Classical

Ruggero Leoncavallo - Edipo Re

2012-10-16T16:52:55Z

Ruggero Leoncavallo - Edipo Re


1. Edipo Re

Edipo - Giulio Fioravanti
Giocasta - Luisa Malagrida
Creonte - Luigi Infantino
un Corinzio - Dino Dondi
Teresia - Gianpiero Malaspina
un Pastore - Fernando Iacopucci

Orchestra e Coro del Teatro San Carlo di Napoli
Armando la Rosa Parodi - conductor, 1970

After a series of operettas, Leoncavallo tried for one last serious effort (Edipo Re), but he died before he could finish the orchestration, which was completed by Giovanni Pennacchio. From the 1970s the opera has had a number of revivals, both as concert performances (including Rome 1972, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam) 1977 and Konzerthaus, Vienna 1998) as well as fully staged productions at the Teatro Regio, Turin, in 2002 and the Thessaloniki Opera 2008. In Edipo Re (a short one act work) the composer uses exactly the same melody for the final scene "Miei poveri fior, per voi non più sole..." (with the blinded Edipo) as he had for the act 4 soprano aria from Der Roland von Berlin. It has been assumed (see The New Grove Dictionary of Opera) that Leoncavallo left the opera more or less complete (except for the orchestration), but Pennacchio may have had to do more and may have "filled in the gaps" using Leoncavallo's earlier music. Unusually, Leoncavallo did not write the libretto. The libretto for Edipo Re was written by Giovacchino Forzano, who also wrote Il piccolo Marat for Pietro Mascagni and two of the one-act operas for Puccini's Il trittico. ---wikipedia

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Ruggero Leoncavallo – I Medici (2007)

2016-11-18T13:33:00Z

Ruggero Leoncavallo – I Medici (2007)

CD 1 - 78’43”
Atto primo
01. Preludio e fanfara da caccia (Orchestra) - 2’46”
02. E nel papa un nemico tu supponi? (Giuliano, Lorenzo, Poliziano) - 3’39”
03. Tacita selva (Lorenzo, Giuliano, Poliziano) - 1’54”
04. No, de l’antica Grecia (Giuliano) - 1’59”
05. L’amore! Egli è la nuvola (Lorenzo, Giuliano, Montesecco) - 2’30”
06. Come amava il suo damo! (Simonetta, Fioretta) - 6’39”
07. Fiorin di prato! Sento fuggir dal cor (Simonetta, Montesecco) - 2’27”
08. Partì. Ma niuno scorgesi... (Simonetta, Giuliano) - 4’26”
09. Ninfa non sono (Simonetta, Giuliano) - 4’34”
10. Come poterti esprimere (Giuliano, Simonetta) - 2’42”
11. Taci, un rumor nel bosco... (Giuliano, Simonetta, Montesecco, Fioretta) - 4’29”
Atto secondo
12. Mosso e deciso (Orchestra) - 0’51”
13. Egli volle guidar l’ambasceria (Pazzi, Bandini, Montesecco, Salviati) - 2’26”
14. Perché pace durevole (Montesecco, Bandini, Salviati, Pazzi) - 4’42”
15. Laggiù! - Ascolta il canto mio (Lorenzo, Poliziano, primo e secondo cantore, la folla) - 6’10”
16. Che ne di’ tu? (Bandini, Salviati, Montesecco, la folla, Simonetta, Fioretta, Lorenzo) - 2’05”
17. Le mie modeste rime - Ben venga maggio (Lorenzo, coro) - 4’30”
18. Tutto è festa e tripudio (Simonetta, la madre di Simonetta, Poliziano, Fioretta, Giuliano, la folla) - 3’26”
19. Sì, canterò! - Le coppie s’intrecciano (Simonetta, la folla, Lorenzo, Poliziano, Fioretta, la madre di Simonetta, Giuliano) - 6’25”
20. Povera Simonetta! (Giuliano, Fioretta, la folla, coro) - 3’10”
21. Allora che più facili a noi sorridon gli anni (Giuliano) - 1’55”
22. Sì, questo nuovo palpito (Fioretta, Giuliano) - 4’49”

