CHAPTER XI
THE OPERATIC SEQUEL TO VERDI
The Musical traditions of Modern Italy--Verdi's heirs: Boïto, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Wolf-Ferrari, Franchetti, Giordano, Orefice, Mancinelli--New paths; Montemezzi, Zandonai, and de Sabbata.
I
For those to whom music is an entertainment rather than an art, the idea that Italy is the 'land of music' will always exist. Almost an axiom has this popular notion become among such persons. And there is, indeed, little purpose in discouraging the belief. For what is to be gained by destroying an illusion which, in actual working, does no harm? Italy's musical development and that, for example, of Germany, are diametrically opposed to each other. Yet they both stand to-day for something particular and peculiar to their own natures. Man in his evolution has subconsciously wrought certain changes, certain innovations; he has been guided in doing so not so much by his desires as by his national characteristics.
Taking this into consideration there is nothing that cannot be understood in Italy's musical line from Palestrina to Montemezzi. Perhaps the road has been travelled with fewer halts with a view to an ideal than has that of other nations, but it has been in accordance with those things which not only shape a nation's fate but also its art. The Italian race, descended as it is from the Roman, had traditions. The ideals of that group of men known as the Florentine monodists were high. It was their purpose to add such music to the spoken word as would intensify its meaning and make its effect upon an audience more pronounced. In short, as far back as 1600, when these men flourished, the ambition of Richard Wagner and the music drama, or, if you prefer, the Greek tragedy of Sophokles and Æschylus, was known by Italian musicians who in their composing tried to establish a union between text and music such as the master of Bayreuth only accomplished late in the nineteenth century. With the beginnings of oratorio and opera--they differed little at first--the idea that personal success for the performer was necessary crept in. Had it not, Richard Wagner would not have been obliged to revolutionize the form of production given on the lyric stage. Händel, a German by birth and an Englishman by adoption, wrote florid Italian opera after 1700; he sacrificed the significance of the word to the effectiveness of his vocal writing and produced some things thereby which we of to-day can look upon only as ludicrous. The musical world knows how opera was composed in Italy in the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century. The librettist was not a poet, but a poetaster; a composer of eminence would call upon him to supply words for an aria already composed and especially adapted to the voice of some great and popular singer. The result naturally was an art-form which was neither sincere nor of real value, except from the standpoint of the singer.
The early Verdi followed the form which was known to him by attending the performances of opera given in his youth in Italy. But he saw the error of his ways and his masterpieces, _Aida_, _Otello_ and _Falstaff_, more than atone for his early operas, which have little merit other than their facile melodic flow. Was it not to be expected that after him would come men who would emulate the manner of his last works? Was it unnatural to believe that Italy would interest itself in a more faithful setting of words to music? And the direct followers of the composer of _Otello_ gave forth something that called the world's attention to their works. That it maintained Italian opera at a plane equal to the three final works of Verdi cannot be said. It was a passing phase and opened the way for the men who are now raising Italian operatic composition to the highest point in its history. As such it served its purpose.
When Giuseppe Verdi died in 1901 there had already been inaugurated the Realist movement in Italian opera. Italy's 'grand old man' had seen Pietro Mascagni achieve world renown with his _Cavalleria Rusticana_ and Ruggiero Leoncavallo follow him with the popular _I Pagliacci_. What he thought of the 'Veritists' we are not favored with knowing. It would seem safe to say that he could not have been deeply impressed by them; for the soul which gave musical expression to the emotions of the dying lovers Radames and Aïda, to the grief-stricken Otello after his murder of the lovely Desdemona, could have had little sympathy with the productions of men who fairly grovelled in the dust and covered themselves with mire in their attempts to picture the primitive feelings of Sicilian peasantry.
