Franco Alfano: Transcending Turandot

Franco Alfano Transcending Turandot

Konrad Dryden

THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC. Lanham • Toronto • Plymouth, UK 2010

Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.scarecrowpress.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by Konrad Claude Dryden All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dryden, Konrad Claude. Franco Alfano : transcending Turandot / Konrad Dryden. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8108-6970-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8108-6977-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8108-6971-4 (ebook) 1. Alfano, Franco, 1875–1954. 2. Composers—Italy—Biography. I. Title. ML410.A43D79 2010 782.1092—dc22 [B] 2009018010

 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Unless otherwise indicated, all photos in the photospread are from the author’s collection.

“Was it worth the trouble to have led such a great, active life, if it were to end in greater dependence than it had begun? How insupportable such a position was, did not escape his high mind, his delicate sensibility.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit

Contents

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Foreword by Magda Olivero Acknowledgments Archive Key Introduction

vii ix xi xiii

Posillipo—Leipzig—Miranda (1875–1896) La fonte d’Enscir (1897–1899) Resurrezione and Il Principe Zilah (1899–1909) L’ombra di Don Giovanni (1910–1914) La leggenda di Sakùntala, Tagore and Tragedy (1915–1921) Turandot (1921–1925) Mary Garden—Vienna—Rostand (1926) Mussolini and Balzac (1927) Metropolitan Opera Premiere (1928) A Tale of Two Operas (1928–1929) France and an American Saint (1930–1931) Cyrano de Bergerac (1932–1933) Palermo and Don Juan de Manara (1934–1941) Wartime Phoenix (1942–1947) Final Years (1948–1954)

1 8 13 32 41 49 59 70 86 93 104 118 131 146 158

Appendix A: Opera Plots Appendix B: The Alfano Opus Bibliography Index About the Author

167 183 191 195 203 v

Foreword Magda Olivero

A lfano occupies a position of primary importance for the simple reason

that his music is heartfelt. I had the great fortune to have known the composer and his magical world personally. His was a sensitive character of enormous enthusiasm—a volcano—when I was a student at the Conservatory of Turin and he its director. Incredibly simpatico and highly educated, the composer was rather small of stature and sported a slight Neapolitan accent. I initially met him in order to study the role of Katiusha in Resurrezione, an opera I had never heard. Seated at the piano, he sought to have me understand the work’s intrinsic beauty. He was a great teacher in his ability to transmit thoughts and intentions without speaking. We seemed to possess an interior communication. I of course immediately grew enamored of Katiusha, since he portrays her in such beautiful, profound, and vivid colors. Alfano’s wife, Donna Marthe, a delightful woman with a charming French accent, took on the task of scenically preparing the role with me. She was amazed that I, at such a young age, was able to comprehend the myriad facets of a character demanding portrayal as a young girl in act 1, a desperate woman in act 2, and an anguished one in act 3. Resurrezione is a compelling work requiring its interpreters—the role of protagonist above all—to search deep within to grasp, love, and live the characters. It was with great love that I sang Katiusha’s superb aria “Dio pietoso” in act 2 when she awaits the arrival of Dimitri’s train. It contains fully, even if exceptionally brief, the essence of Alfano’s delicate spirit. In fact, only a man as sensitive as this composer could have created a role like Katiusha or, for that matter, Cyrano. I shall never forget her phrase in act 3, “Perchè non sono morta?” which affected me tremendously; there was something so tragic about it. Alfano also introduced me to some of his art songs that so perfectly capture his personality—how I wish we had such composers now! vii

