Franco ALFANO (1875-1954)
Risurezzione, Opera in 4 Acts (1904)
Orchestra and Chorus of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino/Francesco Lanzillotta
rec. live, January 2020, Teatro del Maggio Musicale, Fiorentino, Italy
Libretto in Italian with English translation enclosed
DYNAMIC CDS7866.02 [2 CDs: 110:07]
Of the ending of Turandot, Puccini wrote: “… it should have something about it of the grand, the bold, the unexpected, and not leave things where they began.” It had to represent the triumph of love over everything. “These two beings, who stand … outside the world, are transformed into humans through love, and this love must take possession of everybody on the stage in an orchestral peroration.”
Poor Puccini did not manage to complete the opera, and the impossible task was given to the extremely unwilling Franco Alfano. Whether Puccini would have found that unique, unforgettable melody to crown his sumptuous score, we will never know, but Alfano certainly did not create one. He was then treated shabbily by Toscanini, who first conducted Turandot, and who butchered Alfano’s completion, much to the composer’s bitter resentment.
The point I am trying to make here is that Puccini had a unique, enviable ability for the creation of wonderful, singable melody, so much so that his name has become synonymous with the general public’s idea of Italian Opera. On the evidence presented in Risurrrezione, Alfano had no such gift. The lack of memorable vocal melody rather militates against the opera, which dates from 1904 when Alfano was twenty-nine. To describe the composer’s style, I can do no better than quote a section from the excellent booklet:
‘Alfano … chose a rhythmic prose, that goes from the most elementary form, almost spoken words, to moments of soaring lyricism, hammering tensions towards the high register … his melodies are almost always short, flares rather than themes, with an up to date orchestration … full of modal progressions and whole tone scales.’
Unusually for an Italian, the composer chose a libretto set in Tsarist Russia, a story based on Tolstoy’s Resurrection.
In the first act, set in a country house, the young Katyusha asks servants whether Prince Dimitri (who is attending mass with the lady of the house, Sofia) will be staying. She is sad to learn that he will leave the next day. The Prince and Sofia arrive, and he is struck by the beauty of Katyusha. Sofia retires, and the Prince asks Katyusha to help him arrange the cushions on his bed. As she does so, he kisses her on the back of the neck. She is frightened, but Dimitri reassures her, and tells her that she has grown in beauty since he last saw her, and that he has realised he is in love with her. She admits to similar feelings and the act ends in a brief but impassioned love duet.
The second act is set at a railway station where Katyusha and a friend are waiting in the hope of seeing Dimitri, who has been wounded in battle. He had been intending to stay with his aunt Sofia, but instead has been recalled to St. Petersburg, and will be passing through the station. Katyusha is pregnant with his child, and has been thrown out of Sofia’s house because of this. She has repeatedly written to Dimitri, but has not received any reply, and is scared that he is abandoning her. If he will not listen to her, she is ready to thrown herself under the train. At last, she catches sight of him in the company of a woman, but fails to get past the train’s security guard. She and her friend then depart for the nearby village as the snow blankets the scene.
The third act opens in a women’s prison in St. Petersburg, where Katyusha has been sent before deportation to Siberia for twenty years’ imprisonment. Abandoned by Dimitri, she has become a prostitute, and has been falsely accused of poisoning a client. The other women pity her, and try to encourage her to believe that she can endure the harsh conditions, but she recalls the life of luxury that she led with gifts from wealthy clients. A guard gives her a gift of cigarettes and money to buy alcohol, which she shares with the women. She starts to tell them the story of her trial, at which the men present only had eyes for her beauty. Prince Dimitri appears searching for her, and when he sees her, he tells her that he was a juror at her trial, knows that she is innocent, and has come to save her from deportation. On hearing that he was juror, Katyusha is angry, and sarcastically tells him to give her a few roubles and cigarettes. He starts to think that she is lost to him, but as the conversation between them becomes tense, he says that he is aware of his responsibilities and will marry her. Furiously, she says that their son is dead and she was not to be bought by the hundred roubles he left for her after their night together. She tells him not to touch her. As he prepares to leave, he says that he will return the next day in the hope that she will be in a better frame of mind. He gives her a photo taken when she was in the garden at Sofia’s, and looking at it, she cries herself to sleep.
In the fourth and final act, Katyusha is part of the prisoner’s march to Siberia. During a pause, Simonson, a political prisoner, urges her to work with him to try to improve the lot of the people around them. He has fallen in love with her, and is about to ask something of her when Dimitry arrives, bringing with him a letter of pardon. He is approached by Simonson who requests Dimitri’s permission to ask Katyusha to marry him, although he does not think that she will accept his offer. Dimitri replies that she is free to do what she wants. He then shows her the letter and says that she must choose between him and Simonson. She says that she will marry Simonson. Dimitri responds with dignity and prepares to leave, wishing her future happiness. At that, she breaks down and confesses that she still loves him, and has never forgotten him. He begins to hope that she will be with him, but her time as a prostitute has changed her, and she can never return to the days of aristocracy and be his wife. In this rejection of worldly wealth lies her ‘resurrection’, and the opera ends with the choir intoning the Easter Night Hymn “Christ is risen, Hosannah”.
These two CDs derive from a live performance, and there is much stage noise: sundry thuds and bumps, naturally most audible when the orchestra is playing interludes. The orchestral playing is good but not sumptuous, and is a little backwardly balanced in relation to the voices. The two male principals, Matthew Vickers as Prince Dimitri and Leon Kim as Simonson are in really good voice, although Vickers does not manage to make the listener feel any sympathy for the ungrateful character of the Prince; but then I doubt whether any singer could. The principal female role of Katyusha is sung by the French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels. She has a pleasant voice but I found her vibrato to be excessive across much of her vocal range, especially when the voice is under any degree of pressure. It spoils her one relatively well-known aria “Dio Pietoso”. Still, she is undoubtedly up to the heavy physical demands of the role, which involves her almost continual presence on stage. She expresses extremely well just about every emotion the composer expects of her. The lesser female roles are similarly sung with significant vibrato, particularly noticeably the very minor role of Fenyichka.
The live recording is good, rather favouring the voices, and the conductor paces the work well. Full marks to Dynamic for the 64-page booklet, containing a full libretto in Italian and English side by side, photos of the production together with a plot synopsis and description of the history of the opera.
Jim Westhead
Previous reviews: Paul Corfield Godfrey (Blu-ray) ~ David Chandler (DVD)
Cast
Chorus Master: Lorenzo Fratini
Katyusha - Anne Sophie Duprels
Prince Dimitri - Matthew Vickers
Simonson - Leon Kim
Sofia - Francesca Di Sauro
Anna - Romina Tomasoni
Pavlovna - Romina Tomasoni
Maidservant - Nadia Pirazzini
Vera - Ana Victoria Pitts
Korablyova - Ana Victoria Pitts
Fenyichka - Barbara Marcacci
A Hunchback - Filomena Pericoli
A Redhead - Nadia Sturlese
A Woman - Silvia Capra
Kritzov - Lisandro Guinis
2nd Peasant - Lisandro Guinis
Chief Guard - Gabriele Spina
Guard - Giovanni Mazzei
Station Guard - Nicolo Ayroldi
Officer - Nicola Lisanti
1st Peasant - Nicola Lisanti
Muzhik - Egidio Massimo Naccarato
Cossack - Antonio Montesi
Fedia - Giulia Bruni
1st Prisoner - Delia Palmieri
2nd Prisoner - Monica Marzini
3rd Prisoner - Giovanna Costa