One man who is still alive and whose best work has a place in the _répertoire_ of more than one opera house was a valued friend of Verdi. Arrigo Boïto[73] is his name. It was he who prepared for Verdi the _libretti_ of _Otello_ and _Falstaff_ and produced a highly creditable score himself in his _Mefistofele_. Time was when this modern Italian's version of the Faust story was looked upon by _cognoscenti_ as music of modern trend. In 1895 R. A. Streatfeild, the English critic, spoke of it as 'music of the head, rather than of the heart.' Hear it to-day and you will wonder how he made such a statement, for we have gone far since _Mefistofele_ and to us it sounds pretty much like 'old Italian opera' in the accepted sense. But in its day it had potency. Boïto is, however, a finer _littérateur_ than he is a musician. Since his success with _Mefistofele_ he has not given us anything else. He has, to be sure, been working for many years on a _Nero_ opera, the second act of which--there are to be five--is now completed. But a few years ago he donned the senatorial toga and matters of state have so occupied his attention that he is permitted now to turn his thoughts to music only at intervals. Further, he is already a man well along in years and the impulse to create is no longer strong. Those who know Boïto have reported that he will not complete _Nero_ and that it will go down as a fragment.
Alberto Franchetti, born in 1860 in Turin, has composed _Asrael_, _Cristoforo Colombo_ and _Germania_, three long, unimportant works, tried and found wanting. It was Luigi Torchi, the distinguished Italian critic, who, in discussing _Asrael_ called it 'the most fantastic, metaphysical humbug that was ever seen on the stage.' (Torchi wrote this before Charpentier compelled himself to complete his 'Louise'!) Franchetti's leaning is toward the historical opera _à la Meyerbeer_, his method is Wagnerian. Originality he has none.
Our Realists are before us: Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano, Puccini and Wolf-Ferrari. We have purposely omitted the names of men like Smareglia, Cilea, Tasca and Spinelli. Their music has long since been relegated to oblivion even in their own land. Little of it ever got beyond the Italian boundary. Spinelli's _A Basso Porto_ reached New York in 1900 and was thus described by Mr. W. J. Henderson, music critic of the New York _Sun_: 'The story is so repulsive, the personages so repellent, the motives so atrocious and the whole atmosphere of the thing so foul with the smell of the scums and stews of life, that one is glad to escape to the outer air.... As to the music, ... there is not a measure of it which proclaims inspiration. There is not an idea which carries with it conviction.' Mr. Henderson does not even condemn our American operas so ruthlessly! From all of which the nature of Spinelli's opera may be understood.
We in America have for a number of years looked upon Giacomo Puccini as the greatest of living Italian opera composers. His devotees call him the greatest living creator of operatic music. Already his position is becoming insecure, for younger, more inspired and more learned men are appearing on the horizon of Italy's music. The Italians have never held Puccini in the same esteem as have Americans. Despite his many failures Pietro Mascagni has been the pride of Italian musicians and music-lovers. They will grant you that his _L'Amico Fritz_, _Guglielmo Ratcliff_ and _Iris_ have failed somewhat ignominiously. They will admit that the story of _Iris_ is one of the most revolting subjects ever chosen for treatment upon the stage. Yet you will have difficulty in proving to the contrary when they challenge you to find them a more powerful piece of orchestral writing by an Italian up to 1910 than the 'Hymn to the Sun' from that opera. We know of nothing in modern Italian music so moving as this marvellously conceived prelude, a piece of imaginative writing of the first rank.
Mascagni[74] found himself famous after his _Cavalleria_. The youthful vigor of that music, crude and immature, gripped his countrymen and the inhabitants of other lands and made them believe that a new voice had appeared whose musical message was to be noteworthy. Here was a composer who had the training, who possessed definite musical ideas, who understood the stage--by far the most important thing for a composer of opera--but who has failed to add one iota to his reputation though he has worked laboriously since the early nineties to do so. His _Ysabeau_, which we were promised a few years ago, has achieved perhaps more success in his native land than any of his operas since _Cavalleria_; some call it a masterpiece, others decry its style as being unnatural to its composer. A hearing in America would do much to clarify the situation. Unfortunately Mascagni is a man who has disputes with publishers, who disappoints impresarios who desire to produce his works and whose domestic relations rise to turbulent climaxes from time to time. This has played a large part in his failure to receive hearings. And it is indeed lamentable to think that his chances for success have been spoiled by such matters.
His musical style is realistic, but it is never extreme. It was _Cavalleria_ and the success gained by it that gave men like Tasca and Spinelli the idea that they, by carrying _verismo_ further, would be received as composers of note. Mascagni has melodic fluency, he writes well for the voice and his management of the orchestra in _Iris_ is proof positive that he has learned how to avoid that ill-balance of instrumental departments which occurs constantly in _Cavalleria_.