CD 2 - 46’21”
Atto terzo
01. Andante sostenuto (Orchestra) - 3’09”
02. Va’, rinfranca nel sonno le fatiche (Fioretta, la madre di Simonetta) - 7’23”
03. È là - Si scorge lume (Pazzi, Bandini, Salviati, Fioretta, Giuliano, Simonetta, Montesecco) - 4’47”
04. Gli eventi non arrisero (Pazzi, Simonetta, Giuliano, Fioretta, Montesecco) - 2’41”
05. Me lasso! Io che pensava (Giuliano, Salviati, Montesecco, Pazzi, Simonetta, Bandini, Fioretta) - 4’25”
06. Qualcuno è là. Chi sei?... (Montesecco, Simonetta, Giuliano, Fioretta) - 3’49”
Atto quarto
07. Allegro con fuoco (Orchestra) - 1’17”
08. Credo in unum Deum (coro di preti e ragazzi, Montesecco, Bandini, un prete, congiurati, popolo) - 6’12”
09. Signor, prostrata in lagrime (Fioretta, coro di preti, popolo, congiurati, Montesecco, Bandini, coro di ragazzi) - 2’55”
10. Muori! - Ah! Soccorso! (Pazzi, Giuliano, Fioretta, Lorenzo, donne del popolo, congiurati, Bandini, Montesecco, popolo, Poliziano, i quattro della scorta) - 2’41”
11. Da lunga pezza i Medici (Lorenzo, popolo) - 3’42”
12. All’Arno! A morte! (popolo, Fioretta, Lorenzo, Giuliano) - 3’10”

Giuliano de’ Medici - Plácido Domingo
Lorenzo de’ Medici - Carlos Álvarez
Simonetta Cattanei - Daniela Dessì
Fioretta de’ Gori - Renata Lamanda
Giambattista da Montesecco - Eric Owens
Francesco Pazzi - Vitalij Kowaljow (Виталий Ковалёв)
Bernardo Bandini - Carlo Bosi
L’Arcivescovo Salviati - Arutjun Kotchinian  (Арутюн Кочинян)
Il Poliziano - Fabio Maria Capitanucci
La madre di Simonetta - Debora Beronesi
Primo cantore popolare - Angelo Antonio Poli
Secondo cantore popolare - Alex Esposito
Un prete - Alessandro Luongo
Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Chorus Master - Piero Monti

Coro di Voci Bianche della Scuola di Musica di Fiesole
Chorus Master - Joan Yakkey

Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Conductor - Alberto Veronesi
Florence, Teatro Comunale; July 2007)

The extensive booklet essay by Michele Girardi tells us that Leoncavallo, unusually among Italian composers, came from a moneyed and cultured background. He had first-rate teachers of piano and opera composition at Naples then moved to Bologna, the centre of academic excellence in Italy, where he broadened his learning with studies in literature and philosophy. He also doubtless immersed himself in the discussions about Wagner’s operas in a city that had hosted the first Italian performance of the German giant’s works with Lohengrin in 1871. Without the urgent necessity to get out and earn his corn, he had a tendency to hatch ambitious plans. He did however realise his early Chatterton for which, like Wagner, he wrote both libretto and music.

In his dreams, and encouraged by the great baritone Victor Maurel, creator of Verdi’s Iago and Falstaff, Leoncavallo plotted a trilogy of works called Crepusculum, the first part of which is I Medici. The second and third parts remained unwritten, as Leoncavallo suddenly, in 1892, became world famous as the composer of I Pagliacci. This epitome of Italian verismo opera scored an overwhelming success at its premiere in Milan in 1892.

The story of I Medici has some relationship with historical fact around the end of the fifteenth century. It revolves mainly around the love triangle involving Simonetta, Giuliano de' Medici and Fioretta. Complications come with Fioretta revealing she is pregnant whilst Simonetta is Giuliano’s representation of ideal love. However, that love is never consummated because of her fragile health with tuberculosis. This overwhelms her in the third act finale. The second strand of the story revolves around a conspirators’ plot involving the two Medici brothers and which involves the death of Giuliano in the last act.

