The New Life of Wolf-Ferrari

"The works of Wolf-Ferrari have become, for quite some time now, superfluous, prey to the passage of time. It is useless to define him, as his faithful student Adriano Lualdi (1885-1971) did, as "the man most unadapted to earthly realities…a nostalgic by nature of pure, uncontaminated creativity" in order to rescue his works from the severe judgment of 20th century criticism that, for its part, did not understand how or where to place the works of a composer who confessed to have lived as a child until the age of 40..." Carlo Todeschi's comments on the composer of "I Gioielli della Madonna," which we will perform the end of next month, are all too true when one considers WF's huge popularity in his day, and the almost total neglect of his work in the 21st century (a neglect that began 50 years before).

His cantata "La Vita Nuova"--a quirky work--(you can see the score here)--was performed throughout Europe to great acclaim, and was even performed at the Metropolitan Opera in January 28, 1912, not without some contention. It seems that the 'MacDowell Chorus' was going to perform the U.S. premiere, but once the Met announced its intentions, they pulled out, leaving the road clear for the bigger brother to show off: - but the ace in the hole, of course, was the cast, with Alma Gluck and Pasquale Amato leading the way, and none other than Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari conducting, his only appearance at the Met. The reviews were lavish, although the language was rather equivocating:

"Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's cantata "La Vita Nuova," founded upon Dante's text, was given at the Metropolitan Opera House last evening before an audience that crowded the building to its utmost capacity. And although the work is not one that might be expected to appeal strongly to the audiences frequenting the Sunday-night performances at the Opera House, it gave an evident artistic pleasure."

Wolf-Ferrari, for all the ferocious music heard in "I Gioielli della Madonna", as you will hear on May 24th, was a quiet fellow who had a rather delicate constitution. There is a story about him at a rehearsal of the overture to "Il Campiello" during which he painfully asked the violas to play quieter. He stopped the next time round and asked them very softly to play quieter still. I know this sounds like a 'viola joke' but finally the performers simply moved their bows and played nothing at all, and Wolf-Ferrari said that that was fine, but he hoped that during the performance they would play even more quietly.