A smaller spirit is Leoncavallo (b. 1858). _I Pagliacci_, to be sure, remains one of the most popular operas of the day. But that is no proof of greatness. It must be granted that in it he touched a responsive chord; that his music has warmth and emotional force. But what is there in this little tragedy that lifts one up? What is there of thematic distinction? Signor Leoncavallo, like Mascagni, has pursued the muse and written a dozen or two operas since the world approved of his _I Pagliacci_. He has written _Chatterton_, _I Medici_, _Maia_, a _La Bohème_ after Murger, _I Zingari_ more recently, and he is now writing an opera called _Ave Maria_. They represent _in toto_ a vast amount of work, but little of achievement. Those who have heard his recent operas agree unanimously that they lack the spark which _Pagliacci_ possesses, that they are honest works by a man who has little to say and who tries to say that little in an imposing manner.
Perhaps the place of Giacomo Puccini will be determined alone by time. He is one of those creators to whom success in overwhelming measure comes, to whom the praise of the masses is granted during his life-time. Signor Puccini has seen his operas made part and parcel of virtually every operatic institution, large and small, that pretends to have a respectably varied repertory. He has witnessed triumphs, he has the satisfaction of knowing that such a singer as Enrico Caruso in one of his operas can fill the vast auditorium of New York's Metropolitan Opera House. His work, now almost completed, if we are to believe those reports which are divulged as authentic, is the achievement of a successful composer. His early operas _Edgar_ and _Le Villi_ are not in the reckoning. Let us pass them by. But he has given us a _La Bohème_, _Manon Lescaut_, _Madama Butterfly_ and _La Fanciulla del West_. All of them have been accepted, though there may be some dispute as to the place of the last named. Puccini is now fifty-seven years old. He was born in 1858 at Lucca. He has enjoyed worldly possessions as the result of having written music; he is the idol of the public. Has he won the respect of discerning musicians? Has his music been accorded a place alongside that of the great living masters, such as Richard Strauss, Jean Sibelius and Claude Debussy?
Such a problem presents itself in the case of this popular composer for the stage. We would not deny Puccini a claim to respect; he deserves that, if for no other reason than for his having achieved international approval. But when one comes to a wholly serious investigation one fears that he will not be among the elect of his time. And there is this to be considered in arriving at an evaluation of his achievement. He has written music in every case to stories that the world has taken to its heart, witness _Manon_, _La Bohème_, _Butterfly_, _Tosca_ and 'The Girl.' It mattered little to him whether they were dramas or novels. He waited until the public had judged and then set himself to putting them into operatic form. Such a procedure is, of course, any composer's right. And it shows keen insight of, however, a very obvious kind. If the story of one's opera is already popular and admired by the world, half the battle for approval is already won. The big men were often less wise. Weber wrote music to stories that were not only unknown, but that had no especial appeal; and he wrote his inspired music to _libretti_ that were shamefully constructed and amateurishly written.
[Illustration: Modern Italian Composers:]
Giacomo Puccini Riccardo Zandonai Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari Pietro Mascagni
Men of the first rank, who are artists in everything they do, do not choose their subjects in the way Puccini has. For Wagner the writing of a _Tristan und Isolde_ was life--it was as necessary that he work on that particular drama as that he breathe. And to deal with the 'Parsifal' legend when he did was likewise inevitable. Call 'Parsifal' art or twaddle--it matters little which--you must admit that it reflects the master in his almost senile period, interested in just such an absurd conglomeration as Kundry, Amfortas, Klingsor and its other dramatic materials compose. The greatest composers of opera have written because they had to express certain things and because they found a drama which dealt with it. Puccini has been led by what the world approved.
Puccini has been fortunate, indeed. His _La Bohème_ is artistically his best work. In it there is a finer sense of balance and proportion than in anything that he has done. He has done what few Italians are able to do, namely, he has interpreted the French spirit. This little opera--whose libretto, effective as it is, is in no wise an adequate reduction of Murger's great novel--is replete with comic and tragic moments that amuse and thrill by turns. The fun-making of the jolly Bohemians, Rodolphe, Marcel, Schaunard and Colline, is capitally pictured in music that is as care-free as the souls of the inhabitants of the _Quartier Latin_. And the death of little Mimi makes a musical scene that has potency to-day,--yes, even though Puccini has since learned to handle his orchestral apparatus with a firmer grip and a mightier sweep.
