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I recorded the radio broadcast last night, and have a ticket for May 12.  It IS a gorgeous work.  The second act is stunningly beautiful.  Wish I had an English libretto.  I did find that UA has the whole first act in full score available on their website, so maybe I can copy and translate the first act...a step in the right direction anyway.  ; )

John, it reminds me of a review of Korngold's "Lieder des Abshieds", where the reviewer suggested that after Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" there was nothing more to be said on the subject of "Farewell".  But of course any of the great subjects, including works of literature, contain enough of value to support many interpretations.  I love Strauss's opera, which was a groundbreaking tour de force.   But Hadley's work simply bring different images to mind, which are also very evocative, but in a different spirit.  I admit that when I first hear Hadley's song "The Time of Parting", I didn't like it because I new Zemlinsky's devastating setting of the same poem.  Hadley's was much gentler and less heart wrenching.  But now I love both.  They simply exist in a different emotional space.

I'm eager to hear new news of this CD's release.  Haven't seen an update recently.

I have the more recent Teatro Grattacielo recording, but frankly, I prefer the one conducted by the composer.  The sound is pretty good for 1943, and the singers were top notch.

Alan, do you know L'incantesimo?  If so, what do you think of it?

Eric

Well, as Wagner is my favorite composer, I wouldn't argue that Montemezzi is greater than he.  But great music doesn't always drop every veil at first hearing.  I didn't like lots of stuff at first hearing that I now regard as desert island stuff!

But I have one legendary figure in my corner.  Tullio Serafin--a conservatory classmate of Montemezzi's and a close personal friend, who conducted the world premieres of many of the composer's operas (including "L'amore dei tre re" and "La nave"), wrote a eulogy to Montemezzi upon the composer's death which appeared in Opera News in early 1953.  In it he wrote this:

"La nave was received as well as—perhaps better than—L'Amore. To me it seems the greatest of Montemezzi's operas; it was received with warm enthusiasm by the critics of all the Milan papers, but it has been ignored by many of the big theatres. Probably, I believe, because of the difficulty of staging it. A ship, the "nave" of the title, has to go down in the last act, on the stage, in front of the eyes of the public. As any impresario knows, this requires enormous financial resources to stage. Also the principal roles are almost impossible to cast because of the complicated and difficult quality of the music.  In Chicago, La nave opened the 1919 season with Rosa Raisa, with Montemezzi directing; it was well received, but no other theatres could put it on. L'Amore is the most teatrical, the most dramatic, and, in addition, the most easily cast and staged. It lacks the enormous difficulty of La nave, which is, I believe, just as beautiful."

I'm a huge Montemezzi fan--for a long time based on "L'amore dei tre re" alone, but later strongly reinforced by a recording of his final opera--his 45 minute one-acter "L'incantesimo", which he finished while living in Beverly Hills, and premiered with the NBC Symphony in a live radio broadcast.  Teatro Grattacielo also did a performance of the work a few years back, and I have both recordings.  It features the same librettist (Sem Benelli) as "L.d.t.r.", and is, in my humble opinion, as good or better.  I have started uploading it to YouTube, with subtitles and illustrative pictures.  Have uploaded the first 18 minutes, and hope to do the rest in two additional parts.  Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RAgR-vWZU8

I found the music originally on the release "Souvenirs from Verismo Operas, Vol. 4".  This may not still be available, but I'm not sure.  Oddly, the Montemezzi is not mentioned on the Amazon page for the site, so I got it sort of by accident, while wanting the other items on the CD.  It was far the best prize, though!

Recently I've added two more Montemezzi items to my collection:  The aforementioned "La nave", and 20 minutes of excerpts from Montemezzi's first performed opera, "Giovanni Gallurese", which did finally make it to the Met in 1925 as well.  Premiered in 1905, I expected something a little more traditionally veristic, but in fact, Montemezzi's mature voice is already well established.

While Alan was disappointed with "La nave", I must say that I was not.  I'm much addicted to it, and have listened repeatedly since I first got my copy in trade (didn't know it was commercially available!).  It is a bit different from "L.d.t.r".  It is a far more difficult and ambitious opera.  Writing big tunes was never Montemezzi's approach.  His orchestral technique is very Wagnerian.  In fact,  I recently read a commentator who said "Montemezzi's musical language is that of the 'Ring of the Nibelungs'", and there's something to that, although it is also far more Italianate, and has perhaps some impressionist touches (though only touches).  In "Nave", there is also a clearly Straussian component.  The love (hate?) duet at the end of the first "episode" is occasionally interrupted with a passionate orchestral theme which sounds remarkably like the swooning of "Rosenkavalier" or even some of Strauss's later works (which were yet unwritten at the time). 

