parted from the one you love. The women of the castle are spinning and as they do so, some of them wonder why Edmea is not with them, others reply that since Count Oberto, the son of Count Leitmeritz, is about to leave the castle, Edmea is probably with him, since it is an open secret that they are in love. Act 1 The great hall of the castle of Count Leitmeritz The story was taken from the play Les Danicheff (1876) by Alexandre Dumas fils and Petr Korvin de Kroukowsky, writing under the pseudonym Pierre Newsky.įirst performed at La Scala, Milan, on 27 February 1886. Libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, written originally for Salvatore Auteri-Manzocchi but never set to music. You can judge for yourself a CD, but not yet a DVD, exists. Despite the problems and the pressure imposed by his own quest for perfection, Catalani achieved a triumph – although a few sniffy critics moaned about the lack of originality. Determined to write a masterpiece, Catalani cast around for a suitable libretto and ended up with Edmea, a second-hand text by a prolific and highly regarded librettist who had for many years rested on his laurels as the librettist of Verdi’s Aida. In 1883, he brought out an ancient Roman adventure entitled Dejanice which was regarded as ‘untidy’, sprawling and far too like Ponchielli’s La Gioconda (although Puccini rated it highly). It was not the success that he had hoped for and he later revised it as the far more successful Loreley.

After the tremendous success of his first opera La falce in July 1875, Catalani wrote some very beautiful orchestral music before embarking on a second opera, Elda, in January 1880.

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