About the work
Opera in one prologue and one act by Luigi Dallapiccola to his own libretto, combining motifs from Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's story 'La torture par l'espérance' with elements from Charles de Coster's 'Till Eulenspiegel'. Its concert premiere was broadcast from Turin on 1 December 1949, and its staged premiere followed on 20 May 1950 at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, both conducted by Hermann Scherchen.
Plot
An unnamed prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition is addressed with apparent kindness by his jailer and, encouraged by news of a Flemish uprising, is led to attempt escape. Reaching what he believes is freedom, he finds the Grand Inquisitor waiting: hope itself was the cruellest torture before his execution.
Cultural significance
Composed during the war years 1944 to 1948, the opera was conceived by Dallapiccola as a universal statement against tyranny and persecution, stripped of any specific historical setting. Il prigioniero is regarded as one of the central works of Italian music theatre after 1945.