BOITO, Arrigo 1842-1918

Mephistopheles Oper in vier Acten mit Prolog und Epilog. Dichtung und Musik ... Zu der für Deutschland bestimmten Bearbeitung sind die mit < > bezeichneten Goethe'schen Verse vom Verfasser selbst verwendet worden. Das Uebrige is übersetzt von C. Niese. Vollstændiger Clavier-Auszug mit Deutschem Text. [Piano-vocal score]

Milan: Ricordi [PNs 46860a, 46860n, 46860g], [ca. 1880].

Large octavo. Half dark pink cloth with marbled boards, original publisher's orange decorative wrapper laid down to upper. 1f. (recto title, verso device), 1f. (recto cast list, verso contents), 275, [i] (blank) pp. Text in German.

Small publisher's oval blindstamp to lower margin of first 25 leaves.

Dated signature of J. Schik in black ink to upper board, with annotations in the same hand to upper margin of title regarding performances in Vienna in 1912; former owner's handstamp ("Dr. Joh. Lenarčič) to outer margin of title crossed out and with signature "Josef Carl Schik" in black ink below; small publisher's oval handstamp to lower margin of title.

Boards worn, rubbed, and bumped; spine reinforced with black tape. Slightly browned; some signatures separating.

Mephistophes, an opera in a prologue, five acts and an epilogue by Boito to his own libretto after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Faust, was first performed in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala on 5 March 1868 and later in a revised version in four acts in Bologna at the Teatro Comunale on 4 October 1875 and in a second revised version in Venice at the Teatro Rossini on 13 May 1876.

"Shaw (London Music in 1888–89, p.133) summed up his reaction to Mefistofele in these terms: ‘The whole work is a curious example of what can be done in opera by an accomplished literary man without original musical gifts, but with ten times the taste and culture of a musician of only ordinary extraordinariness’." William Ashbrook in Grove Music Online.

Item #30096

Price: $35.00  other currencies