As far as places to listen to "L'amore dei tre re", there are some recordings on YouTube, in fact there's a complete one in English!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36BPVGvVkJU

I was fortunate to have a small part in this project.  I played in an amateur string quartet, and was hunting for late romantic quartets which were with in our playing ability.  I stumbled on Waghalter's Op. 3 string quartet, and printed it off.  It was wonderful.  So I started hunting for more info.  I e-mailed the website Waghalter.com, and received a reply from Mr. Green.  In chatting back and forth, I discovered that he lived in the Detroit area--not that far from me.  So I arranged a meeting with the conductor of the university orchestra I play in, with Mr. Green and myself.  He brought us a copy of the chamber music CD he had produced (I already had a copy, our conductor took it...).  He also had copies of the violin parts of the concerto and rhapsody, and was eager to see if our orchestra might play them. 

I also showed him some of my transcriptions of orchestral music (the opera "Cleopatra's Night") by Henry Hadley.  He asked how much I charged.  I said, I'd do it free of charge if it would be useful to the revival of Waghalter's music.  He said he'd be in touch.  Some time later he contacted me and told me about the recording project with the Royal Philharmonic.  He had parts for the concerto, nut none for the Rhapsodie, and asked if I'd be willing to produce a set.

In our previous meeting he'd told me about the large body of unpublished manuscripts which Waghalter had produced after his flight to the United States, including an orchestral song.  I was really eager to see this.  So, I told Mr. Green that I would make a set of parts for the Rhapsodie in exchange for a copy of the manuscript of that orchestral song.  He agreed.  So I set about work, and eventually finished the parts and sent them to him.  I was very excited to have a part in the project, and that my work would be performed by the Royal Philharmonic.  I'm hoping, Maestro Walker, that there weren't TOO many mistakes... ; )

My only disappointment was that Mr. Green then sent me only the manuscript of a song with piano accompaniment.  Which was nice, but not was I was hoping for or what I had asked for.  I mentioned it later, and he said he'd see what he could do, but I haven't yet gotten my promised payment!  I'd love to transcribe any of Waghalter's unpublished works, and hope to convince Mr. Green to permit me in to do so in the future.

Eric

Right.  They have a LOT.  I've been there and looked at some of it, and gotten copies of some of it, but it's far from everything.  They have four of his five operas there, the grove plays, as well as manuscripts to many orchestral works, chamber works, smaller scale choral works, and many songs.   But they have few of his large scale choral works there, sadly.

The catalog is accessible online.  They have more than 500 items. 

The Library of Congress has some, too.  I copied manuscripts of "The Golden Prince", "Music: An Ode" (first volume--the second isn't there...), and "Belshazzar" there, and later obtained "The Princess of Ys", which is also in their collection.

I've spent quite a lot of time on Hadley's music.  There are several published catalogues of Hadley's music, though I don't consider any of them complete or error-free.  However, in his book "Henry Hadley, Ambassador of Harmony", published during Hadley's lifetime (1932), Herbert Boardman gives a listing from Op.1 to Op. 100.  There are, however, some errors in it.  In the 1940s, a book was published listing Hadley's works, but it is also incomplete.  Later, in 1960, John Claire Canfield wrote a dissertation on Hadley, and did the best job to date of listing all Hadley's works--both a list of his opus numbers, but a list of works without opus numbers, which includes a number of important works.  The list, from Op. 101 - 140, however, has some gaps, and it may be that some of those works without opus numbers were intended to fit in those gaps. 

However, as with many other composers, there is not absolute chronological logic to Hadley's opus numbers.  His first string quartet is listed as Opus 24, but the manuscript, in the NYPL, is listed as early as 1886, when Hadley was 15 years old.  However, his Op. 25 is his first symphony, written a decade later.

The most upsetting thing to me is that some of his full score manuscripts to important works, such as "Resurgam", "Azora", etc. seem to be missing, or are in collections which cannot be searched online.  I'm trying to track them all down.

Eric