Unsung Composers

I'd be very grateful for some recommendations of unsung verismo operas to explore. These are the criteria:

1. No historic or 'unofficial' recordings in inadequate sound, please. The important orchestral component must be heard in all its glory.
2. No scrawny-sounding, poorly sung/played provincial performances.
3. Please give some reasons for your recommendations.
4. Neglected operas by sung composers are permitted.

Here's a reasonable definition of verismo operas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verismo_%28music%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verismo_%28music%29)

One that I've always enjoyed is La Wally by Catalani. There's only one aria "Ebben..." that is known well at all, but I find the rest of the opera chock full of good tunes, swaggering orchestration, and plenty of drama and characters to identify with. The story makes staging practically impossible. The only recording I know is on Decca with Tebaldi and it still sounds great after 45 or so years.

Thanks. That's very helpful.

I would suggest "Louise" by Gustave Charpentier.
Reasons; the opera lives in its contemporaneity. There is a cute juxtaposition of the main plot with the Paris atmosphere, and the great city becomes a second protagonist. There is no lack of memorable tunes (even if only an aria is in the mainstream repertory).
My love for this opera is tied to the  impassioned and IMHO superlative conducting by Georges Pretre (CBS , later Sony with Cotrubas and Domingo) : by contrast I own a second version conducted by Cambreling (Erato-Warner, with a good Felicity Lott) which I find, in comparison, disappointing.
+++++
A second suggestion (but inferior).
Fedora by Umberto Giordano.
Here the plot is intriguing and unusual.
The opera (which is shortish) is a vehicle for a prima donna slightly (or overtly)  over the top, whom we have in Magda Olivero (her unique complete opera recording, apart from a remote Turandot- as Liù), flanked By Del Monaco and Gobbi.
We have also a recent imitation, lesser than the original: Angela Gheorghiu (with the ubiquitous Domingo).

Though it's verismo of a rather crude kind, I'd recommend L'Oracolo by Franco Leoni, an Italian composer who settled in London, where he even tried to take up the mantle of Sullivan by writing an opera for D'Oyly Carte. L'Oracolo, however, sounds nothing like a Savoy opera but is pure verismo. Its plot is quite incredible, set in San Francisco's Chinatown and involving two murders and a kidnapping, but the music is very tuneful and well orchestrated. Generally, I find the style closer to Puccini than, say, Leoncavallo or Cilea, in that it is more diatonic than chromatic.

There is a fine recording of the opera with Sutherland and Gobbi, conducted by Bonynge.

By the way, the opening line of a bass aria from the opera is exactly the same as the opening line of Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit song "Memory".  I have no idea whether that is a coincidence or not.

Thank you very much. Does anyone know the recording of Catalani's Loreley on Bongiovanni? Is it any good?

I have the Opera d'Oro (crude sound) not the Bongiovanni - but you can hear samples of many tracks of it on Arkivmusic site. Sounds like the microphones were set up in the pit! It's a lovely opera.

There are two concert performances of Louise by Charpentier at The Buxton Festival in July this year.  A very rare treat.

Oddly, I picked up the Prêtre recording of Louise just a week or two ago. It's a wonderful performance - Domingo is heroic and Cotrubas vulnerable. Marvellous.

The Bongiovanni "Loreley" is so so la la, as most "privincial" live recordings of this label. The older Gavazzeni performance is, of course, notable.
We could add to this list Giordano's "La Cena delle beffe", "Mala Vita", Marcella" and "Madame Sans-Gêne" - but there are only historical or more recent live recordings available.
Then "Pasqua Fiorentina" by Isidoro Capitanio (also on Bongiovanni).
What about Franchetti?
Mascagni's "Iris" (Excellent reocrding issued in 1989 by Sony CBS and reissued on CD. "Gulgielmo Ratcliff", alas only historical.
By Mascagni (on Bongiovanni) there are quite excellent live concert recordings of Mascagni's "Nerone" and "Il piccolo Marat" conducted by Kees Bakles with his Hilversum Radio Orchstra.
On Gabriel Dupont's "La Cabrera" (Bongiovanni), there was already the talk in a previous forum, as far as I remember.
I think, one could also conder Manuel De Falla's "La vida breve" a verismo piece.
And what about Puccini's "Il Tabarro" and "La Rondine"?
And Massenet's "Thérèse" and "La Navarraise"?

