Teatro Grattacielo presents

Francesco Cilèa's 1907 Opera

GLORIA

​Saturday, September 29, 2018
8:00 P.M. 

The Gerald Lynch Theater at John Jay College524 W. 59th St. (at 10th Ave.) New York, NY

conducted by Israel Gursky 

---

with Mikhail Svetlov as Aquilante, patirarch of the Bardis
 Kerri Marcinko, as Gloria, his daughter
John Robert Green, as Bardo, her brother
Kirk Dougherty, as ​Lionetto de Ricci, called il “Fortebrando”
 Tanya C. Roberts, as La Senese
Stefanos Koroneos, as Il Vescovo

Jared Guest, as

Un Banditore

Teatro Grattacielo's Twentieth Anniversary Benefit Concert

[Click for full size]

Truly, you may never hear these rare masterpieces again, sung live and with the accompaniment of a full symphonic orchestra. Works by Italo Montemezzi, Franco Alfano, Pietro Mascagni, Riccardo Zandonai, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Umberto Giordano. Ottorino Respighi, and Licinio Refice.

Some of the music is from operas that we have presented over the previous twenty years, and some is from operas that we plan to program in their entirety in the near future.

Part I - Looking back: 1994 - 2014

Italo Montemezzi: L'amore dei Tre Re, Act I, scene 1
Flaminio - Wesley Morgan
Archibaldo - Ashraf Sewailam

Franco Alfano: Risurrezione, Act IV
Un voce lontana - Megan Monaghan
Simonson - Sephen Gaertner
Katiusha - Kerri Marcinko
Vera - Anna Tonna
Kritzloff - Damian Savarino
L'Ufficiale - Roderick Gomez
Dimitri - Raúl Melo
Il Cosacco - Stefanos Koroneos

Pietro Mascagni: Guglielmo Ratcliff - Intermezzo, Il Sogno

Riccardo Zandonai: I Cavalieri di Ekebù, Act I
Giosta Berling's aria, "La chiesetta triste"
Giosta - Raúl Melo

Ruggero Leoncavallo: Zazà - Act III
"Lei dunque è la Signora Dunoyer!..."
Marco - John Tiranno
Natalia - Megan Monaghan
Zazà - Aprile Millo
Totò - Amberdawn Scarborough

Intermission

Part II - Looking forward, 2015 & Beyond

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari: La Dama Boba, Overture

Umberto Giordano: Siberia, Act II
Duet: "La polootapa della Steppa d'Omsk?"
Stephana - Tiffany Abban
Il Cosacco - Roderick Gomez
Il Capitano - Stefanos Koroneos
Vassili - Raúl Melo

Ottorino Respighi: Belfagor, Act I
Ipsilonne's aria, "Alichino, lo vedi"
Ipsilonne - Stefanos Koroneos

Licinio Refice: Cecilia, Episodo III, Scene 2
Cecilia's Death, "Grazie, sorelle"
Cecilia - Aprile Millo

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Il Campiello, Act III
Finale - "Biondi, Venezia cara"
Gasparina - Megan Monaghan

The Special Sauce that is Verismo

We mourn the passing of tenor Carlo Bergonzi this week, an enormously talented singer who began his career as a baritone, then changed to the more heroic register, not only because the parts lay better in his range, but the parts were better in the operas. We can only agree with that, and are thankful that he did change, as his warm, emotional singing enriched the world of opera for many years. And what role did Bergonzi sing in his tenor debut? Not Rhadamès, not Alfredo, (although he was superb in both those roles later on), but the lead in Giordano's  Andrea Chenier, a tremendously demanding role that is one of the glories of verismo, and one of the only operas of that composer still regularly  staged. 

And while Bergonzi was not considered a terrific actor--in fact, everyone including him seemed to agree on his lack of thespian ability, the role of Chenier is not particularly suited to histrionics. As a poet, Chenier is more intellectual in his expressions, and as such is a tenor role that can live well in the scene as long as the singer has sufficient expression, which Bergonzi had in spades.

And yet there are numerous examples of how downright visceral verismo operatic acting could be. Perhaps the roles of Turridu and Alfio from Cavalleria Rusticana are exemplars of that scene-chewing, breast-beating flavor of "the Grand Manner" which either thrills the audience or causes them to roll their eyes and bite their handkerchiefs in derision, if poorly done.

In this example from 1928, when Mascagni still had almost 20 years to live, we can see what a performance of the ending of Cavalleria might have looked and sounded like, this starring Beniamino Gigli, whom the composer favored, and whom he directed in a famous recording some years later.

