Erik Bruchez
Tue, 17 Sep 2002 10:06:59 -0700
Jon H. Rydne wrote: > there's a discussion on "best lesser know operas" over on > rec.music.opera these days; why don't we Mascagni buffs join in and > give Mascagni's lesser known operas some PR? :-) Here is my reply. I can never resist plugging Parisina when I have a chance ;-) -Erik > Lastly, and I think the best of these three operas, is Mascagni's > IRIS. The opera must be some sort of allegory. The story is one of > the grimiest ever. The Sony recording offers some sonorous although > rather unenthusiastic singing from Placido Domingo and rather > indifferent conducting by Giuseppe Patané. Ilona Tokody is rather > sympathetic as the hideously mal-treated heroine. Mascagni's lavish > melodic gift is in evidence. His opening and closing "Hymn to the > Sun" is impressive. What is needed, though, are singers of the Di > Stefano / Carteri class and a conductor at least as vital as > Antonino Votto was at his best. This is a good picture of Iris. There really is not much reason for it to be "lesser known". It was even in the MET repertoire at the beginning of the century. Many other Mascagni operas would deserve more exposure (or any exposure, for that matter), in particular L'amico Fritz (gorgeous music, like Iris an opera on the fringe of the repertoire), Isabeau (daring and original), Guglielmo Ratcliff (Mascagni's first opera, brought to completion after Cavalleria), Il Piccolo Marat (the last opera Mascagni composed entirely - Pinotta and Nerone reused a lot of older music - impossible for the tenor), Zanetto (a gorgeous miniature opera that requires almost no mise en scene), Amica (not his best but a stepping stone with gorgeous melodies and a 10-minute long symphonic intermezzo - with a French libretto), Lodoletta (a beautiful opera, but the plot is lacking in originality), and Le Maschere (an homage to the Commedia dell'Arte, Mascagni's only comical opera). My favorite one though is Mascagni's Parisina (not to be confused with Donizetti's Parisina d'Este), on libretto by Gabriele D'Annunzio. This is a masterpiece that I hope to see performed staged and in its entirety some day (I am not holding by breath though). The Montpellier performance in 1999 was good, in particular because of the superb work of the soprano Denia Mazzola Gavazzeni and of conductor Enrique Diemecke, but unfortunately not only was the last act was omitted, but numerous other cuts were made. Supposedly the cuts were those of Mascagni "himself", but that statement may well be incorrect and at the very least would need to be documented. At any rate many of those cuts don't make any sense at all and I doubt that Mascagni would have made them had he really had a choice. Denia Mazzola Gavazzeni did sing the last act separately in 1995, under the baton of her husband, but those performances were never officially released. I think they were complete though. One needs to be in the adequate mood to go through the four hours of Parisina's mostly declamato recitativo style. The opera contains almost no action (although the battle scene, for example, was completely amputated from the Montpellier performance). The reward is music from another world, with incredible melody, harmony and orchestration. Some scenes, such as the end of the first act and third act with Nicolo, Ugo's father, are simply extatic. The Mascagni.org web site features an article of Alessandro Rizzacasa on Parisina (in Italian only): http://www.mascagni.org/articles/rizzacasa-200009-parisina/ See also the discography entries, audio excerpts, and libretto: http://www.mascagni.org/works/parisina/recordings http://www.mascagni.org/works/parisina/sounds http://www.mascagni.org/works/parisina/libretto There are lots of anecdotes about the composition of this opera which Mascagni composed mostly in France under the pseudonym of Ing. Armando Basevi, often in the company of his daughter Emi, his lover Anna Lolli, and his librettist, the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio. There is also a monography on Parisina recently written by Carlo Botteghi: that's more than 300 pages dedicated to the opera. -Erik -- Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]