"La Cena delle Beffe" will be staged at La Scala the next season.(And it was staged in Bologna some years ago).
Personally I know only a love duet in a fairly recent Italian Decca recording (Daniela Dessì and Fabio Armiliato) and a soprano aria in a remote Lp: fine both.
Oddly enough I can't remember a staging of "La Wally" in Italy in recent times. But it has staged in Geneva and next year it will be in Monte Carlo.
I would deem the magnificent "Il Tabarro" a sung opera; almost sung "La Rondine" (at least much more than in the past)..
Personally I find at least excellent moments in "Edgar" and "Le Villi".
"La Bohème" by Leoncavallo is unlucky, but not negligible (the 1982 Orfeo recording conducted by Wallberg with Popp and Bonisolli is, at least, the opposite of provincial and ill sounding).

Thanks again. Just shows how many operas could do with good, modern recordings.

The best and most idiomatic recording of "Louise", I am sure, is  the one on Philips counducted by Jean Fournet,  It was made in 1956 in mono but still sounds very well.

I would also highly recommend Zandonai's opera "I Cavalieri di Ekebu"...my favourite unsung veristic opera. It grips you from the start. It's much simpler in style than "Francesca da Rimini"...much less Straussian.  Although a little uneven in quality, it is extremely melodic (and diatonically so) and not far below Puccini in its level of inspiration.  It's strong on atmosphere, partly because of its orchestration and added note harmonies. The Puccini opera it's closest to would be "Il Tabarro". There's a good live performance conducted by Gavazzeni.

Also, Cilea's opera "L'Arlesiana". There's so much more to it than "E la solita storia", an aria which, I believe, Pavarotti like so much that he sang it at all his concerts. It's a vivid and compelling opera. There's a good recording by Charles Rosekrans but the one conducted by Basile is also excellent...very well sung and surprisingly well recorded given that it was made in the 1950s.

Thanks. I'll pursue the Zandonai - very helpful. I can recommend the recent L'Arlesiana on cpo - very nicely sung and played.

In 1995 we had, at the Zurich Opera, a production of "La Cena delle Beffe" with Daniela Dessi in the title role and Giorgio Zancanaro singing the baritone lead. The tenor part was sung by a man who was out of pitch all the time, and the orchestra was conducted by a senile Bruno Bartoletti. From the prompter's box I had to give all possible cues to the singers, not to speak of the words, since nobody had really learned their parts properly: it was quite a nightmare... The staging was by Liliana Cavani (remember her film "Night Porter" with Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde?). Still, the whole was well received by audiences and by the press, in spite of the fact that musically it was a bore (music itself and performance) and that, instead of the Renaissance, it was staged at the time of Mussolini (Liliana Cavani's favorite time). She was a very authoritative person and believed herself being a genius; we, artists and assistants were of a different opinion... Being a militant lesbian, she hated men (and had to let us feel this all the time in a way or another) and was surrounded by a circle of closer female assistants, one among them turning the pages of the score she used during her work. Every time something went wrong during reahearsals, it was a mistake of the "male section". This is just one of the many souvenirs of my activities at the Zurich Opera...

QuotePasqua Fiorentina" by Isidoro Capitaneo (also on Bongiovanni)

Thanks. Sounds a pretty provincial recording to me. No?

Oh yes, Alan, but one of the better lot from the Bongiovanni repertoire :-)
It is performed by an orchestra workshop. The work itself could eventually be resurrected with better artists. It has many interesting and original sections; Capitanio was a very cultivated and eclectic personality. In this work he uses music leaning to 13th century madrigals - but also to impressionism (especially in the preludes to the two acts).

I'm interested, but I find that sort of recording utterly frustrating to listen to.

I am with you, Alan. I generally also avoid buying/watching live video Opera performances, although today they use highly professional sonics. Singer's grimaces and sweating faces in close-up can kill the atmosphere... A studio (or concert) opera recording is still the most desirable option. In concert, singers (generally) read from scores; the possibility of making mistakes is therefore considerably reduced - and you don't have to hear all those bumping stage noises... Audience's coughing, this is another story - we already had a post in UC :-)
Opera, still, is a living thing, and one should not avoid to enjoy its "Gesamtkunstwerk" appeal - and perhaps listen to a recording or to read the score before or afterwards. And, why not, artificial "noises" in studio recordings à la John Culshaw: I also like this way of scenic enhacement. One will never forget Regina Resnik's laughter scene and Orest's dying screams in Solti's "Elektra" recording! And I always have to laugh after all this loud off-stage murder took place (now I also speak about the loud orchestra) - after the audiences really were unmistakeably made aware what happened - Chrysothemis rushes on stage with: "Es muss etwas geschehen sein" (Something must have happened) :-)