Maestro Gursky takes up the baton for Alfano’s Sakùntala

 

Maestro Israel Gursky will conduct
Alfano's Sakúntala on Nov. 19

While a conductor is by definition a person who needs to communicate to many musicians with split-second timing, it’s clear that in order to be prepared for those electric showtime hours, it takes many hours of hard work—sometimes very lonely hours—to study the music and absorb all one can in order to conduct it when the time comes.  For the upcoming Teatro Grattacielo opera, Sakúntala, by Franco Alfano (1952, revised from 1921), Maestro Israel Gursky is not only poring over the score, but boning up as much as he can on the composer, the times in which the work was written, even the politics that were in play at the time. 

No newcomer to verismo, Maestro Gursky has conducted plenty of Puccini. “But,” he says, “the musical language of Sakúntala takes a step beyond Puccini's sound-world: The harmonies are more daring, the orchestration is more complex and the demands upon the performers - singers and orchestra alike - are ever more formidable." 

Originally written in 1921, Sakúntala was written during a period when many composers expanded the size and the role of the orchestra in their operas, and consequently placed ever bigger demands upon their singers. “One can see this In Puccini’s final opera, Turandot, which Alfano completed.  Puccini uses a very large orchestra in Turandot, with a big percussion section and off-stage brass, but the roles of Turandot and Calaf are hard to cast, with their long sustained phrases riding over the large orchestra and persistently high tessitura. One sees this also in Strauss's Die Frau Ohne Schatten, premiered in 1919, or in the operas of Korngold which were also written during that period and all use very large orchestras." 

“Just by looking at the orchestral score of Sakúntala , it becomes obvious that Alfano expected to have almost limitless resources at his disposal, and probably luxurious rehearsal time as well.  Take, for example, Puccini’s La Bohème: there is a passage where Puccini gives a note to the violas –and asks that  desks 1, 3, and  5 play one note, and desks 2, 4, and 6 play another. That means that he expected to have 12 violas at least. How often to you find 12 violas in an opera orchestra today?  

While last year’s opera, La Nave—also premiered in 1919—was a complicated piece, “Sakúntala presents even more challenges for the orchestra."  The instrumentation calls for a large percussion section, 2 harps, piano, celesta and heavily-divided strings: often divided by desk, and sometimes even divided by player.  The harmonic language is very advanced, often pushing the limits of tonality, and many of the orchestral parts are quite virtuosic.   "But while it’s a challenge for all of us, we are looking forward to performing in a new hall this year, the Skirball Center.”  It’s a somewhat smaller theater than in previous years, but there could be advantages to performing in a more intimate venue. “in smaller theaters singers often have more of an opportunity to sing softly and play with dynamics in a way that the audience can hear and appreciate.  That’s what we are trying to achieve.”

Gursky agrees with Alan Mallach, whose book “The Autumn of Italian Opera” states that verismo was the last great blooming of this artform. “Opera was a big deal back then, and opera singers - think of sopranos like Maria Jeritza, Rosa Raisa—were the big stars who headlined such difficult works.”  Today companies such as Teatro Grattacielo demonstrate that the resources are still there, and are gathered to perform this difficult repertoire, even if it is for one performance a year.

Alfano had a strong French influence.  “I hear so much of Ravel and Debussy in it,” says Gursky. “ especially Debussy's La Mer, for one, which also has two harps, and often uses the meter of 6/4; a rather unusual meter found frequently in Sakúntala.  The ballet music which begins the third act of Sakúntala even quotes one of the themes from the 2^ndmovement of La Mer.  There's no question that Debussy’s sound-world was in Alfano's mind while composing Sakúntala.”  

 

“In a way, Teatro Grattacielo is presenting a slice of musical history, of a musical style that was prominent before World War II,  and since then is encountered less often.  But during that time, those pieces were at the forefront of the artform.” 

Maestro Israel Gursky will conduct Franco Alfano’s masterpiece, Sakúntala, on November 19, at the Skirball Center in New York, at 8 p.m.  For more information, see www.grattacielo.org.

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

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.

Tonight at 8 PM -- Two operatic rarities

This evening Teatro Grattacielo will present two one-act operatic rarities: I Compagnacci from 1923, by Primo Riccitelli, whose work is seldom heard in America, and Il Re, a better-known, but still seldom-performed opera from 1929 by Umberto Giordano, who is best known for his Andrea Chénier.
Blogs are blogging about it, articles being written about the event, so all should be set for a full house tonight at Rose Theater, Home of Jazz - (although don't look for either a "the" before the "Rose" or much publicity on the venue's site...).
Tonight's performance will feature Jessica Klein, Joanna Mongiardo, Peter Castaldi, and John Maynard in the casts, and should prove to be a lively event. Libretti are online, and printed copies will be available at the door (but they go fast, so get there early!)

