I Puritani: Opera seria in tre atti ed. by Fabrizio Della Seta

Abstract

Reviewed by: I Puritani: Opera seria in tre atti ed. by Fabrizio Della Seta Francesco Izzo Vincenzo Bellini. I Puritani: Opera seria in tre atti. A cura di Fabrizio Della Seta. Part 1: Introductory Materials and Act 1. (Edizione critica delle opere di Vincenzo Bellini, vol. X, tomo 1.) Milan: Ricordi, 2013. [Pref. in Ita., p. vii–viii; principal sources in Ita., p. ix–x; introd. in Ita.,p. xi–xliv; facsims., p. xlv–lvii; libretto, p. lix–lxxii; characters, p. lxxiii; orchestra, p. lxxiv; index of pieces, p. lxxv; score, p. 1–487. ISMN: 979-0-041-39244-8, ISBN: 978-88-7592-923-7, pub. no. 139244. €550 inclusive of all 4 vols.] Vincenzo Bellini. I Puritani: Opera seria in tre atti. A cura di Fabrizio Della Seta. Part 2: Act 2 and Act 3. (Edizione critica delle opere di Vincenzo Bellini, vol. X, tomo 2.) Milan: Ricordi, 2013. [Index of pieces; score, p. 489–908. ISMN: 979-0-041-39244-8, ISBN: 978-88-7592-923-7, pub. no. 139244. €550 inclusive of all 4 vols.] Vincenzo Bellini. I Puritani: Opera seria in tre atti. A cura di Fabrizio Della Seta. Part 3: Appendices. (Edizione critica delle opere di Vincenzo Bellini, vol. X, tomo 3.) Milan: Ricordi, 2013. [Index of pieces; appendices, p. 911–1305. ISMN: 979-0-041-39244-8, ISBN: 978-88-7592-923-7, pub. no. 139244. €550 inclusive of all 4 vols.] Vincenzo Bellini. I Puritani: Opera seria in tre atti. A cura di Fabrizio Della Seta. Commentary. (Edizione critica delle opere di Vincenzo Bellini, vol. X, Apparati.) Milan: Ricordi, 2013. [Abbrevs. in Ita., p. 7–8; sources, p. 9–37; critical commentary, p. 39–288. ISMN: 979-0-041-39244-8, ISBN: 978-88-7592-923-7, pub. no. 139244. €i550 inclusive of all 4 vols.] Critical editions of nineteenth-century Italian opera have been appearing in print with regularity for a few decades. Four series devoted to the principal opera composers in early- and mid-nineteenth-century Italy—Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi—are all rather advanced; of these, three are intended as opera omnia, whereas the Donizetti series is a selective one, and includes only stage works. Scholars and connoisseurs know that the volumes in these series occupy many feet of shelf space in research libraries around the world. The distinctive color of the bindings of each allows us to locate them easily among collected works without using even a call number: Rossini is brown (the edition of the Fondazione Rossini, published by Ricordi) or yellow (the more recent Bärenreiter series); Donizetti is dark green; Bellini is blue; Verdi is red. There is no need here to review in detail the intellectual premises that led to the development of textual criticism as a prominent area of investigation in nineteenth-century opera, leading to the launch of the Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini (Fondazione Rossini and Ricordi) in 1979, and of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi (University of Chicago Press and Ricordi) in 1983. Both of these projects were the brainchildren of Philip Gossett, who gave his imprimatur and led them for decades, establishing with clarity that critical editions of the works of these composers were to serve a twofold purpose: a philological one, leading not only to the recovery and restitution of texts reflecting authorial intention, but also to a meticulous reconstruction of the genesis of each work; and a practical one, providing performers with reliable editions, eminently approachable also by "end users" [End Page 139] with minimal interest in philology but keen to draw on the most advanced scholarship and, at the very least, to correct numerous, often significant errors perpetuated in conventional editions and performing materials. Such a twofold purpose is evident in the physical presentation of these editions: a large volume containing the full score and any musical appendices, and a smaller-size but often rather thick volume providing a critical commentary and notes describing source materials, and detailing compositional process, editorial problems, and choices. The Edizione critica delle opere di Gaetano Donizetti (led by Gabriele Dotto and Roger Parker, and known since 2001 as Edizione nazionale) takes an altogether different approach, with a...