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PIETRO M ASCAGNI

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA PAGLIACCI RU G G E RO L E O N C AVA L L O

OLIVER LÁNG IN AN INTERVIEW WITH JENDRIK SPRINGER

DEATH COMES QUICKLY IN VERISMO ol

Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci are mostly presented as a double bill. While the works are strongly related with each other by their subject matter, they aren’t really siblings, as there are distinguishing features. Perhaps we could start by outlining the relationship? js I’m constantly surprised in this context by the fact that Mascagni wrote the first piece, Cavalleria rusticana, while Leoncavallo actually wanted to pair it some two years later with another piece in a similar vein, Pagliacci. Or was actually meant to, because the Sonzogno publishers were undoubtedly a driving force behind the Pagliacci project. So it isn’t surprising that the situation of pairing this successor resulted in strong correspondences and relationships in formal terms. Let me give just two examples. The prelude to the two operas isn’t just instrumental. In

Cavalleria rusticana, it is interrupted by Turiddu’s siciliana, in Pagliacci there’s Tonio’s prologue, which belongs to the prelude because it’s sung behind the closed curtain. An instrumental intermezzo is inserted in the middle of both operas before the final climax. So, the formal parallels are evident. ol What obviously connects the two works is their short nature. There were one-act operas earlier, but they were more on comedic lines. Here we have two short tragic operas. How does the short span of time affect the composition of the material? js The shortness was clearly a result of the original. The starting point for Cavalleria rusticana was a short story by Giovanni Verga. The driven precision of the short story has flowed into the opera through the dramatisation of the material. You feel it has been reduced to its essential elements. We must not

DEATH COMES QUICKLY IN VERISMO

forget, of course, that the competition Mascagni wrote his opera for required a one-acter. All this affected its internal structure, the individual numbers are shorter and very tight. Everything happens very quickly, moving directly to the climax. Even though Mascagni composed a very broad prelude and opening chorus, the climaxes happen quickly. ol Going beyond the form, Leoncavallo is generally regarded as the “more intellectual” composer, if you like to speak in these terms, while Mascagni is seen as the “earthier” one. js These labels, which are naturally always controversial in their brevity, express something which is very understandable when you look at the score. In its sonorities, Cavalleria rusticana often has something – particularly the way the brass are used, which is unpolished, almost rough – I would say rustic. The instrumentation sometimes seems almost clumsy, although I can’t decide whether this was deliberate, or whether it simply “happened” to Mascagni, who was a very young composer at the time, with little experience. Leoncavallo was clearly the more practised, more skilful, and able to orchestrate more subtly. ol Possibly Mascagni tried to musically imitate the postcard nature of the literary original, which can be very harsh in the language taken over? js That’s certainly a possibility. But I’d like to give an example which strikes me at every performance, in the duet between Santuzza and Alfio. Santuzza reveals Alfio’s wife Lola’s betrayal, and after this devastating news – Santuzza’s “your wife has taken him from me”, the orchestra sounds almost reflective. This

is directly followed by Alfio’s response, a musically unexpected dramatic forte, as a rare and direct contrast. Naturally, you can roll that up in the key words “postcard” or “unvarnished”, but I’m not sure that Mascagni would have chosen a different solution for this transition later, with more experience. On the other hand, Leoncavallo creates more fluent transitions, although there are still edgy moments, even brutal, they are more organically integrated in compositional terms. ol You said that Leoncavallo has a more skilful hand in orchestration. js There are more directions in the score and more nuanced ones than with his colleague Mascagni. For example, Leoncavallo repeatedly divides the violins, calls for flageolet effects from the strings, along with other striking sounds and ways of playing. He also looks after small nuances, and I can give an example of this: Nedda’s bird aria is accompanied by two interweaving harps, and Leoncavallo adds complex figures in the divided strings, with four solo violins playing sustained chords an octave higher. There is a clear French influence on the sonority here. But that doesn’t mean we should see Mascagni as a poor composer, Leoncavallo was simply more skilful. ol Does the use of the available instruments also change? js Verdi customarily used trombones and trumpets to set the tempo, rather than chords or rhythmic pulses. Now, they are being used more as melodic instruments. This has a result which should not be underestimated, as the vocal line is now doubled by a brass instrument rather than the former strings or woodwind. So we’re hearing a

