Verismo recommendations, please!

[Alan Howe]

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

[MartinH]

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.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks. That's very helpful.

[alberto]

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).

[regriba]

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.

[Alan Howe]

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

[MartinH]

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.

[giles.enders]

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

[Alan Howe]

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.

[adriano]

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"?

[alberto]

"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).

[Alan Howe]

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

[Revilod]

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.

[Alan Howe]

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

[adriano]

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...