I love those classic Decca recordings with all their fantastic sound effects. That Elektra is one of the great recordings. To return to verismo, what I want to hear is a recording accorded the same amount of care as those old Deccas in terms of singing, orchestral playing and sound quality. Some will say that we don't have the singers today. Well, has anyone heard Sondra Radvanovsky? I would say she could sing almost anything, such is the power of her voice. And we have Jonas Kaufmann, of course. It just needs a record company with imagination...

The question is not the recording companies, but the singers themselves, who should venture into more interesting and unsung repertoire. This occasionally happens... See, for example Netrenko's recent "Jolantha" (no further comment on this...). A star like Kaufmann is the first person who can allow himself to call opera managers, telling that he wants to sing this or that - they would generally agree. His agent would perhaps be less happy, since Kaufmann would need a longer time to study such a new part, keeping him away for a while from flying around.
Such was the case in Zurich during Alexander Pereira's epoch: it was also thanks to some singers that we had unusual repertoire. But Pereira himself was interested in unsung or less known repertoire, so we had, for example, an exciting verismo revival, focused on Giordano. An impossible piece like "Madame Sans-Gêne" was produced, with Mirella Freni and (alas!) Franz Welser-Möst conducting. We also had the great Nello Santi conducting his beloved "La cena delle beffe" by Montemezzi, which was a real triumph. We also had Wolf-Ferrari's "I quattro Rusteghi" (also with Santi) in an incredibly hilarious and successful production; we had "Le Villi" (with Mara Zampieri, José Cura and Giorgio Zancanaro), we had Massenet operas ("Don Quichotte" with Ruggero Raimondi, "Hérodiade" with Daniela Dessi and "Werther" with Alfredo Kraus); we had Dukas's "Ariane et Barbe-Bleue", Berlioz's "Benvenuto Cellini" (both conducted by J. E. Gardiner) etc. etc. It was an incredible time!

So it can be done!

My daughter works for Opera Holland Park in London. In the last few years they have put on Francesca da Rimini, La Wally, Zanetto, I gioelli della madonna - and this year they are doing L'Amore dei tre re. Not bad for a cash-strapped summer-season company!

QuoteA star like Kaufmann is the first person who can allow himself to call opera managers, telling that he wants to sing this or that

Well, Kaufmann did do Ekkehard before he was well-known. And he has also done Der Vampyr, Königskinder and Die drei Wünsche (Loewe). So perhaps all is not lost. Mind you, it might be if sings too many Tristans and Siegfrieds...

Sounds like you could write an interesting behind-the-scenes tell-all book!

Yes, Alan, and I remember working with Kaufmann in an outside-Zurich production of Paer's "Leonore"! That was, of course, not his idea, but Pereira's.
Martin H., yes I could, but I would get dozens of court case threats by some artist's lawyers :-)

Now Alexander Pereira is Intendant / Artistic Director at La Scala and has announced a re-evaluation of verismo operas.
Hence (I suppose) the presence of Giordano's "La Cena delle Beffe"in the next season.

Benissimo, Alberto
Let's only hope that Netrebko is not going to sing the lead :-)

An innocent question, Adriano: Why not Netrebko?

It's just a personal opinion. She certainly has great material, but the whole lacks a further artistic dimension. After listening to her for about 20 minutes I know exactly what I will get the whole evening and get bored.

..and her voice isn't always under control - it can be a rather unwieldy instrument. Her recent Four Last Songs was horrible. At this point in her career it's advisable to audition before buying a recording featuring her...

Alan, you just complete what I wanted continuing to say but did not dare :-)

The Strauss recording in particular has received far too much praise: it's as if the critics can't hear past her celebrity status. 

I heard this CD on the Radio - and found it a horrible pasta-making-like way of producing sound. I'd rather go back to a "knödeling" Schwarzkopf, even though one barely understands the words she sings on that beautiful old Szell recording - and the more beautiful old one (conducted by Ackermann?).
We use the vocal technique expression "knödeln" ("making dumplings") for what Mrs. Netrebko does (not only by singing Strauss). Not to speak about the stylistics and the German articulation! Barenboim seems not to be able anymore to decide/judge artistically.

