Los diamantes de la corona

Los diamantes de la corona
Zarzuela by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri
LibrettistFrancisco Camprodón
LanguageSpanish
Based onLes Diamants de la couronne by Daniel Auber, Eugène Scribe and Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges
Premiere
15 September 1854 (1854-09-15)
Teatro del Circo, Madrid

Los diamantes de la corona is a zarzuela in three acts by the composer Francisco Asenjo Barbieri with a libretto by Francisco Camprodón.[1] The opera is taken from the original French libretto by Eugène Scribe and Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges which was set to music by Daniel Auber in 1841.[1] Barbieri's work was first performed at the Teatro del Circo in Madrid on 15 September 1854.[1]

Auber's work retained popularity at the Opéra-Comique from its première there in 1841 (receiving 180 performances in its first eight seasons), with over 370 performances up to the fire of 1887.[2]

The dramatist and poet Francisco Camprodón Lafont, first declining the composers Joaquín Gaztambide and José Inzenga, offered his adaptation to Barbieri, who had already achieved his first major zarzuela success with Jugar con fuego in 1851, and was in the process of creating a new theatre in Madrid.[1]

A recording was made at the Teatro Monumental Madrid in 1957 by Columbia, with Pilar Lorengar, María Dolores Alite, Ginés Torrano, Manuel Ausensi, Gerardo Monreal and Rafael Campos, with Ataúlfo Argenta conducting the Orquesta Sinfónica the Coros Cantores de Madrid. This was re-issued in 1997.

The work was staged in the Teatro de la Zarzuela Madrid in the 2009–10 and 2014–15 seasons, which transferred to Lisbon.

  1. ^ a b c d Salter, Lionel. Barbieri, Francisco Asenjo. In: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Macmillan, London and New York, 1997.
  2. ^ Soubies A, Malherbe C. Histoire de l'opéra comique - La seconde salle Favart 1840-1887. Flammarion, Paris, 1893, p256-7.