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Actually, the initial Alfano role I ever portrayed was the part of Anùsuya in his La leggenda di Sakùntala in Turin in 1933. At this very moment, seventyfour years later, I can still vividly recall singing the act 1 phrase “Priyàmvada . . . Il cerbiatto selvaggio s’è smarrito . . . Vo’ ricondurlo a la madre.” I later took on the title role of Sakùntala. Basing it on a legend, Alfano created a fable wherein the characters emerge magical, dreamlike, and ethereal. It employs a gossamer sound palette that steadily rises perfectly in accordance with its philosophic vein. Musically, it is an incredibly difficult work framed by a complex orchestration. The role of Sakùntala requires both agility and facile high notes. Again, only Alfano could have written this unique opus. Although he originally studied in Leipzig and was half-French, Alfano’s music contains a distinct Italianate flavor. La leggenda di Sakùntala and Cyrano de Bergerac attest to a certain modern idiom that nevertheless succeeds in creating believable characters. I also have cherished memories of portraying Freddie in L’ultimo Lord and Roxane. The final act in Cyrano de Bergerac is absolutely beautiful and spellbinding. Cyrano’s death is truly stupendous. Similar to Catalani, Alfano’s place in history has been extremely unjust and undeserved. I therefore hope that this biography will help to finally illuminate and draw attention to Italy’s last verismo composer.

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to the following individuals, librarians, and archivists: Nina

Alfano, Alberto Alfano, Gino Bechi, Maria Carbone, Davide Ceriani, Gina Cigna, Peter Doering, Plácido Domingo, Antonia Ferrari, Roger Flury, Dr. Galal, Dr. Raymond Komar, Lia Marinuzzi, Magda Olivero, Gianna Pederzini, Simonetta Puccini, Giulietta Simionato, Michael T. R. B. Turnbull, and Dame Eva Turner. Dr. Hermann Böhm, Handschriftensammlung, Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, Vienna; E.A. Teatro alla Scala, Milan; Linda Amichand and Andrew Colgoni, Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph, Ontario; Paul Collen, Royal College of Music, London; Dr. Schnellig-Reinicke, Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin; Clemens Brenneis, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; Casa Ricordi, Munich; Rupert Ridgwell, British Library, London; Carlo Della Vecchia, Ricordi; Kevin La Vine, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; John Pennino, Metropolitan Opera Archives, New York; Ufficio Stato Civile, Naples; Ufficio Stato Civile, San Remo; Dr. Aldo G. Ricci, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome; Dr. Francesco Melisi, San Pietro a Majella Conservatory, Naples; Dr. Massimo Baucia, Biblioteca Comunale Passerini-Landi, Piacenza; Christine Piech, Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy,” Leipzig; Kenneth Dunn, National Library of Scotland; Greg Colley and Clare Button, Bodleian Library, Oxford; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; Alessandra Malusardi, Archivio Teatro dell’Opera, Rome; Mariapina di Simone, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome; Angelika Dworak, Universal Edition, Vienna; Linda B. Fairtile and Dr. Bob Kosovsky, Music Division, Rare Books and Manuscripts, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Alessandro Savasta, Sugarmusic S.p.A., Edizioni Suvini Zerboni, Milan; and Otmar Singer, Staatsbibliothek, Bamberg. Special thanks to Renée Camus and Kellie Hagan at Scarecrow Press for their enormous dedication. ix

Archive Key

The following abbreviations are used throughout the book when referring to various Alfano archives: AAN AASR ACS AGM B BC BL BV CR G GMA HMT LOC NYPLPA RA RCM RRA SC SCN SV V Y

Alfano Archives, Naples Alfano Archives, San Remo Mussolini Files, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome Archive Georges Migot, Strasbourg Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin Biblioteca Civica Tartarotti, Rovereto British Library, London Biblioteca Civica Bertoliana, Vicenza Casa Ricordi, Milan Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph Library, Ontario Gino Marinuzzi Archives, Milan Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy,” Leipzig Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, New York Rossato Archive, University of Pavia Royal College of Music, London Raffaello de Rensis Archive, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Stato Civile, San Remo Stato Civile, Naples Edizioni Suvini-Zerboni, Milan Handschriftensammlung, Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, Vienna The Frederick R. Koch Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. xi