The musical demands in I Medici, and particularly on the tenor singer of Giuliano, can be gauged from the casting at the premiere of the great Tamagno, creator of Verdi’s Otello. Herein, I suspect, lies the reason for this recording, which is the second to appear of Leoncavallo conducted by Alberto Veronesi. The first, of songs sung by Domingo with piano and orchestral accompaniment, was recorded at the same venue (DG 477 6633 GH). I suspect that they were contemporaneous. Why the wait for three years for issue I do not know; perhaps in-house editing is in excessive demand over supply these days!

At the time of this recording Domingo was, if the biographies tell the truth, sixty-six years of age; long past the time most singers, let alone tenors who have been the sans pareil interpreter of Verdi’s Otello for more than a generation, hang up the remains of their vocal chords. As I write in July 2010, Domingo, never one to sit back and take it easy, followed this recording by performing the new role of Cyrano de Bergerac in Alfano’s rarely-staged opera. He sang staged performances at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Valencia (see review) and La Scala, in the year of this recording. He has followed this in his sixty-ninth year with the learning and singing of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, normally a baritone role. This latter assumption has just been seen, to acclaim, at Covent Garden on its way from the Met to La Scala. A vocal superman indeed!

If, in this 2007 recording, Domingo doesn’t sound quite the same as the strong-voiced lyric tenor who made his recording debut at age twenty-six, for Teldec, recently re-issued by Warner (to be reviewed) that is hardly to be expected. Importantly, he still sounds here like a lyric tenor who, if not needing to scale high C, can still hit the money notes without strain. He brings depth of interpretation, variety of colour and consummate vocal characterisation to bear on the role of Giuliano. There are only one or two contemporary tenors I can think of who would match this performance in this work and none who would bring such insights to his interpretation even if he was prepared to learn the role. It is a fach of considerable vocal demands and he meets them with conviction, dramatic intent and vocal aplomb as is demonstrated from the first act aria (CD1 tr.4), and many ensembles through to Giuliano’s death (CD 2 tr.12).

The role of the chaste Simonetta is sung by the Italian lyrico spinto soprano Daniela Dessi. Her extensive repertoire has included the likes of Maria Stuarda and Lucrezia Borgia as well as Mozart. In recent years she has specialised in the heavier Verdi and Puccini roles while maintaining vocal flexibility. Her vocal capacity is well up to the demands in range and characterisation of Simonetta. Her skills extend from the roles’ emotional development from her duet with Fioretta (CD 1 tr.6) to Simonetta’s death (CD 2 tr.6). Hers is an accomplishment to match that of Domingo. Likewise is that of Carlos Álvarez as Lorenzo, which he sings with tonal variety, strength, and vocal resonance. He, like Dessi has missed out as a result of the dearth of studio recordings in the last twenty years. His inclusion is particularly welcome here where he is able to exhibit his vocal and histrionic strengths, characterisation and steady well-covered and coloured tone. I cannot say the same for the singing of Renata Lamanda as Fioretta finding her dramatic voice too heavy with a pronounced vibrato for my ears. However, I recognise such reactions vary from person to person and others will be less discomfited than me. The American bass Eric Owens strays from his usual repertoire in contemporary music and conveys the villainous Montesecco well. His voice contrasts nicely with the other two bass singers.

As to the music? Well, in my household opera is often the staple of relaxation, equally enjoyed by my wife and I. Shortly after this recording arrived, I put it into the CD player. We were hardly into the prelude (CD 1 tr.1) when she enquired which Wagner opera this was, as she did not recognise it. Too simple in a way, but also indicative of a definite influence that is also present in the brief openings of acts two and three (CD 2 trs.1 and 7) and elsewhere. It must also be stressed that in most ways the music is veristic Italian, albeit set in the late fifteenth century, just as much as other works of the period. It has not, however, the distinctive patina, or melodic invention, of the more justifiably famous Pagliacci by the same composer.

