I’ll get the easy ones out of the way right now. Beethoven, Debussy, and Bartók. Each completed only one opera – Fidelio, Pelléas et Mélisande, and Bluebeard’s Castle, respectively.
Fidelio gave Beethoven more trouble than any of his compositions. The opera went through three versions, in 1805, 1806, and 1814. After the final version he vowed never to compose another opera. The work has some glorious moments and some empty ones as well. The best thing that sprang from it was rejected from the final version. Of course, it’s the Leonora Overture No. 3. It’s so powerful that starting the opera with it would leave the work overpowered. Otto Nicolai (more about him below) started the practice of playing the overture before Act 2. Mahler continued the practice, but placing it before the final scene. It’s often done that way now. The last scene of the opera is set after all the important events have taken place. Everybody sings about how happy they are about the way things have worked out. Placing the overture here works.
Wilhelm Furtwängler conducts the Leonora No. 3. It’s a stupendous reading of perhaps the greatest overture ever written. It seems to contain the entire drama of Fidelio.
Debussy’s only opera is beloved by musicologists and critics. It has the approbation of a segment of the public, but bores another sizable fragment of operagoers. I confess to being part of the latter group. The Met has done it 119 times since its house premiere in 1925.
Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle has been performed 42 times by the Met since its first appearance at the company in 1974. At first it was done in English, but starting in 2015 the company has done it in the original Hungarian. Given that opera singers are not trained in Hungarian and that the singers in New York were not Hungarian, I suspect that the words would sound like gibberish to a native Hungarian speaker, but that’s just a guess. The two person opera is a masterpiece deserving more than the 42 times the Met has done it.
Fromental Halévy (1799–1862) wrote more than 30 operas, many of which were regularly performed during the mid-19th century. The only one which has endured is La Juive. It was a favorite of Caruso – it was the last opera he sang before his fatal illness. The opera was regularly done at the Met until 1936. It returned in 2003 as a vehicle for tenor Neil Shicoff. His singing of the opera’s most famous number “Rachel, quand du Seigneur” was the highlight of an otherwise laughable staging. I attended one of the eight 2003 performances. The opera has not returned to the Met since then. Richard Tucker’s great performance of the aria is on this site in several places. Below is a video of Shicoff singing the piece. It’s from the Vienna production that I saw when it was transplanted to the Met in 2003.
Otto Nicolai (1810–1849) was one of the co-founders of the Vienna Philharmonic in 1842. His opera The Merry Wives of Windsor premiered in Berlin just two months before his death from a stroke. His opera Il Templario, while not well known or often performed, deserves a better fate. The best known piece from Nicolai’s Merry Wives is the overture which is often played as a concert piece. The most familiar aria is Fenton’s lyrical tenor aria “Horch, die Lerche singt im Hain”—“Hark, the lark sings in the grove”—from Act II. Fritz Wunderlich is the tenor.
Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–1886) had a number of operas regularly performed while he was alive. But the only one that has lasted is La Gioconda, and even it shows signs of fatigue. The Met last did it in 2008. When Zinka Milanov, Richard Tucker, and Leonard Warren were around, it was sure to fill the house. The trick was getting all three of them into the same performance. Without their like, Gioconda is likely to remain on the shelf. The opera is one of just two written during the 50 years of Verdi’s dominance, not by Verdi, that made it to the standard repertory. The other is Boito’s Mefistofele – see below. Boito wrote the libretto for Gioconda using the anagrammatic pseudonym of Tobia Gorrio.
The finale to Act 3 is a fine effort worthy of Verdi. The opera is remarkable for the tenor being in love with the mezzo rather than the soprano whose passion for the tenor is unrequited. The mezzo is unhappily married to the bass who aware of her desire for the tenor has her drink poison which the soprano exchanges for a draught that mimics death but allows eventual recovery. Don’t get too involved with the story; it’s best experienced with attention fixed on the music. The bass reveals the body of his “dead” wife to the consternation of everyone, especially the tenor. The finale depicts the variegated emotions of all the players with compelling effectiveness. The cast of the 1980 recording below includes Montserrat Caballé and Luciano Pavarotti.
