Esmeralda (Battista)

Esmeralda is an 1856 grand opera in four acts with a score by the Italian composer Vincenzo Battista.

He had already staged a number of operas at the prestigious Teatro di San Carlo including Margherita d'Aragona (1844)[3] with the soprano Fanny Goldberg, the tenor Gaetano Fraschini and the baritone Filippo Coletti.

To a libretto in Italian by Domenico Bolognese (1919–1891) he composed the score for Ermelinda (1851), which in turn was based on Hugo's 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

The opera opened as Esmeralda at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 30 June 1856 under the musical direction of J. H. Tully[4] and with a libretto in English by Charles Jefferys.

[1] Choir of Archers - Gypsies — Nobles invited to the party - the Bourgeois.