Bizet composed Don Procopio to an Italian libretto in 1859, when he was 21, living in Rome as a Prix de Rome winner. He was infatuated with the Italian language and felt his destiny lay in the field of comic opera. The opera was not produced in his lifetime, and the manuscript was presumed lost until it was discovered in the papers of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber after that composer's death. The opera could be considered a piece of juvenilia, proficiently written with much lovely music, but heavily indebted to Donizetti's ...
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Bizet composed Don Procopio to an Italian libretto in 1859, when he was 21, living in Rome as a Prix de Rome winner. He was infatuated with the Italian language and felt his destiny lay in the field of comic opera. The opera was not produced in his lifetime, and the manuscript was presumed lost until it was discovered in the papers of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber after that composer's death. The opera could be considered a piece of juvenilia, proficiently written with much lovely music, but heavily indebted to Donizetti's comic operas, the plot of whose Don Pasquale it closely resembles. The second act duet for soprano and tenor is disarmingly tender and offers a glimpse of the composer who would go on to write "Au fond du temple saint." The opera would be of interest to fans of bel canto rarities and anyone curious about Bizet's musical journey on the way to creating Carmen.The Bongiovanni CD is taken from a live 1986 performance at Teatro Poliziano in Montepulciano and reflects the standards one...
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