Zandonai and his Ilk It has struck me more than once that opera composer Riccardo Zandonais 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 DAnnunzio. 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 Ibsens 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 LHospitalier, 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, lHospitalier. Giuliano was actually dear to the composers 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 Zandonais 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 didnt 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 didnt distribute them: whether he asked to have them destroyed is something Ive heard, but cannot say for sure that hed do; or if Columbia would comply (after all, revenue is revenue). However, even from such a distance of time, youll see how interesting they are... The three numbers recorded were: La Voce Horrenda from The Prologue Non ho che un Nome (Love Duet) from Act 1 (double side) 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 wuth Merli and Rosetta Pampanini (see below>, and the soprano has the last piece solo.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 14:25:27 +0000
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