Agnese Riccitelli in New York

Teatro Grattacielo, foremost opera company in New York to breathe new life into the deserving repertory of late 19th, early 20th century Italy, is graced with the presence of Agnese Riccitelli, the great grand-niece of composer Primo Riccitelli, whose opera "I Compagnacci" will be performed next month. Ms Riccitelli, an enthusiastic dancer and dance historian, has championed the work of her ancestor, and will be in the audience for the performance on May 24.
She joined artistic director Duane Printz at Restaurant Quattro Gatti last week, and met the production company.

"Riccitelli was a fine musical craftsman," said David Wroe, Teatro Grattacielo's conductor, "it's obvious that he studied with the best." As it happens, he studied with Pietro Mascagni at the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro.

Born in 1875, Pancrazio Riccitelli (Primo was a stage-name), was born in Cognoli di Campli 1875. At the Rossini Conservatory he studied with opera composer Riccardo Zandonai as a fellow student. It was there that he wrote his first operas, "Francesca da Rimini", and "Suora Maddalena" -- both of which are now unfortunately lost.

Riccitelli had the poor luck to be caught in the publishing struggle that happened in the Sonzongno family, which ended up blocking performances of his work, thanks to a rights dispute. Even though Renzo Sonzogno commissioned him to write "Madonna Oretta," which was performed to great acclaim, Riccitelli did not receive his entire fee for writing it, and the work was never published.

It was "I Compagnacci" that caught the public's fancy, and made Ricitelli's name an operatic byword in Italy. The opera won first prize in a national competition that was judged by Puccini, Mascagni and Cilèa in 1922 and then it was presented at the Teatro Costanzi, followed by performances at La Scala in 1923 and at the Metropolitan in 1924. Later, in November, 1924 "I Compagnacci" was performed on a double bill with Richard Strauss's "Salome" -- after the tragedy, not before it, as one might expect. It was lauded as being able to lift the spirits of the audience after Strauss's gloomy drama.

Riccitelli's one act opera was heard in a number of other theaters as well as on the air from 1925-1930. In 1931, it had the distinction of being the first opera ever broadcast in Italy over the EIAR network (which later became the RAI).

After many years sitting in a drawer, the opera "Madonna Oretta" was finally produced to great acclaim, with 26 curtain calls for the composer. For the next ten years Riccitelli took his two operas on the road, performing them throughout Italy.

Then in March, 1941, after an arduous life of struggling to get his music heard, and working on another opera, "Captain Fracassa," Primo Riccitelli died after a short illness. The war took its toll on his popularity, and the two operas that do survive him have not been heard since 1948.

Now Teatro Grattacielo is proud to present "I Compagnacci" again, for the New York area to hear and enjoy again.

Libretto for I Compagnacci on site

The libretti for I Compagnacci and "Il Re" are now on the Teatro Grattacielo site.

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.

Teatro Grattacielo's Opera in Concert for 2011

While all the details aren't in yet, Teatro Grattacielo has announced that next year's opera-in-concert will be a double bill of one-acts: "Il Re" by Umberto Giordano and "I Compagnacci", a very seldom heard work of Italian composer Primo Riccitelli.


Both operas are available on CD, and as was done last year, the libretto will be posted online at www.grattacielo.org. Sign up for the newsletter, follow us on Twitter and keep watching our blog for more information as cast, time and place become definite.


More on Riccitelli and I Compagnacci in Italian here.
More information on Il Re and Giordano here.

