page_title: L'Orfeide
section_title: Part II. Sette canzoni
hierarchical_section_title: L'Orfeide / Synopsis and roles / Part II. Sette canzoni
caption_attribution_description: English: Carnival of Venice.
context_page_description: L'Orfeide is an opera composed by Gian Francesco Malipiero who also wrote the Italian libretto, partly based on the myth of Orpheus and incorporating texts by Italian Renaissance poets. The work consists of three parts – La morte delle maschere, Sette canzoni, and Orfeo, ovvero L'ottava canzone. It received its first complete performance on 5 November 1925 at the Stadttheater in Düsseldorf.
context_section_description: The seven songs in this part (which lasts 40 minutes in all) are designed as individual mini-operas. They are themed musically, but do not form a connected narrative. Malipiero claimed that each was inspired by an incident that he had observed.
  1. Il vagabondo (The vagabond) – A story-teller convinces a young girl to abandon her blind companion. This was suggested to Malipiero by a group of vagabonds he once encountered in Venice, a crippled man who played the violin, a blind man who played the guitar, and a young woman who served as a guide for the blind man. They always played badly and always in the darkest, most out of the way streets. One day, he encountered the blind man alone, desperately playing his guitar. His companion had run off with the crippled violinist.
  Roles: Il cantastorie (the story-teller), (baritone); Una giovane donna (a young woman), (soprano); Il cieco (the blind man), (tenor); passers-by (mimed)
  2. A vespro (At Vespers) – A chorus of friars is heard intoning the Vespers. Another friar, impatient to lock up the church for the night, interrupts a woman in prayer by rattling his keys and ultimately tapping her on the shoulder and pointing to the door. Malipiero witnessed a similar incident at the Chiesa di Sant'Agostino in Rome.
  Roles: Il frate (the friar), (mimed); old woman (mimed)
  3. Il ritorno (The return) – An old woman is driven mad by worry for her son who is away at war. So much so that when he returns, she fails to recognize him. Malpiero recalls passing by a house at the foot of Monte Grappa outside Venice, where he used to hear an old woman weeping, screaming, singing lullabies, and cradling a doll. Her son had been killed in World War I and she had become mad with grief.
  Roles: La vecchia madre (the old mother), (soprano); young passers-by (chorus); her son (mimed)
  4. L'ubriaco (The drunkard) – A man runs away from his lover's house chased by her elderly husband. In his flight he knocks over a drunkard who had been singing on the steps of the house. The husband mistakes the drunkard for his wife's lover and savagely beats him with his cane. This episode was inspired by Malipiero's observations of drunkards in Venice interrupting romantic encounters.
  Roles: L'ubriaco (the drunkard), (bass or baritone); a young man in love (mimed); a young woman (mimed); old man (mimed) 
  5. La serenata (The serenade) – A man serenades his beloved outside her house. Unbeknownst to him, she is weeping by the body of a dead relative and is not listening to his song. This episode was inspired by Malipiero's observations of the contrast between Venetian serenades and laments for the dead.
  Roles: L'innamorato (the man in love), (tenor); young woman (mimed)
  6. Il campanaro (The bellringer) – As a man rings the church bells to warn the townspeople of a terrible fire, he sings a ribald song, seemingly indifferent to the impending disaster. This episode was inspired by a funeral which Malipiero had attended in Ferrara. He heard the bellringer whistling "La donna è mobile" as he rang the funeral toll.
  Roles: Il campanaro (the bell-ringer) (baritone)
  7. L'alba delle ceneri (The dawn of Ash Wednesday) – In a small town, a lamplighter extinguishes the street lamps as a funeral carriage passes by accompanied by penitents calling people to prayer. A troupe of masked clowns are dancing in the street and momentarily block the carriage. A mysterious figure symbolizing death appears and they scatter. One of clowns loses his cap in the melee. Once the procession has passed, he cautiously returns to retrieve it and in the process meets a young masked woman returning from the carnival. The two go off together. Malipiero wrote that this scene reflects the relief he always felt when Ash Wednesday liberated him from the "invasive banality" of the carnival season. One of the traditions of the carnival in several countries, including Italy, is a symbolic funeral on the eve of Ash Wednesday to mark the "death" of the carnival.
  Roles: Il lampionaio (the lamplighter), (tenor or baritone); penitents (chorus); religious old women (mimed);
caption: A modern-day masked harlequin at the Carnival of Venice. On the eve of Ash Wednesday, a mock funeral is held to mark the death of the carnival and the beginning of Lent – the subject of the 7th song, L'alba delle ceneri.
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