Pavlos Carrer

In the next year, Carrer cooperated with the choreographer Andrea Palladino for the production of a comic ballet entitled Cadet, il barbiere, which was staged at ‘La Canobbiana’ theatre with mediocre success.

[3] However, the same year would bring a great success to the young composer: the three-act opera Isabella d’Aspeno, which was presented at the ‘San Giacomo’ theatre of Corfu, followed by a triumphant series of performances at the Milanese ‘Carcano’ (April 1854 and March 1856).

Both the first, a mature work with a strong couleur locale and sensuality, and the second, an opera with a marked national stamp, dense in traditional melodic patterns, are imprinted on compact disc and are accessible to the public.

[6] Along with his national melodramas, Carrer continued to compose Italian-style operas, such as Fior di Maria (libretto by Giovanni Caccialupi, staged at the San Giacomo of Corfu, in January 1868), in which realistic and pre-veristic elements are detected.

[7] A special place in his operatic creation is held by Marathōn-Salamis, an ambitious opera in four parts (composed c.1886–8), combining a Classical theme with a proto-impressionist musical idiom and a hint of Wagnerian unifying procedures.

[8] Finally, Carrer left a legacy of two unfinished projects, the national style three-act opera Lambros il brulottiere (about 1886) and the operetta Conte Spourgitis [Count Sparrow] (1886–7).

Pavlos Carrer played a leading role in the most characteristic evolution in the field of Greek art music that took place in the Ionian islands of the mid-19th century and concerned the first systematic effort of creating a national opera.