_La Fanciulla del West_, which had its world-première in America in 1911, is Puccini's biggest, if not his best, production. We care not a farthing whether his music be typical of California in 1849--we do wish that the carpers who claim that it is not, would enlighten us by telling just what kind of music _is_ typical of it--nor does it matter whether one hear echoes of his earlier operas in it. It suffices that in it he has written with a sweep and a command of his forces such as he exhibits nowhere else and that he has written gorgeously in more than one scene in the work. We have heard that there is not as much melody in it as in his other operas. But, as a matter of fact, Puccini's melodies in 'The Girl' are quite as good as those in his other operas. What is more, they have a pungency which he has attained nowhere else.
But we fear that it is music of our time and that only. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that audiences of 1975 will find in Puccini anything that will interest them. Works that depend, to a large extent, on the appearance of a certain singer in the cast--and Puccini's operas do--will scarcely exert a hold on the public of a day when those singers shall have passed from this world. Antonio Scotti has made Scarpia in _Tosca_ so vital a histrionic figure, Mr. Caruso sings Cavaradossi so beautifully that only the most _blasé_ opera-goer fails to get real enjoyment from their personations. And so it is to a large degree with his other operas. Puccini bids fair to become another Meyerbeer when fifty years shall have rolled away. He has enjoyed the same shouts of approval from a public no more discerning than was that of Paris of the early nineteenth century; he has been called the most popular operatic composer of his day. Meyerbeer was, too. Yet to-day we can only find him tiresome and boring; we can but wonder how any public listened to his banalities, his deadly fustian, his woeful lack of inspiration, and express approval. Already the music of the future is dawning on our horizon. Those of us who have given it attention know that it is a very different thing from what music has been in the past. What we know of it now may only be a shadow of what is to come. Will it, when it does come and has been accepted, allow a place to the long-drawn phrases of Giacomo Puccini?
II
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, born (1876) of a German mother and an Italian father, presents a problem to us. He is a man whose gifts have not at all times been applied to that which was his ideal, but rather to the immediately necessary. If one looks at him in this light--and it is feasible to do so--one can readily understand some of his artistic indiscretions. The mob knows him as the composer of _I Gioielli della Madonna_ ('Jewels of the Madonna,' 1908), his only essay in operatic realism of the objectionable type. The art-lover hails him as the fine spirit that conceived the little operas _Il Segreto di Suzanna_, _Le Donne Curiose_, _L'Amore Medico_, the oratorio _La Vita Nuova_, some charming though not important songs and several beautiful pieces of chamber music, among them two sonatas for violin and piano and a quintet for piano and strings.
Wolf-Ferrari is neither Italian nor German; he is a mixture and so it is possible to conceive his thinking music in two ways.[75] By no means is this desirable, but when it exists, what force can alter it? We feel that the 'Jewels of the Madonna'--which those for whom music is an entertainment rather than an art admire so much--is simply a 'bad dream' of its composer's. Before one knows his instrumental music one thinks it was the real Wolf-Ferrari and that the _finesse_ of his other operas was a pose. There are many things which caused the 'Jewels' to be written; persons who know the composer and who were in Munich when it was being written say that the chief one was the need of financial aid. Seeing the shekels pouring into the baskets of composers who did this kind of thing regularly, Wolf-Ferrari 'tried his hand,' thinking that it would be lucrative. That part of the adventure has not been denied him. But it has done him immeasurable harm in the opinions of many who were looking to him for greater things. Its chances are limited--it cannot be sung in Italy on account of its misrepresentation of Neapolitan life--and the Metropolitan Opera House has refused to place it in the _répertoire_.
What Wolf-Ferrari will do no one can say. His next production may be in his dainty and at all times charming manner. It may quite as readily be a lurid and vulgar thing in the coarse musical style of 'The Jewels.' One can only hope that the widely expressed regrets of _cognoscenti_ on the appearance of this unsavory and uninspired work will have their effect on the composer and that he will give us more in his _rococo_ style, which if not original is at any rate delightful and unique in the music of to-day.