The booklet includes an extensive, rather long and at times diffuse essay, titled Wagnerism’s Italian Inroads by Michele Girardi. Both this and the libretto are given in English, German and French translations. ---Robert J. Farr, musicweb-international.com

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Ruggero Leoncavallo – Pagliacci (Gardelli) [2003]

2009-10-23T13:32:00Z

Ruggero Leoncavallo – Pagliacci (Gardelli) [2003]


1. Prologue: Si puo? Si puo? 
2. Act I: Eh! Son qua! Son qua! 
3. Act I: Un grande spettacolo 
4. Act I: Un tal gioco 
5. Act I: I zampognari - Ah! Andiam - La campana - Don, din don 
6. Act I: Qual fiamma avea nel quardo - Stridono lassu 
7. Act I: Sei la? - Credea che te ne fossi andato! - So ben che difforme, contorto son io 	 	4:47 
8. Act I: Silvio! - A quest'ora... che improdenza! 	
9. Act I: Cammina adagio - Recitar! - Vesti la giubba 
10. Act I: Intermezzo 
11. Act II: Ohè! Ohè! Presto, Presto 
12. Act II: Pagliaccio mio marito - O Colombina, il tenero fido Arlecchin 	3:44 
13. Act II: E dessa! Dei, come, e bella
14. Act II: Arlecchino! - Alfin s'arrenda 	
15. Act II: Versa il filtro nella tazza sua - No! Pagliaccio non son - Suvvia, cosi terribile 8:35

Canio, Bajazzo - Vladimir Atlantov, tenor
Nedda, Colombine - Lucia Popp, soprano
Tonio, Taddeo - Bernd Weikl, baritone
Beppe, Harlekin - Alexandru Ionita, tenor
Silvio - Wolfgang Brendel, baritone
2 Peasants - Gerhard Auer, bass / Heinrich Weber, tenor

Münchner Rundfunkorchester
Lamberto Gardelli – conductor

Pagliacci, sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggiero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe. It is the only opera of Leoncavallo that is still widely staged.

Pagliacci premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on May 21, 1892, conducted by Arturo Toscanini with Adelina Stehle as Nedda, Fiorello Giraud as Canio, Victor Maurel as Tonio, and Mario Ancona as Silvio. Nellie Melba played Nedda in London in 1892, soon after its Italian premiere, and in New York in 1893.

Pagliacci was an instant success and it remains popular today. It contains one of opera's most famous and popular arias, "Recitar! ... Vesti la giubba" (literally, To perform! ... Put on the costume, but more often known in English as On with the motley). Since 1893, it has usually been performed in a double bill with Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, a pairing referred to in the operatic world colloquially as "Cav and Pag". Although this pairing has long been the norm in most places, some theatres have been very late in staging these two works together. For example, the Mikhaylovsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg presented the double bill for the first time only in February 2009. It has also been known to have been staged as a single work, as in the case of Washington National Opera's November 1997 by Franco Zeffirelli with Plácido Domingo as Canio and Véronica Villarroel as Nedda. In 2011, it was performed along with Poulenc's La voix humaine by Opera San José.

The UK premiere took place at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London on 19 May 1893. It was last given in that house in July 2003 in a production by Zeffirelli, Canio having been sung by Domingo and Nedda by Angela Gheorghiu. The US premiere followed a month after Covent Garden's at the Grand Opera House in New York on 15 June, while the Metropolitan Opera first staged the work on 11 December of the same year (along with Orfeo ed Euridice), the Nedda being sung by Nellie Melba. The Met combined it with Cavalleria rusticana for the first time 11 days later on 22 December. Since 1893 it has been presented there 712 times (most recently in April 2009), and since 1944, exclusively with Cavalleria. The New Israeli Opera premiere took place on December 19, 1992. A new production directed by Giancarlo_del_Monaco was staged there in December 2011.

As a staple of the standard operatic repertoire, it appears as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.

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Ruggiero Leoncavallo - La Bohème (1963)

2011-04-11T19:31:47Z

Ruggiero Leoncavallo - La Bohème (1963)



1. Atto I
2. Atto II
3. Atto III
4. Atto IV


Marcello: Franco Bonisolli
Mimi: Lucia Popp
Rodolfo: Bernd Weikl
Musette: Alexandrina Milcheva
Schaunard: Alan Titus
Barbemuche: Alexander Malta
Visconte Paolo: Jörn W. Wilsing
Gustavo Colline: Raimund Grumbach
Gaudenzio: Friedrich Lenz
Durand: Norbert Orth
Il Signore: Albert Gassner
Eufemia: Sofia Lis

Münchner Rundfunkorchester
Heinz Wallberg

Puccini's "La Boheme" was produced in Turin on February 1, 1896. Although Leoncavallo seems to have begun writing first, his opera followed in Venice on May 6, 1897. "Since that time," wrote Silvia Camerini in an essay that accompanied another recorded version of this opera, "a simplistic and senseless mistake has always been made: that of comparing the two Bohemes. Indeed, apart from the common source of their inspiration, the artistic personalities of the two composers and the consequent interpretations are so different and distinct one from the other as to render any serious comparison impossible." That statement surely earns both the fur-lined teacup and the leather medal for being one of the most fatuous statements in the famously fatuous literature of opera. How can anyone NOT compare the two Bohemes?

