part between 3:04 - 3:10 is absolute eye-opener, it makes you understand everything in couple of seconds. I though I know something about bel canto but after seeing this part I felt like I just discovered it and in flash of sudden enlightement I understood it's aesthetic and all magnificence. It was experience after which noone will ever listen to Bellini, Donizetti or Rossini the same way as before.
American composer Dominick Argento wrote about a dozen operas, but perhaps the more succesful was The Aspern Papers. Based on Henry James's novella, Argento changed a book about a writer into an opera about a composer.
The premiere took place in Dallas, in 1988, with some big names like Elisabeth Sönderström or Frederica von Stade:
Between Glinka and the composers born in the 1830s and 1840s (Borodin, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky,..), there was in Russian opera the figure of Alexander Dargomizhsky.
One of his operas is Rusalka, this water spirit of Slavic mithology, that was also used, famously, by Dvorak, though the sources are fully different. Dargomizhsky's Rusalka is based on Pushkin.
Richard Strauss was attending a performance of one of his operas abroad, when another composer, Vittorio Gnecchi, presented himself and gave Strauss the piano reduction of the score of his last piece, to ask for his opinion.
Four years later, both Strauss's Elektra and Gnecchi's Cassandra were performed. It's clear that both works share many features. When Gnecchi was accused of plagiarism, he argued his piece was written four years before. Meanwhile, Strauss kept his mouth shut. With time, Gnecchi's opera was forgotten, while Strauss's opera is still celebrated as a masterpiece.
Recently, both pieces were given together in a double bill, in Berlin. We can hear Cassandra complete in youtube:
While we wait for a DVD...
Natalie
Elektra liked this post
Héctor (Ettore) Panizza was not Italian, but Argentinean, though his parents were indeed from Italy.
He was one of the most popular conductors of his time, being the one leading the orchestra to the first complete performance of Turandot, with Alfano's ending. He was a regular at Teatro Colón, that was opened with one of his operas, Aurora, back in 1908. The libretto, by Luigi Illica and Héctor Quesada, was written in Italian, but the piece, a typical verismo opera, had been given more often in Spanish.
In the premiere, Amadeo Bassi encored the aria "El himno a la bandera", that is now, in the Spanish version, a kind of unofficial national anthem in Argentina.
This is Bassi singing in 1912 the original in Italian:
In 1991, MELODRAM published a Norma, with the following cast:
María Callas, Elena Nicolai, Franco Corelli, Boris Christof, Antonio Votto - Trieste 1953 (Live) MELODRAM
However, it was soon discovered that there was no such a complete recording, and it was a mix of several Callas performances:
Buenos Aires, 1949 (Callas, Barbieri, Vela, Rossi-Lemeni, Serafin)
Trieste 1953, with the above cast, containing most of the material
RAI 1955, the famous Callas, Stignani, Del Monaco recording
Roma 1958, (Callas, Corelli, Pirazzini, Neri, Santini)
Given the scandal, MELODRAM retired the recording from the market, and then published this CD:
that it's quite interesting to understand the evolution of the role in the voice of Callas. With the passing of time, this CD was also released:
but now clearly stating there were only 'excerpts'.
Let's hear Callas and Barbieri, singing 'Oh, Rimembranza' from Buenos Aires, in 1949:
Sorry, no DVD this time ...Originally Posted by Soave_Fanciulla
If Meyerbeer was the father of the Grand Opéra, Fromental Halévy was its uncle.
Apart from writing one of the major works of the style, La Juive, and other pieces, he was also an official figure helping other composers.
After La Juive, he was not able to repeat such a success, but some of his other operas were indeed quite nice, and received a warm welcome of the audience. One of those is Charles Vi, premiered in Paris, the year 1843.
Charles VI - baritone
Le Duc de Beford - baritone
Le Dauphin - tenor
Isabelle de Bavičre - soprano
Odette - mezzo
Raymond - bass
The story is about the events in France, during the 15th century, after the French Army defeat at Agincourt. King Charles is insane, and the French resistance turns around the young Odette, the King's lover, and her father Raymond, around the Queen, the refined Isabelle, around the Dauphin...
Halévy wrote for the best French voices of the time: Barroilhet, Duprez, Dorus-Gras, Stoltz,.... and it was a success, with more than one hundred performances in Paris until the end of the 19th century, as well as others around France. But in a few years, it just dissapeared from the repertoire, after a performance at Marseille, the year 1901.
There is no commercial recording, but it's easy to find a take from a performance at Compičgne, a few years ago. For instance, this is Marie-Nicole Lemieux singing "Sous leur Sceptre":
and this is the beginning of each of the Five customary Acts of a Grand Opéra:
Act I
Act II
Act III
Act IV
Act V
The priest Licinio Refice wrote this beautiful song, "Ombra di nube", for his friend, Claudia Muzio, in 1935:
One year before, she had premiered Cecilia, an opera by Refice, in Rome. With this opera Muzio also sung her last performance at Teatro Colón, in Buenos Aires. We can hear two harrowing arias from Cecilia, sung by the great Renata Tebaldi:
Margherita da Cortona, Refice's second opera, was premiered at La Scala, in 1938, with Augusta Oltrabella and Tancredi Pasero. Here is the beginning of the opera:
Margherita - Beginning
Refice was working in a third opera, Il Mago, when he died in the 1950s.
Verismo was never the critics's darling. But the degoratory remarks are coming usually from outside Italy. However, this was not always the case. Even in Italy, and in the 1910s, there were composers that considered Verismo a deadlock for Italian Opera.
This was the opinion of Francesco Balilla Pratella, the author of the manifesto "Musica Futurista", in 1911:
Pratella praised composers like Strauss or Wagner, while deploring Italian music's degeneration, unable to produce anything apart from "cheap melodrama". He was very aggressive against, for instance, Umberto Giordano whose music was "full of coarse melodies, and atrocious singing", but also attacked Puccini himself.
The only Italian composer he respected was his teacher, Mascagni, that was commended by providing the orchestra with a strong personality, challenging the unbridled voices of verismo singers.
Some of his recommendations:
- Take the young Italian composers out of the Conservatories, that had became mausoleums.
- An opera composer must write his own librettos (regrettably, this advice was very succesful, and not only in Italy)
- Make the singers another part of the orchestral tapestry
Let's check the result of these theoretical points, hearing Balilla Pratella's opera, L'Aviatore Dro:
Great cast. But just from seeing that clip, I'm not sure how interested I would be in the DVD.
Why not? I didn't watch the entire clip, just a few segments, but it seems good to me. Dark, yes, but this is the scene that is supposed to happen in the crypt.Great cast. But just from seeing that clip, I'm not sure how interested I would be in the DVD.
"J'ai dit qu'il ne suffisait pas d'entendre la musique, mais qu'il fallait encore la voir" (Stravinsky)
Viorica Cortez........Stride La Vampa (Il Trovatore)
I was mesmorized by this performance, cannot find a DVD of it but did track down this CD for cheap used:
Perhaps the best moment in Massenet's Don Quichotte is the death of the Knight of the Doleful Countenance. It's a closed number, with a plain, but beautiful, melody, that requires a measured performance from the bass:
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