Times change and music develops. There is, in fact, no branch of art in which metamorphoses are so quickly accomplished. Not a decade ago Luigi Torchi wrote that Umberto Giordano (b. 1867) was an ultra-modern composer! This from a man whose knowledge and fairness must be viewed with respect. Giordano an ultra-modern! One hesitates to answer such a fatuous assertion. Were it not generally known that what is new in music to-day is _rococo_ to-morrow the case might be a serious one. Umberto Giordano is inconsequential in the evaluating of Italian music-drama. His achievements are the operas _Regina Diaz_, _Mala Vita_, _Andrea Chénier_, _Fedora_, _Siberia_ and _Mme. Sans-Gêne_. For the opera-goer of to-day the list has little meaning. _Regina Diaz_, an early work, occupies a place in that limbo of the past where Puccini's _Le Villi_ has long been slumbering. _Mala Vita_ was a failure, _Andrea Chénier_ and _Fedora_ mild successes. 'Siberia' had meritorious features, notably the Russian folk-songs which were employed _verbatim_; had Signor Giordano been a musician who had the power to develop them symphonically and thus make them part and parcel of his score his opera might have taken a place in the repertory of the world's opera-houses. _Fedora_, based on that wretched example of Sardoodledom, was quickly consigned to oblivion and now his long-awaited _Madame Sans-Gêne_--which he has been thinking about since the time he went to Giuseppe Verdi and asked him whether it would be possible to write an opera in which Napoleon had to sing--has failed to establish him an iota more firmly in the estimation of musicians and lovers of music-drama. Many years have been required for the composition of _Sans-Gêne_; Giordano, once looked to as one of the 'younger Italians,' is no longer to be placed in that category. He is nearly fifty and he writes slowly. From him little is to be expected. He remains one of those lesser composers, whose name was brought into prominence by his _Andrea Chénier_ at a time when the interest in Italy's then younger men had been aroused through the unequivocal success of _Cavalleria_ and _I Pagliacci_.
Giacomo Orefice and Luigi Mancinelli are two men whose activities as composers have resulted in several operas that have had hearings. Orefice has done the operas _Mariska_, _Consuelo_, _Il Gladiatore_, _Chopin_, _Cecilia_, _Mose_, and _Il Pane Altri_. His _Chopin_ seems to have aroused the most comment; in it he pictured incidents in the life of the great Polish piano composer and in doing so he has employed Chopin's music, setting some of the nocturnes as solos for the voice, etc. He is, however, more of a musical scholar than a composer. Mancinelli, who has divided his time between conducting and composing, has done a 'Hero and Leander,' which had a respectable success when first heard. His other operas are _Isora di Provenza_ and _Paolo e Francesca_. He has also done two oratorios, _Isaia_ and _San Agnese_. His musical speech is frankly that of a post-Wagnerian.
III
Fortunately for the Italian music-drama there are two young men living to-day who have achieved art-works which seem to be the creation of individual thought. Riccardo Zandonai and Italo Montemezzi must carry the banner of their land in the music-drama. The world has not taken them into that much cherished household-word condition, but one does note their attracting attention among musicians. And this is the first step.
Montemezzi is one of those composers who was absolutely unknown outside of his own country until _L'Amore dei tre re_ was heard in New York in 1914. With little heralding the Metropolitan Opera House produced his work; there were rumors of certain influences being responsible for its being done. Many shook their heads at its chances of being accepted by the public. The final rehearsals were not completed when it was recognized by a few gentlemen of the press that here was a new composer who, though he had nothing wholly original to say, was a man who could speak his lines with distinction. The _première_ came and the little opera was acclaimed. It was at once seen that Signor Montemezzi was a man who harked back to the poetic drama as a basis for his musical structure, that he had no patience with the veritists in opera. He had, as it were, a finer soul, a loftier spiritual outlook than the rank and file of his countrymen who had tried to win in the field of opera within the last fifteen years.
