Pia de’ Tolomei (1837)

Lyric Tragedy in Two Parts
Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano

Type your introduction here.

Cammarano’s libretto is based on lines in Canto V of Dante’s Purgatorio, in which a certain Pia tells of her murder at the hands of her husband and utters the famous verse, “Siena mi fè, disfecemi Maremma” [Siena made me, Maremma unmade me.] Her husband is presumed to be the Guelph condottiere Nello Pannocchieschi (ca 1248-after 1322), of the Castel di Pietra near Gavoranno in the Maremma and podestà of Volterra and Lucca. Dante completed the Divine Comedy in 1320, so the story was recent history for him and his readers. Hence the poem gives only hints of Pia’s identity, but in the contemporary tradition, Nello is supposed to have murdered his first wife, who may have been Dante’s Pia, in 1297 in order to wed his second wife, Margherita Aldobrandeschi, or because of some offense, real or suspected. Another theory is that she was actually Pia Malavolti, who was married to a Tolomei, accused of adultery, and disposed of with the help of Nello.

As Cammarano tells the story, Pia is the wife of Nello, but dies not because of a rival but because she is falsely accused of having a lover.

Donizetti wrote this opera between 1836 and 1837 for the Teatro la Fenice in Venice, though it had to open in a different theater in February, 1837, after fire destroyed la Fenice. The score was revised for a second production in Sinigaglia in July of the same year, and again for Rome in May 1838. It saw a few other productions but languished after 1855, not performed again until 1967.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Pia de’ Tolomei, wife of Nello della Pietra (Soprano)
Ghino degli Armieri, cousin of Nello (Tenor)
Nello della Pietra (Baritone)
Rodrigo, brother of Pia (Contralto)
Piero, a hermit (Bass)
Ubaldo, servant of Nello (Tenor
Bice (Soprano)
Lamberto, ancient servant of the Tolomei (Bass)
Chorus: Soldiers, servants, ladies, hermits

The action takes place in Maremma in the early 13th century.