About the work
Otto Nicolai's second opera was commissioned by Turin's Teatro Regio, which specifically wanted a setting of Walter Scott's novel "Ivanhoe". Girolamo Maria Marini wrote the Italian libretto. The premiere on 11 February 1840 in Turin was a triumph and helped Nicolai secure the post of Kapellmeister at the Vienna court opera a year later.
Plot
The Jewish healer Rebecca nurses the wounded knight Ivanhoe back to health, drawing the attention of the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, who abducts her and accuses her of witchcraft. When Ivanhoe fights and defeats Bois-Guilbert in a trial by combat, Rebecca is saved – but Ivanhoe loves the Christian Rowena, and Rebecca dies of a broken heart.
Cultural significance
Il templario was staged at more than seventy theatres in its first decades but nearly vanished from the repertoire as Verdi's fame rose. Its original score was long thought lost after being destroyed in the Second World War, until it was reconstructed in 2006.