| Il bravo | |
| Genre Header: | Opera |
| Composer: | Saverio Mercadante |
| Librettist: | Gaetano Rossi |
| Language: | Italian |
| Premiere Location: | La Scala, Milan |
Il bravo, ossia La Veneziana ("The Assassin, or The Venetian Woman") is an opera in three acts by Saverio Mercadante to an Italian-language libretto by Gaetano Rossi and Marco Marcello. Their libretto was based on the play La Vénétienne by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois, which was in turn based on James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Bravo. The opera premiered on 9 March 1839 at La Scala, Milan and subsequently played throughout Italy and abroad.[1] The opera was still being occasionally performed and recorded in the 20th century.[2] [3] and was hailed as an "exciting rediscovery" when it was staged by the Wexford Festival in 2018.[4]
| Carlo ("Il bravo"), a hired assassin | tenor | Domenico Donzelli | |
| Violetta, an orphan from Genoa | soprano | Eugenia Tadolini | |
| Teodora, a mysterious Venetian woman | soprano | ||
| Pisani, an exiled Venetian patrician | tenor | Andrea Castellan | |
| Foscari, a Venetian patrician | baritone | Pietro Balzar | |
| Cappello, a Venetian patrician | tenor | Antonio Benciolini | |
| Michelina, Teodora's maid | soprano | Angela "Angiolina" Villa | |
| Marco, Teodora's gondolier | bass | Eutimio Polonini | |
| Luigi, Foscari's servant | bass | Luigi Quattrini | |
| Messenger | tenor | Napoleone Marconi | |
| The Doge of Venice, Venetian senators, knights, counsellors, citizens, artisans, gondoliers, commedia dell'arte players, soldiers, guards, servants, pages, and squires | |||
In order to save his father's life, Carlo has accepted to become a henchman and to serve the government of Venice. When ordered to murder Teodora, he finds that the latter is his former wife : he tried to kill her because he thought (mistakenly) she had betrayed him. Foscari, a patrician, was in love with Teodora, and now loves her daughter, Violetta, but the latter is in love with Pisani, an exiled patrician. The lovers manage to escape, while Teodora kills herself in the hope of saving Carlo's father's life. Carlo, however, discovers that his father is already dead.