Description
Verdi: Ernani / Lyrical drama in four parts - Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave / ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS OF TEATRO REGIO DI PARMA / Conductor: Antonello Allemandi / Chorus master: Martino Faggiani / DVD
Format: NTSC
Run time: 126 Minutes
UPC: 8007144334963
- Aspect Ratio : 1.78:1
- MPAA rating : Unrated (Not Rated)
- Package Dimensions : 7.1 x 5.42 x 0.58 inches; 5.77 Ounces
- Media Format : Subtitled, NTSC
- Release date : January 30, 2007
- Actors : G. Verdi
- Subtitles: : Italian
- Studio : Dynamic
- Number of discs : 1
Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the 1830 play Hernani by Victor Hugo.
Verdi was commissioned by the Teatro La Fenice in Venice to write an opera, but finding the right subject took some time, and the composer worked with the inexperienced Piave in shaping first one and then another drama by Hugo into an acceptable libretto. As musicologist Roger Parker notes, the composer "intervened on several important points, insisting for example that the role of Ernani be sung by a tenor (rather than by a contralto as had originally been planned)".
Ernani was first performed on 9 March 1844, and it was "immensely popular, and was revived countless times during its early years".
It became Verdi's most popular opera until it was superseded by Il trovatore after 1853. In 1904, it became the first opera to be recorded completely.