La Gioconda Act 3 finale
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) wrote 12 operas, but only one is regularly performed – Samson et Dalila. It’s a static piece that has fine parts for a mezzo-soprano and spinto tenor. The Met is doing it this season in a dreadful production. Here’s what I said about it after it was telecast in 2018. I had just written that the opera was a mixture of beautiful music with patches of kitsch. “The Met’s new production, directed by Darko Tresnjak, is strong on the kitsch. The sets look like an amalgam of Buster Crabbe’s Flash Gordon and The Wizard of Oz. The choreography of the famous bacchanale was embarrassingly bad even by the standards of the opera house …. The destruction of the temple by the divinely inspired Samson was merely a flash of white light followed by the curtain.”
But if you have the right tenor and mezzom the opera can be quite effective. The Met is doing the work starting in November with Aigul Akhmetshina as Dalila and Clay Hilley making his Met debut in the role of Samson. The excerpt below, “Arrêtez, ô mes frères !” features Mario Del Monaco as Samson. He had enough voice for two Samsons. Samson rouses the oppressed Hebrew people to stand up against their Philistine rulers, inspiring them with faith and courage. The Met is doing the opera on December 5 as part of this season’s HD series. If you go, bring a blindfold.
Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) wrote Boris Godunov between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky’s only completed opera. It has as complicated a history as does Verdi’s Don Carlos. The composer created two versions-the Original Version of 1869, which was rejected for production by the Imperial Theatres, and the revised version of 1872, which received its first performance in 1874 in Saint Petersburg. The opera has often been subjected to cuts, recomposition, re-orchestration, transposition of scenes, or conflation of the original and revised versions. In the modern era most performances use Mussorgsky’s original orchestration which was thought poor until it wasn’t. Mussorgsky never completed another opera; he drank himself to death at age 42.
The death of Boris is sung by the great Bulgarian bass Boris Christoff. Tormented by guilt over the murder of the young Tsarevich Dmitri, Boris collapses after hearing of a miracle at the boy’s tomb. Sensing death, he summons his son Fyodor, counsels him on ruling Russia, bids him farewell, and dies as monks chant prayers.
Arrigo Boito (1842–1918) was an Italian polymath whose career clearly shows the difference between talent and genius. He is best knowns for his opera Mefistofele, the only one he completed, and the librettos for Verdi’s two final masterpieces – Otello and Falstaff. Mefistofele underwent numerous revisions over the the decade following its first performance at La Scala in 1868. It took a while to break into the standard operatic repertory where it now stands. In one of the world’s most severe cases of writer’s block he worked he worked on his opera Nerone for the last 30 years of his life never writing the music for the libretto’s fifth act.
The conclusion of Mefistofele is below. Sam Ramey is the devil and Dennis O’Neill is Faust.
Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) was a German composer best known for his fairy-tale opera Hänsel und Gretel. Born in Siegburg, near Bonn, he studied at the Cologne Conservatory and later in Munich, where he came under the influence of Wagner. Humperdinck became closely associated with Wagner at Bayreuth, assisting him during preparations for the first production of Parsifal and even composing some additional music for rehearsals. Although strongly influenced by Wagner’s harmony, orchestration, and use of leitmotifs, Humperdinck developed a gentler and more lyrical style of his own, often incorporating the character of German folk song. Hänsel und Gretel, first performed in Weimar in 1893 under Richard Strauss, brought him international fame. He wrote several other operas, including Königskinder, but none approached the lasting popularity of his masterpiece. Humperdinck later taught composition in Frankfurt and Berlin and remained an important figure in German musical life until his death in 1921.
The Evening Prayer (“Abends, wenn ich schlafen geh”) from Act II is probably the opera’s most famous passage and an excellent miniature of Humperdinck’s style: simple, folk-like melodic writing surrounded by rich Wagnerian harmony and orchestration. The duet is sung by the children just before they fall asleep in the forest. Elisabeth Grümmer and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf are the singers. Herbert von Karajan conducted.
Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919) was an Italian composer and librettist whose career was dominated by the extraordinary success of Pagliacci. Born in Naples and trained at its conservatory, he spent years earning a living as a pianist and teacher before achieving international fame following that opera’s Milan premiere in 1892, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. He wrote both its words and music, combining theatrical realism, passionate melody, and explosive violence in a defining work of Italian verismo. His subsequent operas included La bohème (1897), overshadowed by Puccini’s treatment of the same subject, and Zazà (1900), which enjoyed considerable success but never matched Pagliacci‘s enduring popularity. He also composed operettas, orchestral works, and songs, notably “Mattinata,” recorded by Enrico Caruso with the composer at the piano. Despite continued activity, he never escaped the shadow of the opera that had made him famous.
Everyone knows the great aria that concludes the first act of Pagliacci. Below is Richard Tucker and Teresa Stratas in the second and final act. Tucker declaims the final words “La commedia è finita” though they belong to the baritone.
Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956) was a French composer whose reputation rests chiefly on Louise (1900), an opera depicting working-class life in Paris. A pupil of Massenet at the Paris Conservatoire and winner of the Prix de Rome, he wrote both its music and libretto, blending lyrical warmth with social realism. Louise achieved international success, and its soprano aria “Depuis le jour” remains popular. His sequel, Julien (1913), failed to establish itself, and he composed little thereafter, although he lived to ninety-five. He also founded the Conservatoire Populaire Mimi Pinson to provide free musical education for working women. I saw a performance of the Opera decades ago at the New York City Opera, Its a very uneven work,
Montserrat Caballé Depuis le jour
Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) was an Italian composer and conductor who achieved sudden international fame at twenty-six with Cavalleria rusticana (1890). Born in Livorno, he studied at the Milan Conservatory before working as a conductor and music teacher. His prizewinning one-act opera, depicting jealousy and revenge in a Sicilian village, became a landmark of Italian verismo. Although he continued composing for decades, none of his subsequent operas matched its lasting popularity; L’amico Fritz (1891) and Iris (1898) are the best remembered. He also maintained an active conducting career, recording Cavalleria rusticana in 1940 for its fiftieth anniversary. His reputation remains inseparable from the youthful triumph whose success he spent the rest of his life trying to equal. I attended performances with Jussi Björling and Richard Tucker as Turiddu and Zinka Milanov and Giulietta Simionato as Santuzza. Tucker and Simionato were beyond outstanding
Introduction and Siciliana – Giuseppe Di Stefano is the tenor, Tullio Serafin conducts.
Francesco Cilea (1866-1950) was an Italian composer whose reputation rests principally on Adriana Lecouvreur (1902), a drama about the celebrated French actress, first performed in Milan with Enrico Caruso as Maurizio. Born in Palmi, Calabria, and educated at the Naples Conservatory, Cilea developed a style distinguished by lyrical grace, expressive vocal writing, and delicate orchestration. His earlier opera L’arlesiana (1897), also premiered with Caruso, survives chiefly through the tenor aria known as Federico’s Lament. Although usually grouped with the verismo composers, Cilea was especially sensitive to tenderness and melancholy. Following Gloria (1907), his final staged opera, he increasingly devoted himself to musical education, eventually directing the Naples Conservatory.
“La dolcissima effigie” and the music that follows it from Act1 of Adrianna is sung by Mario Del Monaco and Renata Tebaldi.
Umberto Giordano (1867-1948) was an Italian composer whose reputation rests chiefly on Andrea Chénier (1896), a passionate drama of love and political upheaval during the French Revolution. Born in Foggia and trained at the Naples Conservatory, he achieved international fame when the opera premiered at La Scala. Its soaring melodies, powerful theatrical effects, and demanding principal roles made it an enduring vehicle for outstanding singers. Fedora (1898), whose first cast included Enrico Caruso, also enjoyed considerable success, though it never attained Chénier‘s lasting prominence. Associated with the Italian verismo movement, Giordano combined direct emotional expression with a strong instinct for dramatic confrontation, qualities most fully realized in his finest opera. Mario Del Monaco Placido Domingo, and Richard Tucker were the best Chenier I ever heard in performance.
Chénier has four arias for the tenor. The Act 1 Improvviso is the the most famous and demanding. The tenor in the excerpt below is Galliano Masini.
A final word. Writing even one opera that survives is a major accomplishment. I wish that some of the gentlemen above were around today and at the start of their careers.
