Iris (opera)
Iris () is an opera in three acts by Pietro Mascagni to an original Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. It premiered on 22 November 1898 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. The story is set in Japan during legendary times. Background and performance history In common with all of Mascagni's full-length operas, Iris is now rarely performed, even in Italy, although along with L'amico Fritz it remains one of the composer's more performed operas. Two of the opera's most memorable numbers are the tenor's serenade ("Apri la tua finestra") and the Hymn to the Sun ("Inno al Sole"). The so-called "aria della piovra" ("Octopus aria"), "Un dì, ero piccina", where Iris describes a screen she had seen in a Buddhist temple when she was a child, depicting an octopus coiling its tentacles around a young woman, is a rare Western use of the popular Japanese tentacle erotica (shokushu goukan, 触手強姦, "tentacle violation") tradition, exemplified in the print The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (1814) by Hokusai. Roles Synopsis Act 1 The opera begins with an invisible choir singing a "Hymn to the Sun", the second best-known piece in the opera. However, it should be called "Hymn of the Sun", since