Introduction

“T he man Turandot finished” is, lamentably, an accurate phrase ascribed

to Franco Alfano: the composer once obliged to accept the thankless task of completing Puccini’s final opera.1 An indistinct footnote for more than fifty years, Alfano remains one of the most undervalued composers, regardless if he arguably represents the best of Italy’s post-Puccini contemporaries. He is the vibrant author of innovative operas emanating elegiac poetry and sweeping passion, complemented by atmospheric symphonies that, as an art form, originally lacked an enduring tradition in his native country. Furthermore, he was a superb crafter of finely wrought art songs (based on the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore), a gifted concert pianist, and the director of a string of Italian music conservatories (Bologna, Turin, and Pesaro), when not serving as artistic director of Palermo’s Teatro Massimo or doubling as stage director. Recognized during his lifetime as one of Italy’s most prized composers, Alfano represents an unjust chapter in music history that demands reevaluation. His Tolstoy-based opera Resurrezione2 was hugely successful, and few sopranos eschewed the role of Katiusha. In her memoirs, Mary Garden devotes pages to her association with the composer and his work. There remains, however, sparse room allotted to Alfano in music encyclopedias, and entries steadfastly focus on maintaining the image of a second-rate musician, remembered solely (and somewhat superficially) in relation to Puccini’s swan song.3 “One of the best and least known of composers” is a harrowing summation customarily coined for and synonymous with Alfano that, unknowingly, depletes interest while placing his career into a rigid straightjacket. With “some 700 books and articles related to Puccini’s life and works,”4 it is indeed difficult to comprehend why Alfano—almost a century following Turandot’s premiere—has not merited his own monograph. xiii

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I am afraid I must also count myself as one initially introduced to Alfano via Turandot. Fortunately, a performance of Resurrezione (sung by Magda Olivero) broadcast by Turin’s RAI in 1971 (and later issued as a private recording) immediately altered my opinion. I will forever recall the profound impression this immensely stirring music made: an ocean of sound projecting fleeting yet memorable melodies imbued with a refined poignancy convincingly depicting the suffering and desolation of its heroine, while her quixotic emotional states are conveyed to a degree seemingly broaching the “margin of the unexpressed.”5 This is a score imbued with its own uniquely fragrant idiom that ebbs and flows like enormous waves of passion—both ardent and fraught—distancing itself significantly from other Italian operatic works of the period while admirably complementing the score’s dramaturgy and snow-clad scenario. It conveys a prevailing sense of purity and spirituality discernable, I soon realized, in most of Alfano’s production: a nigh philosophic pursuit of righteousness emitting a sense of hope and consolation. His musical creed expresses a positive purification and regeneration of man’s essential goodness, epitomized as a redemption or transfiguration proceeding “from darkness toward light.”6 Once heard, his works haunt precisely because of their highly individual qualities expressed arrestingly in delicate hues. The musical brushstrokes conveying Cyrano’s transient passage from mortality to dissolution in Cyrano de Bergerac is a magisterial example, while the final reading, in the same act, of his letter to Roxane accompanied by falling leaves of “Venetian gold” surely rank with some of the supreme moments in all of opera. Each facet of Alfano’s legacy requires its own individual approach, since his stylistic variances are sufficiently manifold to generate speculation whether his is really the language of the ultra-Italianate verismo of Resurrezione, the almost esoteric exoticism of La leggenda di Sakùntala, or the aristocratically restrained French vein dominating Cyrano de Bergerac. These creations in fact all derive from intertwined facets of an eclectic personality whose aim was to create a suitable musical setting when delving into the innermost of individuals at odds with society, a characteristic element inherent in so much of his dramatis personae. His literary sources were ambitious and, coupled with his musical expertise, produced inspiring works of enduring interest. I was fortunate—from the mid-1980s until her death more than a decade later—in meeting (and remaining in contact with) the composer’s adopted daughter, Nina Alfano. Residing in San Remo surrounded by her father’s mementos, she doubtlessly instilled a more “personal” portrait of the composer while, at the same time, increasing my awareness of the sparse international interest remaining concerning Alfano’s impressive career. Her words, particularly the acrimony attached to Turandot culminating in antagonism directed toward Arturo Toscanini for his heavy “editing” of what had taken her father

