La trascrizione e revisione della partitura de I Goti di Stefano Gobatti (The score transcription and revision of Stefano Gobatti’s I Goti, in "Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana", XLV, XV nuova serie, 3, luglio-settembre 2011, pp.391-443.


During the 1870s, Stafano Gobatti experienced a period of great popularity when his first opera I Goti, premiered at the Teatro Comunale in December 1873, met with such a popular success so as to be remembered by historians as one of the most extraordinary hits in the whole history of melodrama. Gobatti was born in Bergantino, a borough located in the most distant north of the Papal States (today in the province of Rovigo) in 1852; after I Goti’s success, when he was only 21, he was awarded the honorary Bolognese citizenship (1874), which had only be conferred before him only to Verdi (1867) and to Wagner (1872). Still too young and inexperienced to get out of the theatrical world’s allurements, Gobatti ended in being overcome by the pressures of the excessive expectancies and responsibilities which had been concentrating upon him. After I Goti had triumphally been staged in the most prestigious Italian theatres, his next works, Luce (1875) and Cordelia (1882) met with less success, while his last opera Massias was never staged. After a 25 year period of oblivion, I Goti were restaged in the summer 1898 at the Politeama D’Azeglio in Bologna and in the winter 1899 at the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele II in Messina, but after that they were not performed any longer.
Today we could listen to Gobatti’s music with a different attitude, without prejudice, and appreciate it in full. In such a view, a transcription and revision was considered as necessary since, similarly to Gobetti’s other works, it was handwritten and not unperformable in its original format as it lacked the specific single instrumental parts necessary for a performance.

Click here to request the complete text (Italian version only)