Italo Montemezzi was born in 1876. His works, all operatic, are: _Giovanni Gallurese_, produced in Turin at the Victor Emmanuel Theatre on January 28, 1905, _Hellera_, at Turin at the Regio Theatre on March 17, 1909, and _L'Amore dei tre re_, in Milan at La Scala in the winter of 1913. It is rather strange to note in this composer a total freedom from the long-drawn phrase made so popular by Mr. Puccini. Montemezzi seems to abhor it; and it is to his credit that he can work without it. His earlier operas were less refined, but to-day it is always possible to recognize his restraint in working up his climaxes and his mastery in the highly imaginative orchestral score which he sets down. Nothing that modern orchestration includes is unknown to him, but he is sparing in his use of the instruments: he avoids monotonous stopped brass effects--which modern composers dote on to the distress of their listeners--he speaks a poetic utterance like a man in whom there is that spark that bids him contribute to the art-work of mankind.
But with all his talent he does not possess genius. The man in Italy who has that is Riccardo Zandonai, whose place is at the head of the leaders in his country's music. Signor Zandonai is in truth young. He is but thirty-two to-day (1915), and he has already done an unquestionably important work. When you know the music of this man you will realize that Italy's place in the music of the future is to be a glorious one. For his followers will be path-breakers like himself. Already one has appeared on the horizon. Of him we shall speak later. To Dickens and his 'Cricket on the Hearth,' which the Latins call _Il Grillo del Focolare_, Zandonai first gave his attention. This opera was first given at the Politeama Chiarella in Turin on November 28, 1908, followed by his _Conchita_ at the Dal Verme in Milan on November 13, 1912. We pause here to speak of this opera, which though received with an ovation at its every premier performance, barring New York, does not seem to have held its place in the _répertoire_. The libretto, which is after Pierre Louys's _La Femme et le Pantin_, is not one that interests the public. _Conchita_ was given, as we said, in Milan, then in London at Covent Garden, then in San Francisco by a visiting company which came over to give a season of opera; Cleofonte Campanini produced it in Chicago and Philadelphia and then brought it to New York for one of the guest performances in February, 1913. No further performances in New York were planned. To pass judgment on it from that performance--which is what actually happened in the case of the newspaper reviewers--was idle. Only Tarquinia Tarquini, the young Italian mezzo-soprano, for whom the composer wrote the rôle, was adequate. The tenor who sang was already losing his best qualities, and the other parts were only moderately well done. The chorus was fair and the orchestra likewise. Mr. Campanini labored to put spirit into the performance, but it seemed that the score was a little too subtle for his rather obvious powers of comprehension.
One New York critic agreed with the present writer that in spite of the performance _Conchita_ was the most interesting novelty that had been brought out since _Pelléas_. Since then everything that this composer has done has been watched with the greatest interest. _Conchita_ was accused of lacking melody, of being 'patchy,' of being overscored in spots. None of these things are true when one knows the work. A week's study of the score reveals among the most gorgeous moments that modern Italy has given us, moments which cannot fail to impress any fair-minded person with their composer's genius. Zandonai is an ultra-modern and he writes without making any concessions to his forces. _Conchita_ may not be a work that fifty years hence will know, but it is far too good an achievement to be allowed to lie on the shelf in these days of semi-sterility in operatic composition.
To Zandonai's list of operas we must add _Melenis_, which first saw the light at the Dal Verme in Milan on November 13, 1912. It was not successful. Then did Zandonai set himself his greatest task, for he began _Francesca da Rimini_, using as his libretto a reduction of d'Annunzio's superb drama, the work of Tito Ricordi, the noted Italian publisher. It was done at the Scala in Milan in the spring of 1914 and was a triumph. The following summer brought it to Covent Garden, London, where its success was again instantaneous. The Boston Opera Company had planned to give it in the winter of 1913-1914, but the illness of Lina Cavalieri postponed it. Then Mr. Gatti-Casazza was rumored to have taken it for the Metropolitan Opera in New York for the season of 1914-1915, but it has not been forthcoming.
