UCLA

Ant�nio Carlos Gomes (1836-1896), one of the most famous opera composers of Italian Opera from the Americas during his lifetime, is still largely unknown outside his home country of Brazil. Gomes lived and trained in Milan for several years, starting in 1864, with four of his operas premiered at La Scala. His output spans the heights and collapse of the Brazilian empire, and the rise of the so-called Italian Risorgimento. Gomes’s operas are here situated during these transitional times in both Brazil and Italy. The focus of this study is Gomes's opera Lo schiavo (The Slave), premiered in Rio de Janeiro in 1889, and it reevaluates Gomes’s artistic achievements within Italian musical and dramatic traditions. Lo schiavo is shown to be not only an exemplar of contemporary musical practices; it points forward to verismo operas such as Cavalleria rusticana (1890) by Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945), Pagliacci (1892) by Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857/58-1919), and La boh�me (1896) by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). At the same time, Lo schiavo displays Brazilian influences, broadening our cultural understanding of Gomes’s creative output.An abolitionist and multiracial individual, Gomes aimed in Lo schiavo to celebrate the abolition of slavery in Brazil, declared one year before the premiere of his opera. On account of complex political developments in the country and because of references to the old regime in the libretto, the opera was not performed in Brazil in the following years, while copyright issues prevented Lo schiavo from being performed in Italy. Not only the opera reflects the subject of slavery during and before the time it was composed, Lo schiavo's subject also remains relevant today, as issues concerning racial inequality and conflict in both Brazil and the United States continue to be observed. In the four main chapters of this study, I situate Lo schiavo in Gomes's life and work, analyze key musical and dramatic features of the opera in the context of then-current Italian opera traditions and other national influences, and finally explore aspects of the opera that are distinctively Brazilian. With this project I aim to stimulate a revival of interest in Gomes's music outside of Brazil and to promote reconsideration of Lo schiavo, not only for its musical riches but also for its historical lens on social issues of ongoing importance.