Introduction

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such effort to achieve, left enduring impressions. However, it was precisely at that time that Alfano’s original completion received a hearing in London later released by Decca.7 Although a step in the right direction, it resulted under the all-encompassing and indefatigable shadow of Turandot—and Turandot was certainly not what Alfano was all about. Nina also presented me with a copy of Andrea Della Corte’s relatively concise 1935 monograph of her father published (at the composer’s bequest) as Ritratto di Franco Alfano (Portrait of Franco Alfano).8 Until now, this informal and yet informative book, largely based on the journalist/musicologist’s conversations with the composer and concluding with Cyrano de Bergerac, remained the only attempt to recapture Alfano’s vita in biographical form.9 Appearing during the composer’s lifetime, Della Corte’s monograph leaves numerous questions unanswered while (purposefully) avoiding any reference to Turandot, thereby reiterating that Alfano was only relentlessly linked to the completion upon the advent of a future generation with little, if any, knowledge of his creative corpus. Recent advancements in the Alfano sector, largely owing to the indefatigable efforts of Plácido Domingo’s assumption of Cyrano as well as a number of recordings, seem to signify renewed appreciation. This would certainly have encouraged Nina Alfano who, expressing the wish for a more complete study of her father’s life, even contemplated the idea of authoring such a work herself.10 This is the first fully documented monograph of the composer in any language. It seeks, similar to my earlier studies on Ruggiero Leoncavallo and Riccardo Zandonai, to dispel misconceptions regarding the composer’s life and career and to present a chronicle based on letters and documents wherever and whenever possible. Alfano was a tremendously private individual and there remain, alas, few opportunities for creating a more intimate portrait than would have been possible with the existence of diaries, journals, or letters of a more personal nature (a significant portion undergoing destruction when Turin was ravaged during World War II). A large extent of the material— following intense international research—appears for the first time and almost all of it for the first time in English.11 Alfano, similar to the majority of his Italian colleagues, lacks a comprehensive archival collection, thereby necessitating a demanding search for letters randomly strewn throughout the world. Fortunately, I was able to locate important additional (and unknown) segments of the Alfano correspondence in Austria, Canada, and the United States, thereby contributing another (previously unpublished) part to the puzzle constituting the composer’s life. The Alfano correspondence, unlike that of either Puccini or Mascagni, contains little of a flirtatious nature, and the composer, even in the Ritratto, refuses expressly to relate anything even faintly confidential. However, the

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remaining Alfano letters (mostly occupied with professional matters) do shed light on his innate wit, sensitivity, and collegiality. They also demonstrate a nuanced use of metaphor clothed in a highly literate style reflecting the thoughts of an unabashed intellectual, and, in the Italian correspondence, his borrowing from French and German complement the image of a cosmopolite. Alfano maintained a remarkably eventful agenda, confiding in his tenor friend Edward Johnson (later Metropolitan Opera general manager) that he felt letter writing to be a waste of time that required better usage—such as composing. However, the surviving documents in the composer’s hand are sufficient testimony that we are dealing with an individual far removed from theatrical intrigue and gossip. He emerges, unlike most of his colleagues, as a kind, gentle, and sympathetic man. In fact, it would be difficult to unearth any scathing displays of animosity, apart from his feelings (wounded, above all) toward Toscanini for obvious reasons, and, even here, he is willing to admit that the fiery maestro’s artistic abilities are well beyond dispute. Finally, the chapters devoted to Turandot seek to shed light on Alfano’s view of the events, opposed to the all-too customary Toscanini/Puccini perspective, while the section of opera plot summaries should enable readers to understand better the subjects occupying the greater part of the composer’s life. The present volume, to quote from an earlier introduction, “is bound to contain more errors than an additional monograph on Puccini, Verdi or Wagner.”12 However, I hope it will serve to generate interest in a valuable composer—the last of the verismo era—whose least interesting effort was, in fact, Turandot.

