"Stabat Mater" by G. Rossini on Holy Thursday
News публикувана на: 19.04.2019
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Stabat Mater by Gioachino Rossini on 25 April - Maundy Thursday, at the Opera House
Stara Zagora State Opera empathizes with the sadness of Europe
On April 25, at 7 p.m., the State Opera Stara Zagora will present on its stage the charming work by Gioachino Rossini "Stabat Mater". The day on the Christian calendar is Maundy Thursday - one of the most important and exciting days of Holy Week, a day for purification and humility, a day for reflection and recollection, in which each of us weaves our palms together in prayer and asks for forgiveness in order to move forward with much love and hope for better days. With its performance of Rossini's Stabat Mater, the Stara Zagora State Opera expresses its deep empathy for the crushing defeats inflicted on civilisational Europe by one of its pillars and symbols - the Virgin Mary of Paris. An appeal and a call for unity and sympathy! By some fateful coincidence, Rossini's Stabat Mater Mass in its final version was first performed in Paris in 1842, where Rossini moved in the 1920s and remained until the end of his days. It was a huge success - the Parisian Journal des Debats compared the event to the premiere of Haydn's The Creation in terms of importance - and immediately that year Stabat Mater was performed in 29 other European cities. And Heinrich Heine declared that"the great Maestro's Stabat is the main musical event of the year".
The magnificent work will be performed on the Stara Zagora stage on 25 April under the baton of Ivaylo Krinchev, with the participation of soloists Emilia Ivanova, Petya Petrova, Ivaylo Mikhailov, Plamen Kumpikov, the orchestra and choir of the Stara Zagora State Opera. Conductor of the choir Mladen Stanev.
The Roman-Catholic hymn "Stabat Mater" is based on the text of a medieval Latin poem praising the suffering of the Mother of Christ at the Saviour's cross. Through the numerous musical works written on the ecclesiastical text, the Stabat Mater gained widespread popularity.
While traveling in Spain in 1831, Gioacchino Rossini received a commission from the Councillor of State Fernandez Varela for music on the Stabat Mater church sequence. The very next year, part of the work was finished, but health problems prevented Rossini from completing it. He therefore asked his friend Giovanni Tadolini to compose the remaining parts, and presented the work to Varela as finished. It was premiered on Holy Saturday in 1833 at the church of San Felipe el Real in Madrid. This version has never been performed since.
After Varela's death, the work was sold to a Parisian publisher who published it. Rossini claimed his rights to the publication and abandoned this version, as it also contained music by Tadolini. In the dispute that ensued, the publisher prepared a performance of the Stabat Mater on 31 October 1841, at which, however, only the six movements written by Rossini were still performed. In the meantime, Rossini had already sold the publishing rights. However, at the end of 1841 Rossini completed the work by replacing the parts written by Tadolini with his own music.
"The Stabat Mater in its final version was first performed in Paris at the Théâtre-Italien's Salle Ventadour on 7 January 1842. The publisher Escudier writes: "Rossini's name was constantly chanted along with the applause. The whole work pleased the spectators immensely; its triumph was complete. Three numbers had to be repeated ... and the audience left the theatre excited and filled with an admiration which soon overwhelmed all Paris."
The Italian premiere of the work was in March in Bologna, performed by Gaetano Donizetti. It too was a great success. Donizetti says of the audience reaction, "It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm. Even after the last rehearsal, in which Rossini himself took part, he was accompanied to his home halfway through the day by the enthusiastic cheers of more than 500 people. The same happened in the evening, under his window, until he reappeared before the crowd"...