‘Souvenir de Malibran’, the edition and valorisation of a forgotten cantata.

A research project by Jan Dewilde & Stijn Saveniers — Justus Grimm (supervisor)

2018

Portrait of a woman with dark hair, wearing a white dress, sitting with her hand near her face, against a dark background with a hint of red fabric.
Close-up of a smiling middle-aged man with gray hair and beard, wearing a black polo shirt, standing against a plain white background.
A smiling middle-aged man with a beard and gray hair, dressed in a suit jacket and white shirt, standing outdoors in front of a modern glass building.

Souvenir de Malibran is a research project at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp centred on the Cantata in morte di M. F. Malibran, a collective tribute first performed at La Scala in March 1837, months after the sudden death of Maria Malibran at the age of twenty-eight. Composed on texts by Antonio Piazza, the work brings together music by Donizetti, Pacini, Mercadante, Coppola and Vaccaj: five leading voices of the period, each lending the cantata a distinct inflection, from solemn lament to final apotheosis. Like many occasional pieces, it slipped into near-total oblivion soon after its première.

At the heart of the project lies a new performing edition, begun by Valeer De Vlam and completed with the support of the Studiecentrum voor Vlaamse Muziek (SVM), which returns this scattered and long-neglected material to a state fit for performance. That editorial work bore fruit in August 2023, when the cantata was revived at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro after almost two centuries of silence: an opportunity to test the edition in practice and to reconsider a forgotten corner of the bel canto tradition before a contemporary audience.

Publications