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Thursday, October 17, 2013

Sakùntala arrives in NY on November 19th


Teatro Grattacielo's 2013 offering for its one-night only, full-symphonic orchestra and world-class singers, is Franco Alfano's opera, Sakuntala.  Written in 1921 as La Leggenda di Sakuntala, and conducted by Tullio Serafin, the opera was such a success that Toscanini asked Alfano to complete the last scene of the late Puccini's opera Turandot.  A mixed success for his reputation, Alfano had a difficult time living it down thereafter, although his operas Risurezzione and Cyrano de Bergerac had some measure of success during his lifetime.  La Leggenda di Sakuntala had the ignominious fate of having its score and parts destroyed in an Allied raid during WWII--or so it was thought at the time.  This is a series of photos taken of the Ricordi organization after the bombing.


Undaunted, Alfano took the vocal score, which had been engraved and published by Ricordi, and re-orchestrated the whole thing from 1948 to 1952, making other changes to the structure and enhancing the orchestration, re-titling it simply Sakuntala.  Since it takes large forces to perform, this version was not often programmed, and at Alfano's death in 1957 it was seen only seven times.
Some fifty years later when the Rome Opera decided to revive the opera, Ricordi miraculously found the original 1921 score and this, the original version of the opera, was presented in Rome during their 2006 season, and it is this version of the score that will be presented by Teatro Grattacielo on November 19, 2013 at the Skirball Center in New York.

Original costume design from the first production