About the work
La Wally is an opera in four acts by Alfredo Catalani, with a libretto by Luigi Illica based on Wilhelmine von Hillern's novel "Die Geier-Wally". It was Catalani's final opera and premiered on 20 January 1892 at La Scala in Milan, conducted by Edoardo Mascheroni.
Plot
Set in the Tyrolean Alps, the proud Wally loves Hagenbach, the son of her father's sworn enemy, while her father presses her to marry a suitor she does not love. Wounded pride leads Wally to have Hagenbach thrown into a ravine, though she then saves him out of remorse. Just as the couple reconciles, an avalanche sweeps Hagenbach away, and Wally throws herself after him to her death.
Cultural significance
The opera contains "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana", one of the best-known soprano arias in the Italian repertoire, and remains Catalani's most successful work, premiered only months before his early death in 1893.