Alfano Risurrezione

[Alan Howe]

I just wanted to register my profound thanks to Hadrianus (Adriano) for pointing me to Alfano's magnificent opera Risurrezione. I have been listening to it this afternoon with my opera-loving mother (she's 88) - and I know that an opera's good if she comes up with the description 'smashing', which she duly did. The recording on Accord is excellent - beautifully played and extremely well sung. I can understand why it was such a success in its day. Not only is there some wonderfully passionate vocal writing, but the orchestral score is an absolute marvel in itself. Wonderful.

[alberto]

I share the appreciation for Resurrezione (and for the Accord recording), an opera sadly neglected today. I remind to have attended a concert performance with the legendary (at least in this repertoire) Magda Olivero around 1970.
Resurrezione had the world premiere in my city Torino, not at the Teatro Regio (like Manon Lescaut, La Boheme(Puccini) or Francesca da Rimin)i, but in a secondary theatre (in an era when a single city could boast more than one opera house).Anyway it was conducted by a young Tullio Serafin.
The only other Alfano opera I know, the much later Cyrano de Bergerac, appears to me (much) inferior (but in recent times has been staged and recorded for Domingo and for Alagna, besides a CPO recording..

[Alan Howe]

Cyrano de Bergerac is much later - and much less enjoyable, in my view.

[adriano]

Thanks, Alan - and ciao alberto 
I am glad you like this recording. Still, the old 1971 live performance (preserved on CD by the SRO label) with Magda Olivero is quite excellent.
She sang the lead in Torino already in 1956.
I am also very fond of Alfano's 1st Symphony, which I wanted to record for Marco Polo 13 years before cpo. It was one of those many early projects of mine, which were rejected by Klaus Heymann
alberto, I adore Torino!

[alberto]

Hi , Hadrianus.
I thank you for your appreciation of /for Torino.
Among its musical credits there is also Salome's Italian premiere, conducted by Strauss himself.
Alfano First Symphony is, instead, the musical glory of the smallish sea town of Sanremo, where the premiere took place.

[adriano]

Yes indeed, alberto :-)
And this by the great Ettore Panizza, who conducted Respighi's "Campana sommersa" at the Scala in 1928. The following year he would conduct the same opera in Buenos Aires (again with Pertile as a lead) - and make e splendid recording of Respighi's "Pini di Roma", to be considered, together with the one by Lorenzo Molajoli of the same year, the very first recordings of this work... Oops, I am going out of the thread's subject...

[adriano]

Alan, do you know Giordano's opera "Siberia"? It would be interesting to compare it with "Resurrezione". It was premiered it in 1903, one year earlier, and has a definitely different approach, since the music is written in the Russian style, even using popular tunes (including the "Slava" Boris theme used by Mussorgsky).
Not to speak about the Russian flavour used by Giordano in his "Fedora"...
Unfortunately it had been too early for those Italian composers to write an opera about Rasputin - a thing which would be done only in 1928 by Karl Amadeus Hartmann, in 1958 by Nicolas Nabokov, in 1957/59 (revised version, libretto by Stephen Spender!), in 1988 by Jay Reise, in 1999 by Michael Rapp and in 2003 (a musical!), by Einojuhani Rautavaara. Terry Quinn even write two (musicals?) on the same subject in 1997 and 2007...

[Alan Howe]

I haven't listened to Siberia for ages. Must dig it out...

[eschiss1]

Re Rasputin: Also suggested Dave Malloy's "Beardo", premiered 2011, I believe. Is the Rautavaara more musical theater than opera in genre? (Personally I enjoy at least some of both, so that wouldn't be why I'm asking. I admit one wanders into other-thread territory there, though.)

The Tolstoy novel on which Hanau's libretto for the opera (Risurrezione, I mean!...) is based is available as a free audiobook (@Librivox) which I've been meaning to listen to. Can anyone tell me anything about Hanau?...

[Alan Howe]

There's a new recording due out shortly:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8866013--alfano-risurrezione

Matthew Vickers (tenor) sounds pretty good to me in this trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bjD89XvRWo

More here:
https://www.matthewvickerstenor.com/

[adriano]

Good news, thanks, Alan!