Late Romantic Operas

[Alan Howe]

Hadrianus advised:

And don't neglect Respighi's less-known Operas like Belfagor, the lushy Semirama, Marie-Victoire (French libretto!) - or even his very early ones Re Enzo - or the two shorter ones I have recorded: Lucrezia and Sleeping Beauty.
But we could switch over one day to more unsung French operas, like the ones by Sylvio Lazzari (6 operas), Henri Rabaud (5 operas), Guy Ropartz (1 opera) and Eugène Ysaÿe (1 opera), etc.
Lazzari is strong music, listen to the recording of his Symphony I have made long ago - it's (unfortunately) available in full on YouTube... but the CD has been deleted...

[Alan Howe]

I have your Lazzari Symphony recording. Very interesting music, as you say. What can you tell us about his operas?

[mikehopf]

I don't know if Hans Gal counts as a late Romantic composer, but from what I've heard of it,  his fantasy opera The Sacred Duck is written with both Mahler and Korngold in mind. There are a couple of extracts from it on the Hans Gal Society website... mouthwatering stuff!  This wonderful opera was a great success when it first appeared and although it was  staged in Berlin a couple of years ago, to my knowledge, no recording was made. I hope that I'm wrong and someone out there has a recording.

[Ser Amantio di Nicolao]

Lazzari wrote a potboiler of an opera about a lighthouse keeper called ''La tour de feu'' - there are excerpts available.  I own the disc - as I recall it's inoffensive enough, but nothing specially memorable.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Apr03/lazzari_feu.htm - this says it's the complete work, but I seem to recall it being a collection of excerpts.  I could be wrong, tho'.

[Alan Howe]

Excerpts from this rather elderly (1944) recording can be heard here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lazzari-Courtin-Ballade-Naick-Paris/dp/B004FCSG50/ref=sr_1_21_twi_mus_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1457042313&sr=1-21&keywords=lazzari

My goodness, couldn't they sing back then!