After the success of Il Giuramento, Mercadante's popular appeal rivaled that of Donizetti and Bellini. Il Bravo, written in his new style of "reform operas," was another solid success for the composer. The genesis of the libretto posed the most difficulties for Mercadante during the creation of this opera. Marcelliano, Bindacci, Rossi, and Felice Romani all had a hand in its creation, although Gaetano Rossi is the most responsible for the finished text. The original story was taken from a novel written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1831, called The Bravo. The plot of Cooper's novel is highly complex, and was difficult to simplify into a three-act operatic melodrama. The content is both romantic and gruesome, strange, twisted, and involved. Rossi's source was a French translation of Cooper's work, and his resulting libretto is very difficult to follow. He had little appreciation for the kinds of Romantic images that filled Cooper's work and for the motivations which propelled Cooper's characters. Mercadante's score shows further developments in his reform thinking, as he expands his formal innovations and develops his large structural units from interdependent pieces. The first act contains only three numbers, which in turn consist of linked structures of smaller units. At the premiere, Domenico Donzelli, one of the finest singers of the era, played the part of the Bravo, and Sofia Schoberlechner created the role of Teodora. Il Bravo continues to be seen as one of the more original works created during the 1830s and 1840s, when Italian Romantic opera was first coming into its own.

© Rita Laurance, Rovi