Scraping the Rust off Berezovsky’s Demofoonte

Abstract

Maxim Berezovsky’s Demofoonte is regarded as the first opera written by a Russian composer, as it was staged in Livorno, Italy in 1773. The lack of information surrounding its performance(s) is severe and the material that has come down to us is nothing but four arias reported in a Florentine manuscript. Due to this document and a couple others, other scholars have inferred that Berezovsky’s Demofoonte had at least another representation in Florence. Based on unnoticed bibliographical references and a personal evaluation of the manuscript, I argue instead that sources have been misinterpreted, thus confining in Livorno its only representation. I also show that Berezovsky re-worked one of the four arias from a previous setting of the same lyrics by Antonio Sacchini. This unique situation allows to see how Berezovsky, a Russian composer, moulded in an Italianate fashion a previous work written by Sacchini in his highly idiosyncratic, personal style.