About the work
Fedora is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano, to a libretto by Arturo Colautti after the play of the same name by Victorien Sardou, originally written for Sarah Bernhardt. It was first performed on 17 November 1898 at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, with the young Enrico Caruso as Loris. Giordano, who had become famous with "Andrea Chénier", ranks among the leading composers of Italian verismo. Fedora moves its action through the fashionable aristocratic world of St Petersburg, Paris and Switzerland, combining suspenseful drama with lyrical elegance. Its most famous number is the brief tenor aria "Amor ti vieta", one of the most concentrated declarations of love in all opera.
Plot
Princess Fedora Romazov finds her fiancé, Count Vladimir, murdered. Suspicion falls on the nihilist Loris Ipanov, on whom Fedora swears revenge. In Paris she draws close to Loris in order to expose him — and falls in love with him. Loris confesses the deed but reveals that Vladimir had been having an affair with his wife and that he acted out of wounded honour. Too late, Fedora realises that her earlier denunciation drove Loris's brother and mother to their deaths. When Loris learns the truth of Fedora's betrayal, he curses her; in despair she takes poison and dies in his arms, forgiven by him at the last.
Cultural significance
After "Andrea Chénier", Fedora is Giordano's most successful work and a showpiece of verismo. The opera is a demanding vehicle for great soprano and tenor personalities and contains, in "Amor ti vieta", one of the most famous short tenor moments in the repertoire. A curiosity: Fedora was among the earliest operas to bring a bicycle onto the stage as part of its fashionable Parisian setting. Despite periods of neglect, the work's dramatic force keeps returning it to the major houses.