Xena Operatica

La Nave is one of those operas that has remained more in the consciousness of musicologists than in the repertoire of opera companies. Huge in scope, needy in resources and forces to perform, as a staged production it would probably bankrupt any company out there, even if it used a Met-Machine with dozens of flapping metal see-saws. Written in 1918 by Italo Montemezzi, it was something of a cash-cow for author Gabriele D'Annunzio, the king of decadence. As a play in 1908 it made a deep impact on the audiences of the time, expressing itself as a tragedy that used symbolism to depict the confusion that Italy was in, and had a point of view that Italy was a ship that needed to arm its prow and head off into the world.

The story concerns two families in ancient, nascent Venice in 552 AD. The Gratico family has won out, and the Faledro family has lost.  The Faledros have been punished by blinding all the men, and cutting out the tongues of the sons as well.  The two Gratico brothers arrive, one as the Tribune, one as the bishop.  At the same time, the Faledro's daughter enters as well, her name Basiliola. She is at once incarnate Salome, Jezebel and Xena wrapped up in one. Leading the two Graticos to believe she is not there to avenge her father and brothers, she begins to seduce them through dance.

In fact she inflames them so much they have a pitched battle between them, with the Tribune killing his brother the bishop; Basiliola is held up as the cause of it all, and is eventually nailed to the prow of the ship as a kind of living masthead as the Ship -- the Nave of the title is launched and heads off to conquer parts unknown.
Productions of the play, with music by Ildebrano Pizzetti, appeared all over Italy, and in 1912 a film was made of the blood-soaked story, the only vestiges of which seem to be a series of postcards - a major marketing method at the time.

Then in 1918, composer Italo Montemezzi decided to improve on his opera L'Amore dei tre Re, and jumped on the bandwagon to adapt D'Annunzio's epic.  No less than his publisher, Tito Ricordi adapted the 300-page script for the music.

While the opera was considered a success when it premiered at La Scala in Nov. 1918, it was Italy again that was the likely audience.  The end of the first world war was announced during the premiere, which helped its popularity, and the rather jingoistic point of view in the story prepared Italians for the occupation of Fiume, effected by D'Annunzio himself in military regalia, and four years later, for the March on Rome by D'Annunzio's rival and erstwhile friend Benito Mussolini. But the opera never found a worldwide audience.
In 1921 another film was made, one that seems more sophisticated than the first one, which still exists today and has a certain raw power to it.  It starred dancer Ida Rubinstein, who was second only to Isadora Duncan in international popularity in the dance world. Both play and opera stress dance as a means of expression in La Nave, much in the same way as Wilde's (and Strauss's) Salome. In fact, the temptress who dances to gain influence is almost identical in D'Annunzio's conceptualization of the story.

Hardly a man is left alive who has seen the last production of this opera. No one has heard a bit of it in concerts, salons, or retrospectives.

You must come see this work on October 29, 2012, at the Rose Theater, Home of Jazz, in New York, presented in concert by Teatro Grattacielo.

La Nave is coming . . .

No, it's not Fellini's La Nave Va, although you might think the story was derived from the fevered brain of the Italian film director.  Written as a play in 1908 by Gabriele D'Annunzio (who surpassed any film director's maddened visions), La Nave is a dazzling work that oozes with turn-of-the-last-century Italian decadence and angoscio (if that is the word they'd use for angst).

Italo Montemezzi used the play as a basis for his opera, adapted by Tito Ricordi, in 1918. With massive sets and large casts, it played throughout Italy, and then came to Chicago Lyric Opera with Rosa Raisa, conducted by the composer, just after World War One.

Set in 6th century Venice, the story depicts the debasement of one ruling family and the rise of another. As they pass, so to speak on their trajectories, a woman from the defamed family, named Basiliola vows that she will capture the love and affection, if not unilateral power, of the upcoming Marco Gratico. An unlikely pairing from the start, as we see her father and brothers, blinded, some with their tongues cut out, paraded by.

A massive boat is being built and is almost ready to be launched, an overt symbol of Italy's yearning to take part in the world's power struggle to colonize at the time.
With all the charm of a cobra, Basiliola works her wiles on Marco, dancing before him half-nude, seducing him in a pagan rite on the very steps of the basilica in Venice.  In a rather sado-masochistic frenzy, she shoots prisoners in a pit with arrows, and they beg for more, as though they were kisses.

At the final crisis, Marco becomes ruler of Venice and Basiliola, in an attempt to save face with a noble death, asks to be sacrificed.  In the original play she is burned at the stake, but the opera has an even more spectacular ending with her being nailed to the prow of the ship that takes off for parts unknown, to bring glory to Italy as a world power.

La Traviata it ain't.

And yet, it is a wonderful operatic tour de force, not seen in this country for ninety or more years, and never recorded. This year Teatro Grattacielo will be performing it in concert, and it is not to be missed.