Italian Opera’s Arrival in the U.S. Is Celebrated at Columbia

On a recent evening, Giuseppe Gibboni, a rising violin star from Italy, played a rare 1734 Antonio Stradivari violin for a sold-out crowd on the stage of the Italian Academy's theater, to mark the launch of an important bicentenary--the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Italian opera in the United States.

The Italian Academy’s theater was fully packed for the kickoff of a new five-year initiative celebrating the opera anniversary. The project was introduced by its organizers: Music Professor Giuseppe Gerbino; Claudio Orazi, general manager of the Carlo Felice Opera House in Genoa; and Francesco Zimei, professor of musicology at the University of Trento. Opening remarks—from the Italian Academy’s Executive Director, Barbara Faedda, and the Consul General of Italy in New York, Fabrizio Di Michele—stressed the importance of a deeper understanding of the long cultural and artistic relations between Italy and the U.S.

Among the highlights of this international collaboration between Columbia, the University of Trento, and the Carlo Felice Opera House will be scholarly conferences, public programs, and world premieres of forgotten works, such as Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's All’s Well That Ends Well and Manuel García’s L’amante astuto.

A major conference will gather leading scholars in transnational opera studies in 2028. The aim: To draw attention to the profound and continued impact of Italian opera on American culture, and to highlight the significance of its transatlantic and global history.

The First Season of Italian Opera in New York

Much history was shared from the lectern. The Park Theatre, which was in lower Manhattan, opened its doors for its first season of Italian opera on November 29, 1825, with Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia. For the first time, New York audiences were able to experience Italian opera in its original language and with its original music. In the leading roles were the famed Spanish tenor, Manuel García, and his 17-year-old daughter, Maria, who later rose to fame as Maria Malibran, one of the most celebrated and influential singers in the history of opera. The first season at the Park led to the establishment of foreign-language opera in the city and, decades later, to the founding of the Metropolitan Opera in 1883.

Columbia and Italian opera share an intriguing history. Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s famed Italian librettist, arrived in this country in 1805, and played a crucial role in promoting Italian culture and opera in the U.S. He also served as the first professor of Italian language and literature at Columbia. And Low Memorial Library hosted the first modern American performance of Da Ponte’s last theatrical work, L’ape musicale (which was dedicated to the citizens of New York): This 2018 event was a new production by Claudio Orazi and the Cagliari Opera House.  

After the presentation came a concert featuring music by Rossini and Paganini as well as Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (who emigrated to the U.S. in 1938 after Mussolini outlawed much of Jewish life in Italy). Violinist Giuseppe Gibboni, who at age 20 won the 2021 Paganini Competition, dazzled the audience as he played the Stradivarius, which was loaned by the New York City-based Classically Connected, Inc. Mezzo-soprano Giuseppina Bridelli—a noted interpreter of Mozart, Monteverdi, and Rossini—offered a memorable rendition of arias from Rossini’s Tancredi and Otello. They were accompanied by Valentina Messa, the official pianist of the Paganini Prize in Genoa.