I Lituani

I Lituani (in English, The Lithuanians) is an opera consisting of a prologue and three acts by Amilcare Ponchielli to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on the historical poem Konrad Wallenrod written by Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. It premiered at La Scala in Milan on March 7, 1874. Casa Ricordi commissioned Ponchielli to write the opera, and the idea to use Konrad Wallenrod came from Salvatore Farina, a novelist and playwright wo... more

I Lituani (in English, The Lithuanians) is an opera consisting of a prologue and three acts by Amilcare Ponchielli to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on the historical poem Konrad Wallenrod written by Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. It premiered at La Scala in Milan on March 7, 1874. Casa Ricordi commissioned Ponchielli to write the opera, and the idea to use Konrad Wallenrod came from Salvatore Farina, a novelist and playwright working for Ricordi. The opera was extremely well-received when it opened, and a second, final version with additional material was performed again a year later also to good reviews. It continued to be performed in the last decades of the 19th century in Cremona, Trieste, Brescia, Rome, Turin, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Chicago, and a single noteworthy Russian performance in 1884 at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in Saint Petersburg with the title Aldona. After a three-night run in 1903 at La Scala, where the casting was particularly poorly... less