Janowitz would be my touchstone. Or Jessye Norman, if you want a Flagstad-sized voice...

Oh yes, and both Karajan recordings (Janowitz and Tomowa-Sintow) are my favorites! Jessye's version belonged to my very first CDs, together with Karajan's "Alpensinfonie" and "Die Zauberflöte". I've got these as a gift, after posing in costume as Mozart on a motorbike and a young girl with a walkman behind me for a brochures and poster advertising campaign of Polygram... Must have been in the erly 1980... A pity that Jessye did not approach verismo roles (did she any?) - just to come back to the theme...

The nearest Jessye got was Carmen which has always been regarded as a mis-match. She'd've made a great Isolde...

Jessye Norman recorded Cavalleria Rusticana in 1991 in Paris under Bychkov (I own that recording).
I don't know if she sang the role on stage.

Am I wrong to remember that Solti was intending to re-record "Tristan und Isolde" with Jessye Norman and Placido Domingo? Thank God this never happened. Nothing against PD's voice, but please, no German repertoire!)

JN in Cav? I'd forgotten about that one. What's she like?

And I agree about PD's German - it's not good at all (no consonants). But who, for example, has ever sung the Emperor in Frau ohne Schatten more gloriously?

How about Pizzetti's early (1909-12) opera Fedra? Does anyone know it?

Yes, Piizzetti's "Fedra" is great. It is (also) available on the exciting ACCORD label as a concert performace from the 2008 Festival de Montpellier.
Don't forget Pizzetti's "Murder in the Cathedral" (after T.S. Eliot), which is available in an excellent Vienna Opera 1960 live performace on DGG, conducted by Karajan!! The only pity is, that the opera is sung in German - but by a bunch of stsars like Hotter, Dermota, Schöffler, Stolze, Kreppel, Zadek and Ludwig
I don't really consider Pizzeti averismo composer...

I've ordered Fedra - sounds rather more advanced. What are the influences? Debussy, perhaps?

One should never ask about, or look for "foreign" influences before starting to know an unknown piece of music. Just listen and enjoy; then you may try to find out - but is this absolutely necessary? I love Pizzettis' music, the only thing I cannot forget is that he dedicated one (or two?) works to Mussolini. As far as that is concerned, Respighi was more courageous and avoided any contact with the Duce. He felt dreadful after having been nominated Accademico d'Italia, but his colleagues had insisted... The most horrifying this for him was, that for this insitution's reunions, he had to wear an uniform...

I have heard again (after a very long time) Cavalleria with Jessie Norman. I am a very poor "opinionist" (not judge) about voices.
Anyway JN doesn't suggest a vulnerable girl (but this is maybe my prejudice). In any case with a huge voice she contrasts effectively in the great duet his tenor , Giacomini (rather un-personal in timbre).
I am going in June to Milano to see and hear in Cavalleria Elina Garanca (on paper not associated to Cavalleria, but I see she has sung also La Navarraise).
I admire and like Fedra, which appears to me, sombre and austere as it is,  the antithesis of verismo. While it is a very personal opera, Debussy appears the main influence; in the much later "Assassinio nella Cattedrale" one may detect also the lesson of Mussorgsky. These are the only two Pizzetti operas I know.

Thanks, alberto. I'll look forward to exploring Fedra.

Just spent the afternoon listening to Mascagni's Isabeau (Bongiovanni/Bakels: 1982). Anyone expecting Cav Mk2 would probably be disappointed, but in truth the idiom is considerably more advanced - and subtle. It's much more through-composed, but the big moments still pack an almighty wallop. The singing of American soprano Lynne Strow Piccolo in the title role is extraordinary - perfectly secure and lustrous in tone right up into her highest register - and she is supported very well indeed by Dutch tenor Adriaan van Limpt. The orchestra play well under Bakels who obviously has a gift for this sort of thing. Highly recommended to adventurous verismo fans!