Zandonai and his Ilk

It has struck me more than once that opera composer Riccardo Zandonai's last librettist was named after one of my literary namesakes, Emilio Mucci; I have actually found a recording (on Columbia) of a song for which he was the lyricist that I will have to do more research on. But Zandonai is one of those maverick composers who stubbornly refuses to be appreciated by the public, especially in America. His work was, during his lifetime, well-received and promulgated throughout Europe. He wrote 12 operas, the last one sadly left unfinished. Today if anyone knows of him, it is for Francesca da Rimini, a hugely romantic work with libretto by no less than Gabriele D'Annunzio. And while I think this is a lovely piece that should be performed more often, Zandonai was not the one-opera kind of guy. His work is enormously varied, always entertaining, often quite moving. Moreso, his sense of theater is unique in the veristic composers: quite often they were terrific technicians, but once seen on the stage, required the audience to linger in attention in order to savor the emotional kernels that lurk within.
A recent discovery for me was receiving a photocopy of the score to his opera Giuliano, (his eighth opera, from 1928). This is a mature work, written after the operas Zandonistas crave (I Cavalieri di Ekebú, Francesca), yet no one has performed it much at all since the première. In essence, it was one of the few bombs he wrote. I had always assumed that it was a story about the Emperor Julian (known as the Apostate: after all, the subject of Ibsen's play Emperor & Galilean; the terrific novel Julian by Gore Vidal; the opera Der Apostat (1924) by the composer and conductor Felix Weingartner; even The Death of the Gods (Julian the Apostate) (1895) by the Russian Symbolist poet, Dmitri Merezhkovsky—were all examples). However, reading through the music, nothing in it seemed to say anything about ancient Rome or apostasy or Gore Vidal. Astonishingly enough, it turns out that this opera by Zandonai is based on the tale of Saint Julien, known not as the Apostate, but "L'Hospitalier", subject of a story by Flaubert, which in turn was based on works by Jacobus de Voragine, a 13th century Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa. This story was also subject of an opera written in 1888 by Camille Erlanger, with the same title as the Flaubert story, "La légende de Saint Julien, l'Hospitalier."
Giuliano was actually dear to the composer's heart, and he was terribly disappointed that the Ricordi, his publisher, did not promote it well, nor the opera houses perform it frequently, nor the public clamor for it. However, it was anomalous for Zandonai in that the original cast recorded three selections from it. Very little of Zandonai's arias were recorded at all, even Francesca, nonetheless from more obscure works. And I suppose I tip my cards here, because the composer really was more of an Italian Wagnerista in many ways; he didn't write arias, and his extended scenes were difficult to chop up and record in any case. Even Pietro Mascagni had that problem, with very few recordings made the more his works became music-dramas rather than number-operas.
The other odd thing about the Giuliano recordings is that Zandonai apparently detested them. This I do not understand. While they do exhibit that flat sound of 1920s recordings, this was made after 1923, so that they used microphones, and the audio response was quite good; the performances sound exciting and extremely dramatic to me. Exactly what Zandonai was complaining about I cannot say, but apparently he went to some lengths to see that Columbia didn't distribute them: whether he asked to have them destroyed is something I've heard, but cannot say for sure that he'd do; or if Columbia would comply (after all, revenue is revenue). However, even from such a distance of time, you'll see how interesting they are...
The three numbers recorded were:

1. "La Voce Horrenda" from The Prologue
2. "Non ho che un Nome (Love Duet)" from Act 1 (double side)
3. "La Dolce Nienta" from Act 2

Notice that there is a Prologue, Two Acts, and an Epilogue, even though it is quite a short opera to have such grand appendages. The first number is sung by Francesco Merli, the second is the love duet with Merli and Rosetta Pampanini (see below>, and the soprano has the last piece solo.

Looking for Operatic Subtlety, Go Elsewhere!

With those words, Anthony Tommasini, venerated music critic for the New York Times put his finger on one aspect of the tremendous reception given to I Gioielli della Madonna on Monday night, 5-24. What a wonderful audience! What a tremendous event. Thanks to the very hard work of over 200 performers, led by the irrepressible David Wroe, I Gioielli really took the audience by storm. Right from the opening bars, with the hundreds of chorus members ranged on 3 floors of boxes above the orchestra, a chorus of children, a mandolin/guitar ensemble, soloists joyously pealing vocally over the top of it all - percussion, brass, strings, woodwinds - it was as though all of creation were singing.

Theatre Business, Management of Men

Those words come from a famous quote by Yeats, who was busy keeping the Abbey Theater together in Dublin. These days it would be looked upon as mysogynistic and sweeping. But ask Duane Printz what it's like to almost single-handedly raise the money and deal with all the daily trials it takes to put on an opera. Who was it said that 'it's a super-human thing to write a symphony'? (That one was referring to Beethoven.) But it is just as super-human, that is, beyond most people's capacity, to wear so many hats, be so many personae, to make so many decisions, sometimes with the implication of the outcome not at all clear, hoping that it will all come together at the last minute. Teatro Grattacielo's last production was fraught with cancellations, last-minute substitutions, illness, family problems, as was fervidly covered by Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times. But the production of Il Piccolo Marat was tremendous. The very wigs of some of the audience were blown straight back by the sheer force of nature that the opera brought to the hall, with unfamiliar music that was stirring, enormous, vital. Maestro David Wroe was in command of the forces that evening, as he will be on the 24th of this month when I Gioielli della Madonna bows at the Rose Theater in Columbus Circle at 8 pm. That opera will have similar if not larger forces, and should prove to be a marvellous evening. We all know that the powerhouse that is Duane Printz, founder, artistic director of Teatro Grattacielo, will not fail the operagoing public. The question that remains, is simply how do we make sure that everyone knows about it who'd be interested in coming to see it?

