A lovers quarrel

His main work is surely I dispettosi amanti (A lovers quarrel). Il Radiocorriere, a magazine of that time, dedicated a cover to this operetta, staged for the first time in march 1912 at the Metropolitan Opera House of Philadelphia, a town with an old operatic tradition.

The characters of the Lovers Quarrel are four: two young cousins, Florindo and Rosaura – forced to marry by their own families, but who will actually end up falling in love each others – and their parents, donna Angelica, mother of Florindo, and don Fulgenzio, father of Rosaura.

All is based on the ambiguity between what appears to be and what that actually is. The text has been published by Sonzogno in Milan: a first draft of the manuscript is conserved in the Parelli’s Documentation Center of Monteleone. The author of the libretto is E. Comitti.

Written in a polite and flowing language, the operetta uses breezy idioms that fit to the comic and sentimental spirit of the work. The single act is divided into seven scenes.

The following year, in 1913, the Lovers Quarrel was also staged in Chicago and New York, with the same cast as the “premiere”: Alice Zeppilli (Montecarlo, 1885 – Pieve di Cento, 1969) as Rosaura, Amedeo Bassi (Firenze 1874, one of the most appreciated singers of the verista repertoire) played Florindo, the role of Donna Angelica was entrusted to mezzo soprano Louise Berat and that of Don Fulgenzio to the baritone Mario Sammarco.

A curiosity: in the manuscript the operetta is set in the octagonal kiosk of the park of a luxurious nineteenth-century villa: a similar structure is actually existent in a wooded park near the home of Parelli, in the beautiful scenery of Villa Marocchi. This generated the myth that the operetta is set in the park of Villa Marocchi, but actually the edification of the Villa is subsequent to the writing of the libretto of A Lovers Quarrell.

The Lovers Quarrell has been the first opera entirely broadcasted by the italian radio. It was aired the evening of the 6th of May 1926, from the Milan headquarter of EIAR. So far, in America, the operetta A Lovers Quarrell has been represented for more than 500 times!