It's great pity that poor Mascagni is more or less only associated with Cav and almost always tagged onto Pag. Nowadays some other combinations are being tested but no one seems to come up with adding Mascagni's own Silvano. Also no one thinks about pairing Pag with Leoncavallo's Gli Zingari which he too hoped would form his own double bill.
Four years ago the state theatre in Brunswick (Braunschweig) staged Isabeau - excellent musically but with a questionable interpretation. That is often a problem with modern stagings of mediaeval legends.
Bongiovanni/Bakels added Mascagni's Il Piccolo Marat to their catalogue in 1992 and musically I prefer it to Isabeau. Dealing with an aspect of the French Revolution, it's on a par with Giordano's André Chenier, so is quasi versimo.
This year's Wexford Festival are mounting Mascagni's Guglielmo Ratcliffe and having seen it years ago in Bonn, I can thoroughly recommend it. Tickets are selling fast but Ireland's Lyric FM radio station usually broadcast all the Wexford performances and they are also available for a while afterwards.

Thanks for those comments - and Wexford news.

I can certainly hear Debussy in the prelude to Fedra. I must also go back and listen to Fauré's Pénélope, although that post-dates the Pizzetti. What's most striking is the modal writing - which one finds in later Respighi also. A pretty radical opera, certainly - and quite unlike the verismo works of the same period. Very interesting indeed.

Of course, what would militate against Fedra ever becoming popular is the declamatory nature of the vocal writing. Essentially Pizzetti is setting speech to music - the lyricism in the score is mainly carried by the orchestra, which is thrilling when it occurs, but this is clearly a serious attempt to move Italian opera in a quite different direction.

I agree with BerlinExpat, Mascagni is much more than Cavalleria Rusticana.
Iris, L'amico Fritz, Isabeau, Parisina, Il piccolo Marat, Guglielmo Ratcliff and to a lesser extent Le maschere, Lodoletta and Zanetto are all worthy to listen.

If "verismo" is meant more as a time period/composers wave then I would recommend Cassandra by Vittorio Gnecchi, Mirra by Domenico Alaleona, I quatro rusteghi by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (which is very different from the spirit of the period, I gioielli della madonna is Wolf-Ferrari take on verismo),  L'amore dei tre Re and L'incantesimo by Italo Montemezzi.
Of course there are also example of verism operas which were first performed after 1920 like Salvatore Allegra's Ave Maria or Giancarlo Colombini's Jade (both not commercially available, I think).

Another unsung composer is Giacomo Orefice which most famous work is Chopin, Opera based on Chopin life (loosely) and music.
Not a masterpiece but I like to listen to it sometime.

Thanks for that contribution - and welcome to UC!

Some rather exciting audio excerpts from Colombini's Jade are available here:
http://www.giancarlocolombini.org/Jade/Jade.html (http://www.giancarlocolombini.org/Jade/Jade.html)

Jade is pretty good but it feels like it had already 50 years on the shoulders when it was composed.

http://orfeovedovo.weebly.com/20th-century-italian-opera-catalogue.html (http://orfeovedovo.weebly.com/20th-century-italian-opera-catalogue.html)

I understand. But maybe one should ask not 'when was it written?', but 'how good is the music?'

I agree.
Mine was just an observation.

It's one that is often made.

I have long wondered why theatres have so long avoided Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's The Jewels of the Madonna. It is such a wonderful opera and really doesn't deserve to languish in the archives. The new production in Bratislava has everything the composer demanded and really is versimo opera at its best. The large stage of the wonderful new (2007) opera and ballet theatre comfortably allow the mass scenes of the 1st and 3rd acts. The orchestra played with dedication and interpreted this fine score wonderfully. The singers' Italian wasn't always quite clear but they sang with emotion and verve. Surtitles are in Slovak and German. My only disappointment was the omission of the first intermezzo. The dates of future performances are below.

Maybe the piece is having a just revival. The theatre in Freiburg in Briesgau have announced a production for next season but it could be in German as no information is given about the sung language in any of their premières next season. Again performance dates are below.

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
The Jewels of the Madonna (Sperky Madony)
Hall of Opera and Ballet, the new building of SND, Bratislava
Performances in Italian:
Saturday 27. June 2015
Tuesday 29. September 2015
Tuesday 20. October 2015
Tuesday 1. December 2015
Friday 29. January 2016
Saturday 23. April 2016
Tuesday 14. June 2016

Der Schmuck der Madonna
Theater, Freiburg in Breisgau
Performances
Saturday 5. March 2016
Thursday 10. March 2016
Saturday 19. March 2016
Saturday 26 March 2016
Thursday 9. June 2016
Sunday 12. June 2016

...and it was given at Opera Holland Park, London, in 2013. Here's a review:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/10203891/I-Gioielli-della-Madonna-at-Holland-Park-Opera.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/10203891/I-Gioielli-della-Madonna-at-Holland-Park-Opera.html)
It was very loud, very exciting and way over the top. Verismo as it should be!!

