Mateo Falcone
Music by César Cui · premiered 1907
Mateo Falcone (Russian: Матео Фальконе, romanized: Mateo Fal'kone) is a one-act opera composed by César Cui during 1906–1907.
(Actually, Cui designated the genre of this work as "dramatic scene.") The libretto was adapted by the composer from Prosper Mérimée's like-named story from 1829 and Vasily Zhukovsky's verse rendering thereof.
It was premiered on 14 December 1907 (Old Style), at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (the work was given along with the composer's early one-act comic opera, The Mandarin's Son).
The premiere production of Mateo was a failure; the work never became part of the standard operatic repertoire in Russia, and seems never to have been performed again.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Mateo Falcone (opera)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
César Antonovich Cui (Russian: Цезарь Антонович Кюи, romanized: Tsezar Antonovich Kyui; IPA: [ˈt͡sjezərʲ ɐnˈtonəvʲɪt͡ɕ kʲʊˈi] ; French: Cesarius Benjaminus Cui; 18 January [O.S. 6 January] 1835 – 26 March 1918) was a Russian composer and music critic, member of the Belyayev circle and The Five – a group of composers gathered by the idea of creating a specifically Russian type of music. As an officer of the Imperial Russian Army, he rose to the rank of Engineer-General (equivalent to full General), taught fortifications in Russian military academies and wrote a number of monographs on the subject.
Text from the Wikipedia article "César Cui", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by César Cui
- Angelo (1871)
- Le flibustier (1888)
- A Feast in Time of Plague (1900)
- Mademoiselle Fifi (1902)
- Little Red Riding Hood (1911)
- Ivan the Fool (1913)
- Puss in Boots (1913)