Griselda

Abstract

Griselda is a lyric drama in four acts by Giulio Cottrau with a libretto by Enrico Golisciani and Giulio Cottrau. The first performance was at the Teatro Alfieri, Turin on 25 September 1878.

Percival, Earl of Pendennis, one of the brave knights of King Arthur's court, fell in love with Griselda, a simple shepherdess and in five days made her his wife. He fears she won't be accepted among the nobility because they laugh at him. The plebeian wife's affection becomes an object of doubt and her virtue considered a fairy tale. The gallant gentleman is furious, and an unbecoming provocation follows; a fatal wager, through which the husband is forced to expose his wife's virtue to such a risk that he ends up extinguishing every feeling of esteem and tenderness for her in his heart. He is too cruel and imprudent a husband whose vanity had consented to such a fatal trial. Griselda's old father, enraged, lashes out at the incautiousness of his son-in-law, but the unfortunate woman intervenes, receives the blow intended for her husband, and falls victim to her own generous self-denial.