SPONTINI, Gaspare; Victor-Joseph Étienne DE JOUY (librettist); [Johann Christoph] MAY (translator). Fernand Cortez, oder: die Eroberung Mexiko’s. Oper in drei Akten.

On the Spanish Conquest of Mexico

SPONTINI, Gaspare; Victor-Joseph Étienne DE JOUY (librettist); [Johann Christoph] MAY (translator). Fernand Cortez, oder: die Eroberung Mexiko’s. Oper in drei Akten. Berlin: s.n. [Not before 1824?]

16mo. Disbound, green paper backstrip; pp. 64; backstrip partly detached; some browning and spotting throughout, small loss to upper corner of title and rear corner of final leaf not affecting text, final leaf partly detached; a good copy.

Rare edition of the German libretto for the Berlin production of the heavily revised third version of Gasparini’s French three-act opera Fernand Cortez, ou La conquête du Mexique (Fernand Cortez, or The Conquest of Mexico), translated by the directorate secretary of Berlin’s Royal Theatres c. 1815–1822.

Spontini’s opera, produced as political propaganda in support of Napoleon’s 1808 invasion of Spain, premiered on 28 November 1809 – in the midst of the Peninsular War – at the Paris Opera in Napoleon’s presence. It was extensively revised for its revival in Paris on 28 May 1817, undergoing subsequent revisions in 1824 and 1832 for performances in Berlin. The dramatic 1809 premiere featured seventeen live horses and included a scene in which Cortez burned his own fleet, and was withdrawn after only a few performances.

‘While in Berlin Spontini continued to work on Fernand Cortez, producing two further versions that were premièred at the Berlin Royal Opera […] The changes, rather than designed to alter or blunt the work’s political leanings, were this time intended to improve its dramatic effectiveness […] Spontini’s third version of Fernand Cortez introduced significant changes to Act 3 in order to heighten the sense of increasing dramatic tension. His fourth version added a blatantly pro-clerical ending and a thematic reminiscence to Act 1 in the final scene, thereby effectively bracketing the otherwise somewhat ungainly plot. With these changes Fernand Cortez became one of the most popular operas of the century, achieving 161 performances in Berlin alone by 1894’ (Musikproduktion Höflich, online).

Kriegsrat Johann Christoph May (1757–1828) was also the translator of Etienne-Nicolas Méhul’s Arien und Gesänge des Singspiels Euphrosine (1825) and Giovanni Simone Mayr’s Il fanatico per la musica (s.a.). This translation is seemingly based on the 1824 revisions to the text for performance in Berlin, featuring a new denouement in the third act; it was first performed in Berlin on 6 April 1824 in May’s translation, followed by performances in Dortmund and Darmstadt.

OCLC finds only two copies outside continental Europe, at the British Library and the Library of Congress (seemingly a variant with the price of 5 Silbergroschen to the title).

SKU: 2126405