Just spent the afternoon listening to Mascagni's Guglielmo Ratcliff in this performance:
http://premiereopera.net/product/guglielmo-ratcliff-by-mascagni-new-york-2003 (http://premiereopera.net/product/guglielmo-ratcliff-by-mascagni-new-york-2003)
For an 'unofficial recording' it's pretty good. The orchestra play well and the recording's clear, if not ideally spacious-sounding. The performance is a brave one: no top-flight voices, and the much undervalued heroic tenor Lando Bartolini in the lead tenor role - at the age of 66!! He has the notes, which is just as well as what he has to sing is quite the most taxing stuff I've ever heard in the Italian repertoire. I shouldn't imagine the tenor's been invented who can adequately sing this music - Franco Corelli would have been glorious in it, but he may have ruined his voice trying. Overall, there's just too much declamatory writing for the voices to make this an enjoyable listen. Mascagni himself reportedly thought highly of the opera; I disagree. Now that I've heard it, I never want to hear this bawling match again...

Thanks, Alan, all bad reviews should be this entertaining!  Have to admit it made me want to hear it....once....

David

Once is enough. Mind you, if it were sung really well..............
...............and pigs might fly.

Alan, and what about Mascagni's "Parisina"? There is an excellent Montpellier/Radio France recording issued in 1999 on the Actes Sud Label - wonderfully presented and with reproductions of a painting by Alexander Cabanel with perfectly suits the music :-)

...and the singing? I've read that the tenor is pretty awful...

Well, the tenor is not good enough, but, frankly, Denia Mazzola Gavazzeni isn't such a great voice either. She tries desperately to imitate the vocal tricks of her teacher (Leyla Gencer), but in vain. But she is an excellent musician and artist - thanks to what she could learn from her husband.
Tenor Vitaly Taraschenko is still better than many of those Bongiovanni tenors (except, of course, the ones from the Netherland Radio recordings)
Still, this "Parisina" recording has more - and many more - positive aspects that it should be appreciated.

My point is this: I would probably listen to this once to find out what the music is like and be so disappointed with the standard of singing that I wouldn't play it again. What's the point of organising an opera recording with singers who aren't up to the job? You wouldn't put out a recording of an orchestral work with wind soloists who can't play properly....

QuoteThere is an excellent Montpellier/Radio France recording issued in 1999 on the Actes Sud Label - wonderfully presented...

I'm afraid I'm no fan of these fold out digipacks where the libretto is on the last flap, in this case the fourth.

The cover states it's a first world recording, but it doesn't say that it's cut. I have the Editions Curci vocal score and can say that there are several pieces missing, including the whole of the 4th act. The Actes Sud recording's let out is that it follows Mascagni's cut, but this was only done at the insistence of the theatre management after the première. I read somewhere recently that the fourth act should in fact be twice as long as in the Curci V/S. Sorry, I can't remember where.

I have a recording from RAI Milan (conducted by Pierluigi Urbini) which is more complete (51 minutes longer) and despite its age (1976) is IMHO quite digestible.

Parisina isn't verismo at all. It's a music drama and I've always considered this wonderful work to be an Italian Tristan.

You are right, Alan, but you talk of yourself, forgetting that there are many other music lovers who have other criterias, or an inferior musical education. The show must go on: during my 25-year's career as an assistant at the Zurich Opera, I had to witness so many performances with bad singers, but the audiences applauded, and but one or two reviewers complained :-)
And there are also many orchestra recordings with players who are not completely OK. Even myself I had to cope with such situations and make concessions, or use all kind of tricks to make it sound better!
At the times of Ernest Ansermet I could attend to some of his recording sessions: the studio staff often shook their heads and asked themselves why on earth he could never get a better wind section. And look at the many recordings they have done and how they were appreciated.
BerlinExpat: you are right too, but in this forum there are many other operas mentioned whom I too would ot consider verismo pieces :-) And why could a verismo opera not be a music drama?

I have never (knowingly!) bought an Ansermet recording - for the reasons you yourself give. I didn't buy them back in the day and I wouldn't buy them now.

Sounds like the Parisina recording is barely recommendable - poorly sung and badly cut as it is. If someone cares to donate me a copy, fair enough. Otherwise, I just can't put myself through the torture...

