El Dúo de La Africana


General Information


GenreZarzuela . Género ChicoLanguageSpanishYear of the Premiere1893Acts1Scene3

Synopsis


A humble company of itinerant opera prepares to do Meyerbeer’s L'Afrcaine. Querubini, the impresario, has as a motto to save to the maximum and not to pay to anybody. One of its resources is to use his own family: l’Antonelli, the main soprano of the company, is his wife. Amina, the mezzo, his daughter. Having tour around Aragon, they have gathered a tenor, a young man of good family, who also has accepted to sing free. Querubini suspects that José (now nicknamed "Giuseppini", name more adapted for an opera company) in fact is in love with his wife, but being a free tenor he tries to carry the situation without it going to major. Amina confesses that she is in love with the tenor, and Giuseppini sees that as the opportunity to keep to the tenor within the family (singing free) with his honor intact at the same time, so he forces Giuseppini to commit. In the middle of the representation of “L'Africaine“, Querubini himself interrupts the representation when the tenor makes use of the plot to hold L’Antonelli immodestly. The police intervene to avoid the scandal and the function is resumed, but finally everything collapses with the second interruption: the mother of the tenor, who has looked for him all around Spain.



Roles


GiuseppiniTenor

Ténor Aragonais amoreaux du soprano
QuerubiniBaritone

Impresario radin et jealaous de sa femme
AntonelliSoprano

Sevillan Soprano, la femme de Querubini
Inocente PerezTenor

Stage Manager
AminaSpoken

The daughter of the Impresario
El BajoSpoken

A bass from the company
Doña SerafinaSpoken

Aragonese noblewoman, Giuseppini's mother
InspectorSpoken

 Ispettore
NanaSpoken

Antonelli's caretaker and confidant
MaestranzasMute

 
MaquinistasMute

 
CompañíaBassSopranoTenorMezzo-soprano