NOTES 1. Peter G. Davis, “The Man Turandot Finished,” Opera News, 28 March 1987. 2. “Resurrection” has two spellings in Italian: “Risurrezione” and “Resurrezione.” Alfano referred to the opera employing the latter and I have, throughout the course of the monograph and in order to avoid confusion, followed suit. 3. Alfano, it seems, was unworthy for entry in either Julian Budden’s relatively recent Puccini monograph or in the dramatis personae appendix of The Puccini Companion, regardless if personalities of lesser importance find inclusion. 4. Linda B. Fairtile, Giacomo Puccini: A Guide to Research (New York: Garland Publishing, 1999) xi. 5. Virginia Woolf, Times Literary Supplement, 18 January 1928. 6. Andrea Della Corte, Ritratto di Franco Alfano (Turin: G. B. Paravia & C., 1935). The book appeared as no. 15 in a series entitled Biblioteca di Cultura Musicale. 7. “Finally, following so many years, one is able to hear the Turandot finale [and final duet] as it was conceived by my father and not how Toscanini wished it.” Nina Alfano to the author, 25 February 1986.

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8. Della Corte, Ritratto di Franco Alfano, 43. 9. Since then, both Ultimi splendori: Cilèa, Giordano, Alfano, edited by Johannes Streicher (Rome: Ismez, 2000), and Franco Alfano: Presagio di tempi nuovi con finale controcorrente, edited by Rino Maione (Milan: Rugginenti, 1999), have, through their publication of essays, letters, and chronologies, contributed greatly to the study of the composer. 10. “I have considered and still hope to publish a biography of my father that is more complete and up to date.” Nina Alfano to the author, 25 February 1986. 11. Translations from German, Italian, and French are the author’s own. 12. Konrad Dryden, Ruggiero Leoncavallo: Life and Works (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007), xiv–xv.

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1

•

Posillipo—Leipzig—Miranda (1875–1896)

A tenacious (and frequently impenetrable) shroud customarily envelopes

even the most fundamental facts of Italian composers, and Alfano is no exception. He claimed to have been born one year later, although his birth certificate states that “Francesco”1 Alfano’s journey began in Posillipo (Naples) on 8 March 1875 at 8:15 a.m. as the son of Vincenzo Alfano and the French-born Francesca “Fanny” (hence his baptismal name) née Fourcade.2 The couple sired six sons (Francesco, Giuseppe, Ugo, Alberto, Alfredo, Mario) and a daughter, Maria. Theirs was a family of highly esteemed silver engravers, whose domicile in Piazza San Luigi eventually became dwarfed by the more lavish homes of affluent Neapolitans and, above all, by foreigners choosing to reside in an idyllic area inspiring an impressive array of musicians, authors, and painters to extol its beauty. Adhering to Naples’s bourgeoisie, the Alfanos were unable to lay claim to a Puccinian dynasty of composers or the aristocratic antecedents of Ruggiero Leoncavallo. Founded in 1865 and located at Via Roma 242 in Naples, the family business, Vincenzo Alfano & Figli, was, by way of its appointment to the Italian royal family, a prestigious address offering silver-embossed wallets, engraved cigarette holders, religious items, and monogrammed canes. Music remained an important element, with the composer nostalgically recalling singing Bellini’s “Mira, o Norma” as a precocious three-year-old.3 A paternal aunt soon joined the family (accompanied by her grand piano), enabling him to receive music lessons. A formal music instructor recommended by a cousin soon complemented this. In the summer of 1886 and through the intervention of a certain Raffaele Morfella, he came under the tutelage of the pianist Alessandro Longo. Remembered for his Scarlatti editions, he had once been a student of Beniamino 1