You are urged to pass along all the information you can about it - subscribe to us on Twitter, this blog, the eNewsletter, and pass the along to your friends who love opera. Because this one is one for the real, the true, the ever-faithful admirers of opera. It is an ongoing task to reach that opening (and closing!) night, a labor of love. To conflate Yeats and Frances Alda, Opera Business is the business of Men, Women, and Tenors.

Complexity and Simplicity

Looking at the score of "I Gioielli della Madonna" one is struck by the enormous complexity to it at times. From the opening bars, it is chaos unleashed. Street vendors in Naples are shouting out their wares for sale, children are passing, choruses of townsfolk are commenting, Greek-chorus-like in the manner that all opening choruses act, a piper is piping, mandolins erratically enter and disappear. Truly it is a musical collage that fits together roughly with great effectiveness. If you can read music, take a look at the score, here (click on the bottom snippet to launch), and see what I mean.

And yet if you look at it, it's not the Schoenberg or Boulez manner of being complex. The meter is steady; the rhythms fit together well; it has 'windows' of visibility in it so that the layers can be heard. Very skillfully done. Then it all thins out when soloists come in, and lo and behold, there is a theme we hear! A theme that comes back again and again during the opera, which binds it all together. A simple, falling theme the kind of which has been known and loved since the days of Mozart.

Many of the canzones in the opera are ultra-simplistic: little waltzes, stornellos, serenades, many of which might have stepped from an operetta or an opéra-comique. Jostled side by side, it makes for an even more terrifying story. So much horror beside such common, quotidian melodies. It makes one very uncomfortable.

The ending, during which Gennaro commits suicide on stage with a knife he finds among scattered detritus on the floor, is accompanied by a celeste--the sunbeams falling on the jewels, on the Madonna. Enough to make you shudder.

I Gioielli will be performed by Teatro Grattacielo this month, on May 24th at the Rose Theater. You should go see it - there's only one performance, and it hasn't been performed in NY since 1926.

Intermezzi

In I Gioielli della Madonna there are two Intermezzi, one of which is torn from the material of the rest of the score, the other as though it were a piece from his trunk. Not that either one is inappropriate, but these Intermezzi were a feature of verismo operas, rather like the ballet in French opera. The first and most famous (discounting Carmen and La Traviata, of course), was that from Cavalleria Rusticana, Mascagni's 1890 shot over the bow for realism. That intermezzo had been written in 1888, two years before the opera was composed, but Mascagni had seen the Verga play in 1884 - and may have considered setting it as far back as that date. However, in the manuscript of the earlier intermezzo to Cav, which does differ slightly from the published version, it says as a tempo marking "imitating the prayer" - referring to the "Regina Coeli" ensemble of which this intermezzo is a reminiscence. So literally, did Mascagni write the intermezzo first and then retrofit everything else around it? Not unheard of.

In Wolf-Ferrari's case, there is no evidence that the slower intermezzo was written earlier, but it sounds as though it were referring to something else altogether. There are several YouTube versions of it. The Serenata Intermezzo which imitates not the prayer, but the ribald serenade that Rafaele sings to Maliella in the second act of the opera, seems more at home in the score, but is evocative in a playful way that seems to say that the composer is taking the side of the ruffian, not the moral center of the drama. That version is also rife on the Tube. (Thinking back to Bizet, it is hard not to compare this piece with one of the last Entrac'tes in Carmen, even down to the last two notes.) Perhaps each intermezzo is, then, a reflection of the characters in the opera, the men who are keen on gaining the attentions of Maliella.

Were there any doubt that the opera has moments of orchestral brilliance, there is also a Camorrist dance -- think of that, a sort of mafioso apache dance--that keeps the excitement up. Again, on line. Tell me that first part of it doesn't sound like it came from a draft of Carmen! (You may feel, 'all this needs is a tambourine' -- you don't have long to wait.)

Well, let us hope that the audience doesn't agree with the characters that sing in La Bohème, "Quest'intermezzi me fai morrir d'inedia."

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.