Catterino Cavos
Ivan Susanin
edited by Anna Giust

(Opera, 3)

24 x 32 cm; LXXXII, 500 pp.
Intro and Apparatus in Italian and English

Catterino Cavos (1777-1840) was born and studied in Venice, yet his career largely took place in St. Petersburg. He held a central role in the musical life of the Russian capital over four decades, holding several positions related to the Imperial Theaters as a composer, conductor, and teacher. Ivan Susanin (1815) came out of his collaboration with the noted Russian playwright, Aleksandr A. Shakhovskoy (1777-1846), a major figure in period Russian theater. Their partnership triggered the creation of patriotic works, conceived under the impression of the war against Napoleon. Ivan Susanin was intended as a “national opera”, well before Mikhail Glinka’s celebrated A Life for the Tsar, based on the same story. Cavos’s opera is structured as an opéra-comique in two acts, hosting four and five scenes respectively; spoken dialogues alternate with musical numbers, which include two broad and complex finales. This volume hosts a scholarly edition of the music, plus the libretto, with its Italian translation.

Anna Giust is an Associate Professor of Slavic Studies at the Verona University. She graduated in Foreign Languages and Musicology at the Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, and in guitar from the Vicenza Conservatory, while also holding a PhD in History and Criticism of Art, Music, and Performing Arts from Padua University. She researches opera as a means to decode the evolving relationships between Russian and European cultures. Her interests include the reception of Italian and French opera in Russia, the exchange of artists to and from Russia, inter-semiotic translation, philology, and textual criticism, especially about theatrical texts. She wrote several essays on 18th- to 20th-century Russian musical theatre and two books: Ivan Susanin di Catterino Cavos. Un’opera russa prima dell’Opera russa (EDT-De Sono Tesi, Torino 2011), and Cercando l’opera russa. La formazione di una coscienza nazionale nel teatro musicale del Settecento (Feltrinelli-Amici della Scala, Milano 2014).

Digital Edition (Support SEdM)
ISMN: 979-0-705061-99-4

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