While I Compagnacci and its composer, Primo Riccitelli, is not a staple in the operatic currency, the music is lively and very accessible, and the story, which is by Giovacchino Forzano, is one that is surprisingly multi-dimensional and compelling as a play, and makes for thrilling opera as well. In one act, it is a highly compressed action-packed love story, as well as a black comedy. To appreciate the latter aspect, one needs to be somewhat acquainted with the story of Savaranola, the 15th century Italian Dominican friar who was known for his radical ideas, seeing Florence as being corrupt under Pope Alexander VI. He advocated book burning (known as the "Bonfire of the Vanities", destroying art he considered to be "immoral" and spread his opinions as to how the Renaissance ought to glorify Italy not destroy it.
On May 13, 1497, Savonarola was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI, and in 1498, Alexander demanded his arrest and execution. Savonarola and two followers were tortured on the rack, the torturers sparing only Savonarola’s right arm in order that he might be able to sign his confession. On the day of his execution, Savonarola was taken out to the Piazza della Signoria along with Fra Silvestro and Fra Domenico da Pescia. The three were ritually stripped of their clerical vestments, degraded as "heretics and schismatics", and given over to the secular authorities to be burned. The three were hanged in chains from a single cross and an enormous fire was lit beneath them. They were thereby executed in the same place where the "Bonfire of the Vanities" had been lit. It was a particularly grisly end to a church reformer who tried to scale back the excesses of one of the Borgia popes. How on earth does one use such gruesome details to make a comedy, albeit a very black one?
Forzano (who also wrote the libretto to Il Re), was a very clever librettist, author, playwright, and director. He wrote libretti for Puccini (Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi), Mascagni (Il Piccolo Marat, Lodoletta), as well as Franchetti, Leoncavallo, and Giordano.
Forzano was a force of nature. Born in 1884, he lived a long life, dying in 1970. A Florentine, it is of note that he enjoyed setting works in historical Florence such as Gianni Schicchi and I Compagnacci. He was a feisty guy, with a mind of his own. Mascagni, no slouch in the individualist department, couldn't get along with him, and while Forzano was with Puccini working on rehearsals of Schicchi, asked his old librettist from Cavalleria Rusticana to complete the libretto for Il Piccolo Marat, and to this day the verses not composed by Forzano appear in italics to set them apart.
Unfortunately, Forzano fell in with the Fascisti (it is always good to be an artist on the side of those with the money); and he actually wrote and produced three plays with Il Duce that were meant to be rousing studies in political life; one was about Napoleon, another about Caesar. Forzano's reputation suffered because of this, after the war, and were it not for his libretti he probably would be forgotten altogether except in Italy.
His film "Black Shirts" will be shown in April as part of a film festival.