T HE R ISE A N D FA LL OF V ER ISMO

performed in Cologne, Tasca’s A Santa Lucia in Berlin. At that time, the Viennese Richard Heuberger wrote the harsh words: “the production of verismo operas is a business; horror and dismay have become a viable commodity.” The competition for one-act operas, which the Duke of Saxe-Coburg announced in 1893, met with a particularly surprising response. At least two of these long-forgotten works taken from Italian folk life should be mentioned: Meyer-Helmund’s Liebeskampf and Kaskel’s Hochzeitsmorgen. Tempi passati! Actually, the only verismo

descendants left in Italy are Puccini’s tragic Il tabarro, which is influenced by impressionism, and on the other side of the Alps d’Albert’s Tiefland, which succinctly translates a naturalistic thriller from the Catalan mountains into music. But there is nothing to laugh about here. The dark, severe gesture, emotions of driving passion, naive love and violence are all safe in verismo. Influences of its aesthetics can still be easily discovered in the operas of Korngold, Menotti, Schreker and Shostakovich. That would not be a valid argument for “classical” verismo: it may be a vindication.

ÉMILE ZOLA

“ART IS A CORNER OF CREATION SEEN THROUGH A TEMPERAMENT.”

PIETRO MASCAGNI

EXPECTATIONS EXCEEDED BY REALITY FROM THE COMPOSER’S MEMOIRS One July evening in 1888, I stayed longer than usual at the Philharmonic. Finally, I left the house for my usual walk and went to my barber, who also sold newspapers. The paper I preferred was Corriere della Sera, but for a reason I can no longer remember, it was not available this time. “Tonight, you’ll have to make do with the ’Secolo’,” said my newspaper-selling barber – and with that newspaper in my pocket, I went home. Once at home, I opened the paper: “good heavens!” I exclaimed. “Perhaps fate has decided to help us this time! The Teatro Illustrato has announced a competition for a one-act opera, and I want to enter! I have the subject, Cavalleria rusticana, and I even have Verga’s permission to set the story to music.”

* In January 1888 I was in Naples to meet Puccini, who was giving Le Villi at the Teatro San Carlo. He said: “Are you still thinking about Ratcliff ? [an opera project by Mascagni that he only completed later] Listen: Ratcliff simply cannot be your first opera; try to make a name for yourself first and sacrifice some of your ideals. And then you can do what you want later.” As a result, the idea of writing another opera instead of Ratcliff had taken root in me; but I was still waiting for the right opportunity. Now here it was: the Sonzogno competition. I went looking for a good librettist, but I couldn’t find one; or rather, I could have had any one of many, but they all wanted money. I didn’t have any and so I couldn’t offer it.

* So I went to Livorno to meet my friend Giovanni TargioniTozzetti, a former school friend. At that time, Tristan und Isolde was being performed in Bologna at the Teatro Comunale under KS PETER SEIFFERT as TURIDDU

ANN-CHRISTINE MECKE

A VENTITRÈ ORE! ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THE COMMEDIA PERFORMANCE Canio’s announcement on the village square seems rather surprising: “A ventitré ore”, in other words “at 11 p.m.” celebrating the Assumption of Mary, he announces a “grand performance.” Does the performance really only begin at eleven o’clock at night? On a hot August day in Calabria, one might imagine that, after all, it would perhaps be pleasantly cool then. But how are we then to understand Beppe’s statement that people come straight from the church to the performance – are church services also held at this late hour? No, beforehand the churchgoers enter the church to the sound of the vesper bells (“ding, dong”). They do not spend five hours there, nor does the opera’s plot leave room for another holiday service. The solution to the riddle lies in a different method of counting time. Pagliacci’s characters do not count from midnight to midnight, but from sunset to the next sunset. This method is known as “Italian hours” and was used primarily in Italy until the beginning of the 20th century. Since the sun sets in Calabria shortly before eight in mid-August, the performance begins at around 7 p.m., and the holiday vespers start earlier, perhaps at 6 p.m. The action begins at 3 p.m., and the stage direction indicates the time in the usual hourly counting: “it is three hours after noon, the August sun is burning hot.” The action then takes place before our eyes without any jumps, but time passes on average at four times the speed: while a good four hours pass for Nedda, Canio, Silvio and the others, it is only one hour for us as audience members.

ASMIK GRIGORIAN as NEDDA