Rose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Orchestra (Seat
L103, $35.50).
Story. Baron
Archibaldo suspects his daughter-in-law Fiora is unfaithful to her husband Manfredo. Indeed she is in love with Avito, a fellow
Alturan. Eventually he ends up
strangling her, and hatches a plan to find out her lover by putting a potent
poison on her lips so whoever kisses her will die of the poison. Avito shows up and indeed kisses Fiora. When Manfredo finds out the lover’s identity,
he is so distraught that he also kisses Fiora.
Archibaldo enters to find his own son dying.
Conductor – Pacien Mazzagatti. Archibaldo – Philip Cokorinos, Fiora – Daria Masiero,
Manfredo – Joo Won Kang, Avito – Raffaele Abete.
This opera, the third by Italo Montemezzi, was very popular
for several decades since its premiere at the La Scala in 1913. Arturo Toscanini was so impressed that he
brought it to the Met in January 1914.
It was subsequently staged all over the United States. Montemessi moved to the US in 1939 and
conducted a series of performances at the Met in 1940. It was last staged by the Met in 1949, and by
NY City Opera in 1982.
The Program Notes calls the banishment of the opera to
the “remote outskirts of the operatic repertoire” perplexing. The opera’s run time is about 90 minutes,
perhaps a bit too short as a stand-alone piece, but too long to be in a “double
header.” With two intermissions, the performance tonight lasted about 2 hours 20 minutes.
The sets used in the three acts were a bit “generic,” but
they were at least realistic. The story
takes place in a remote castle in Italy, and there are different sets for the
three acts. The costumes are more
modern: suits, uniform, and dresses.
Rose Hall is quite cozy, so the sound came across loud
and clear, more “loud” than “clear.” All
the musicians sang loudly and clearly. I
also thought being closer to the stage would make the vocal lines louder, turns
out in this case the orchestra also sounded quite loud, thus obscuring some of
the voices. The orchestra, to the extent
I noticed, put in a great performance.
The pit at the Hall is so deep that I could not see the conductor at
all.
From left: Alex Richardson as Falminio, Raffaele Abete as Avito, Philip Cokorinos as Archibaldo, Maestro Pacien Mazzagatti, Daria Masiero as Fiora, and Joo Won Kang as Manfredo.
How’s the music?
The Program Notes describes the opera world at the time as divided
between a faction favoring the likes of Puccini and another devoted to
Wagner. Not in so many words, but the
implication is that L’amore has the best of both worlds with its “tightly
constructed, harmonically sophisticated score” and “shot through with an
Italian melodic sensibility.” It may be
that; to me, however, it sounded more Wagner than Puccini, and it was more a
compromise than a successful blend.
In the past few years City Opera has staged a few operas
and concerts every season. If the price
and timing are right, we will go to one of them. I didn’t notice this until a few days ago
when they sent me an email about $25 tickets. I bought two, but ended up going
by myself as Anne had a last-minute babysitting duty. I probably wouldn’t pay $100 for a ticket to
see this, but there was no reason to drop the tickets to this low price, in my
opinion. In any case, they managed to get
the hall reasonably well-filled for this opening night performance. I wish them success, but the unfortunate fact
is even the Met has many empty seats for many of their performances.
The title of the opera translates to “The Love the Three
Kings.” There is royalty, but no sovereign
in the play, as far as I know.
I took the bus in from Hoboken on the way in. Coming back I was a bit pressed for time,
being able to buy an NJ Transit ticket on my iPhone helped me make the train. I got home about the same time Anne did.
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