By the way: I think there's a huge difference between a live performance and a recording. After all, a recording is intended for repeated listening. One might forgive a strangulated tenor on the night, but after repeated hearings one might be inclined to throw the recording off the nearest mountain. (Very verismo!)

QuoteAnd why could a verismo opera not be a music drama?

I really don't feel qualified to answer this question.
Mascagni calls Parisinaa "Tragedia lirica" and as it's set in 1425 it doesn't really fullfil the parameters that are normally used to my knowledge to describe versimo operas. My understanding of the term is that the operas usually deal with "everyday occurences" around the time of the composition. A new one to me I found on YouTube recently is Canteloube's Le mas which he describes as a "Piece lyrique".
I guess it has become accepted to understand the appellation "music drama" in terms of Wagnerian opera, but when one considers Donizetti used the term "Melodramma" to describe Torquato Tasso and Porrino used "Dramma musicale" to describe his I Shardana, then I suppose the term can be more universally applied.

For those who may wish to sample the Urbini 1976 recording of Mascagni's Parisina, I have uploaded the fourth act which is missing from Diemecke's 1999 recording.

The term "Verismo" applies to the style of the writing as well. Wikipedia has this explanation:

The term verismo can cause confusion... For most of the composers associated with verismo, traditionally veristic subjects accounted for only some of their operas. For instance, Mascagni wrote a pastoral comedy (L'amico Fritz), a symbolist work set in Japan (Iris), and a couple of medieval romances (Isabeau and Parisina). These works are far from typical verismo subject matter, yet they are written in the same general musical style as his more quintessential veristic subjects.  (emphasis added)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verismo_%28music%29 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verismo_%28music%29)

That's it exactly, Alan - and that is why I tried to start questioning and doubting. Musical dramas they may still be most of them - and with Mascagni in any case we must forget the music and just look at the story, if it's veristic or not.

I recall a review of Giordano's opera Madame Sans-Gêne (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Sans-G%C3%AAne_%28opera%29) making something the same point, I think...

Many thanks for the quote from Wikipedia, Alan. It's a pity though you didn't include the next sentence in the extract, namely: In addition, there is disagreement among musicologists as to which operas are "verismo" operas, and which are not
I'm afraid I can't agree with the statement that Parisina is written in the same general musical style as his more quintessential veristic subjects I feel Parisina stands alone in Mascagni's output. One can detect Mascagni's mannerisms in the score but in my very humble opinion they don't turn the opera into what is generally accepted as verismo. At over 200 minutes with cuts, Parisina is at least twice as long as the versimo operas I know.
According to Stivender, Mascagni promised d'Annunzio that he would set every word of the poet's text, but when Mascagni had finished the score he recognised the opera was too long. Before the first night Mascagni made cuts in acts 2 & 3 and after the première negotiated the cutting of the 4th act with d'Annunzio, a fact which the poet later refuted.
Nevertheless, Parisina is not so enormous as Mascagni thought. There are longer operas by Meyerbeer and Wagner, so there is really nothing to stop some enterprising opera house producing the opera in its entirety so that an objective judgement may finally be made. As Opera Rara are venturing into twentieth century opera with Leoncavallo's Zaza, may be it's something for them!

As suggested by BerlinExpat, the Parisina directed by Urbini is overall the best recording available yet.
Also respect for citing Porrino, a composer I like.

Depend on what you mean with "general" but in operas like L'amico Fritz, Iris and Parisina there are marked differences in the musical style.

The original versions of Boito's "Mefistofele" and Zandonai's "Francesca da Rimini" were, for example, also much longer. It was also Ricordi, the publisher, who controlled this.

Well, Mascagni certainly varied his tone and manner from opera to opera - but all within the boundaries of the broad verismo style.

Before you write off "Guglielmo Ratcliff" for good, I think you're listening to the wrong performance...and yes, pigs do fly.  Check out Catania (1990) with Vincenzo Scuderi, who sails through the title role like a house on fire, even interpolating a high C for good measure in the finale from Act 3; so much for the role being unsingable.  And no one conducts it like Gabor Otvos - an enormously dynamic reading. Sonic imperfections are irrelevant here; I can't imagine any fan of verismo not responding to this.
I'd recommend starting first with Acts 3 & 4; soprano Sandra Pacetti is excellent, and Elena Souliotis, though underpowered, manages to redeem herself with an unexpected reprise of her great scene near the end.          Best regards,  Gene Schiller