Of _Francesca_ we can only speak through an acquaintance with the published score. We have not sat in the audience and gotten that perspective which is, perhaps, necessary in estimating a new music-drama's worth. But the impressions thus gained may be recorded here at any rate. A magnificent drama, containing everything that the musician who would accomplish the wedding of the two arts requires, Mr. Zandonai must have gotten much inspiration in working on it. And the results are plainly there. The full, Italian rich melodic flow, which in _Conchita_ was not always present, the apt sense of illustrating the dramatic moment in tone, the masterly command of modern harmony and a vital pulsing surge are in this music. If Mr. Zandonai ever surpasses the love-scene of Paolo and Francesca he will go down in history as a giant. If he does not he will already at the age of thirty-two have made a distinguished place for himself. Personally we know nothing in modern French, German or Russian music-drama that compares with this, unless it be the great moments in Richard Strauss's _Salomé_ and _Elektra_. As for the orchestral score of _Francesca_, we have heard Mr. Zandonai's orchestra, know how he employs his instruments and are certain that in the time between _Conchita_ and this work he has, if anything, progressed. That wonderful sweep which he had at his command in the earlier opera must be present again in this newer one. Should it not be we still feel sure that the work will win on the merits of its distinguished thematic material.
Rumor has it that Zandonai is now engaged on setting Rostand's _La princesse lointaine_. Some day he may do _Cyrano_, too, since his publishers acquired all the Rostand dramas two years ago for operatic use. And we may rightly expect important things from him, for he is a musician of the first rank, Italy's genius of to-day. That he is not only a composer for the stage will be explained in the next chapter when we shall treat of his noteworthy art-songs and his orchestral works.
The follower of Zandonai who has been mentioned though not named, is the boy Vittore de Sabbata. We have learned that he has completed an opera which has made his publishers skeptical as to what he will do in the future. It is said to be so modern in its mode of expression, so difficult to produce, that it has not been definitely decided whether or not it will be undertaken. The score of his Suite for orchestra, written at eighteen, has made us marvel at his ingenuity and his pregnant musical ideas. What he will do is not to be gauged by any rule. He may prove to be a prodigy whose light will have been extinguished long before he is thirty. His health is reported to be very poor and so he may be taken from us before he achieves anything definite. At any rate his name deserves recording, for he may be one of those men who will figure prominently in bearing onward the legion of the Italian music-drama of the future.
Vittorio Gnecchi, born in 1876, has done two operas, _Cassandra_ and _Virtù d'Amore_. _Cassandra_ was first produced in 1905 at the Teatro Communale in Bologna and has since been heard at Ferrara in 1908, in Vienna at the Volksoper in 1911 and in Philadelphia in 1914. Gnecchi's instrumentation has been much praised, likened in fact to that of Richard Strauss. On its American production several critics found in the scoring of _Cassandra_ much that recalled that of Strauss's _Elektra_. When they were reminded of the date of production and composition of _Cassandra_, Gnecchi was soon vindicated from the charge of having copied the Munich composer's orchestral writing.
Worthy of record are Giuseppe Bezzi (b. 1874) with his _Quo Vadis_, Renzo Bianchi (b. 1887) with his _Fausta_, Renato Brogi (b. 1873) with _Oblio_ and _La Prima Notte_, Alessandro Bustini (b. 1876) with _Maria Dulcis_, Arturo Cadore (b. 1877) with _Il Natale_, Ezio Camussi (b. 1883) with _La Du Barry_, Agostino Cantu (b. 1878) with _Il Poeta_, Leopoldo Cassone (b. 1878) with _Al Mulino_ and _Velda_, Roberto Catolla (b. 1871) with _La Campana di Groninga_, Giuseppe Cicognani (b. 1870) with _Il Figlio Del Mare_, Domenico Cortopassi (b. 1875) with _Santa Poesia_, Alfredo Cuscina (b. 1881) with _Radda_, Ferruccio Cusinati (b. 1873) with _Medora_ and _Tradita_, and Franco Leoni with _Ib e la Piccola Cristina_, _L'Oracolo_, _Raggio di luna_, _Rip Van Winkle_ and _Tzigana_.
A. W. K.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] B. Padua, Feb. 24, 1842, pupil of the Milan Conservatory, but cosmopolitan in his influences, having visited Paris, Germany (where he was interested in Wagner) and Poland, his mother's home. Two cantatas, _'The Fourth of June'_ (1860) and _Le sorelle d'Italia_ (1862), were his first published efforts.
[74] B. Livorno, Dec. 7, 1863, pupil of Ponchielli and Saladino in Milan Conservatory.
[75] Born in Venice Jan. 12, 1876, he studied with Rheinberger in Munich in 1893-95, though in the main he is self-taught.
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