Bar for bar of the music and phrase for phrase, Puccini and Leoncavallo write in pretty much the same verismo idiom. Leoncavallo can match Puccini in providing orchestral lushness but seems less inclined to so so. Puccini has the better sense of overall structure, brilliantly mixing darkness and light in three of his four acts. Leoncavallo, following a simpler path, goes straight from two acts of giddiness into two acts of gloom.

As for the individual arias, sometimes the similarities get downright eerie. In Act II, Leoncavallo's tenor Marcello finds Musette's furniture in the street. He asks her to move in with him in "Io no ho che un povera stanzetta" (rendered by one translation in lumpy fashion as "I have but a poor little room.") Leoncavallo's aria has the texture and spirit of "Che gelida manina" almost perfectly but it does not develop from that point. Musette does not reply to Marcello in the same heightened manner that Puccini's Mimi does to Rodolfo and there is no advance into glorious duet.

Leoncavallo's "La Boheme" is a sound piece of work with some good tunes. Had it not been torpedoed by Puccini, it would probably be lurking at the edges of the standard repertory in very much the same manner as "Adriana Lecouvreur." As an alternative version of a great masterpiece, it should be in every serious collection of opera recordings, just like, say, Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor."

Ultimately, this is not the work of genius that is Puccini's, but it is brimful of skilful orchestration, lovely tunes and varied emotions and is well worth getting to know.

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Ruggiero Leoncavallo – Chatterton (1908)

2012-01-05T19:54:56Z

Ruggero Leoncavallo – Chatterton 1908

Thomas Chatterton - Francisco Granados
Thomas chatterton - Francesco Signorini
John Clark - Francesco Frederici
Jenny Clark - Ines de Frate
Piccolo Henry - Annita Santoro
Giorgio - Giuseppe Quinzi-Tapergi
Lord Klifford - Francesco Cigada
Skirner - Gaetano Pini-Corsi

Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano
Recorded in Milan, May 1908

Opera in three acts
Recorded in twenty-six parts.

It’s impossible to overstate how rare these twenty-eight 1908 sides actually are. No one collector or archive holds all of them. The opera was conducted by the composer and the process by which he came to direct the opera for the recording – fees, negotiations – are splendidly set forth in Marston’s typically extensive, splendidly illustrated booklet.

One of the most bizarre features of the recording was the doubling of the role of Chatterton. Tenors Francisco Granados and Francesco Signorini alternate the role; as to why, no one seems quite sure, though speculation is advanced. Signorini was an excellent singer and a thoughtful musician but Granados was a blusterer as one can hear as early as Charley! Holger! which launches the opera. Signorini was a decade older than his colleague but shows in his exchanges with Quinzi-Tapergi’s Giorgio how superior he is in every way imaginable. Annita Santoro is little known – there’s a paucity of biographical information about her though we know that she was born in 1885. Rather laconically the notes about her opine that “it is to be hoped that, in order to appear to be a young boy (she is Young Henry, a “pants” role) she intentionally adopted the sound she makes on this recording.” This piece of drollery relates to the very tight fluttering vibrato she adopts – most audibly in her Act II exchange with Chatterton Là…là…presso a quel tavolo. It is indeed a bizarre sound.

The other cast members are certainly of acceptable to middling standard; the orchestra doesn’t sound too well prepared and doubtless it wasn’t even with the composer at the helm. I realise that I’ve not gone into details regarding the opera as such – its effectiveness or otherwise or the historical circumstances that gave rise to Leonvacallo’s taking Chatterton’s life as the theme of his opera. That however is, I think, of lesser importance. This exceptionally rare set can give only a limited theatrical impression of the work in toto – and though there are some fine scenes it’s not a convincing theatrical work. --- -- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

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