A Discovery of Linhart’s Translation of the Italian Libretto La frascatana (1782)

Abstract

The study is the first to discuss the opera libretto Das Mädchen von Fraskati, which was printed in Ljubljana in 1782 for the production of the German theatre company. Today the text for the then popular Italian opera La frascatana of Giovanni Paisiello is kept in the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek). A comparative analysis with another libretto has revealed that the German translation of Livigni's opera text was made by Anton T. Linhart and not by Johann Friedrich Schimdt as it has hitherto been wrongly assumed. The German text contains eight inserted lines in the Slovenian language. The historical importance of the newly discovered Linhart's translation in Slovenian is more evident in the light of the only previously known Zois's translation of the Italian aria "Preljube ženice" (It. "Mie care donnette").