2

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Cesi and Paolo Serrao—both of whom later instructed Alfano at San Pietro a Majella. With Longo, he refined his abilities at the keyboard for some two years: the only ray of hope when attending a mathematical institute. Longo’s father (who also instructed Maria) noticed that, left on his own, the youngster began “composing” before and after school, regardless if he had little, if any, knowledge of counterpoint.4 Vincenzo and Francesca soon paid Longo a visit and, demonstrating “a great sense of responsibility,” questioned the young man whether their son had sufficient talent to pursue a successful artistic career. After some initial hesitation, Longo confirmed his belief in Francesco’s capabilities, provided he agreed to embrace his vocation with both “seriousness” and “tenacity.”5 It was now Francesca, who, regardless if Vincenzo would have preferred seeing Francesco pursue his studies at the institute preparing him for a “respectable” profession (such as the family business), supported her son’s decision.6 Thus, an extremely content Francesco entered the prestigious, palm-lined San Pietro a Majella Conservatory (as an external student) on 1 December 1891.7 He would remain three years.8 Alfano later recalled the ease with which he approached his curriculum.9 This commenced with Italian music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, before being allowed to “master the fugue” at the age of nineteen. The promising pupil’s teachers included Camillo De Nardis (harmony) and, somewhat later, Paolo Serrao (counterpoint). Piano, which he studied with a certain Cotrufo, remained his preferred instrument, regardless if he failed to forsake either the organ or violin. He formed, during his last year, a trio consisting of fellow students Luis Lopez of Guatamala and Gaetano Trojani of Buenos Aires; its purpose was to perform the music of Grieg (his composer of preference), Borodin, César Cui, Mily Balakirev, and Anatole Liadov. Within a short time, Alfano felt convinced of the futility of trying to fathom the art of orchestration at the conservatory. This would of course remain a recurrent theme throughout his career that, complementing his lessons with Oronzio Scarano (composer of the operas La forza del danaro and Griselda o la Marchesa di Saluzzo), he now hoped to remedy. Although possessing a fine understanding of the art of instrumentation, Scarano approached the subject in a manner far too “timid and cautious,” according to an increasingly autodidactic composer inspired by Bizet’s Carmen and Massenet’s Werther. “In these two dissimilar works,” he later recalled, “I perceived an affinity of romantic substance and passion, and was so inebriated by the vehemence, the genial orchestration of the one work [Carmen], as I was by the tender sentimentality and the delicate shadings of the other [Werther].”10 The innate theatricality marking these operas foreshadowed the verismo movement soon to engulf Italy. This current later found expression in operas offering “greater emotional

Posillipo—Leipzig—Miranda (1875–1896)

3

immediacy . . . reflecting the blend of sentimentality and sexuality that characterized the emerging late nineteenth-century Italian society.”11 Giovanni Verga adhered to this new Zola-inspired school with the publication of his short story “Cavalleria rusticana” on which Pietro Mascagni then based his hugely successful 1890 opera. Discontent with his technical progress, Alfano began seeking possibilities elsewhere. It was to Germany he now turned: “Learned Germany—especially Leipzig—with its great names in [music] theory, its symphonists, its great concert, orchestral, and choral organizations attracted me.”12 Alfano, his wish granted, soon set off for Leipzig in September 1895 after remaining for a period in Berlin and Warsaw. He seems to have faced little opposition when convincing his parents—his father, in particular—of the necessity of foreign study. Leipzig, prior to the ravages of World War II, was an enchanting place and, upon Alfano’s arrival, a mecca of music sporting a still-intact Gewandhaus. The Königliches Conservatorium der Musik zu Leipzig was the first music school of its kind. Founded by Mendelssohn in 1843, it employed six instructors for twenty-two students. Later, in 1887, the institution relocated to the Grassistrasse in an imposing structure in an affluent area where, in 1893, and with an enlarged student body (the majority of which were foreigners), it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. At the time, Arthur Nikisch held the position of principal conductor of the Gewandhaus orchestra.13 The damp and dark north must initially have proven rather daunting for someone who, fifty years later, was quick to recall that “Germany certainly tamed my natural exuberance.”14 Thus, the twenty-year-old entered Leipzig’s Royal Conservatory of Music as “Herr Frank Alfano” on 3 October.15 The city held a special fascination for him thanks to its association with Wagner and the fact that Grieg also attended the institution. Alfano’s main interest, however, was the opportunity to study with Liszt’s student, the composer Salomon Jadassohn. Aged sixty-four at their first meeting, his reputation rested primarily on studies of music theory and Bach.16 Jadassohn embodied precisely what Alfano sought, and the two got along well.17 However, there is reason to believe that without Serrao’s training he never would have been able to grasp the school’s demanding curriculum. Alfano next took up residence as the tenant of a certain Herr Dreier at Burggasse 8. He brought with him a freshly composed manuscript of five songs, which, with youthful enthusiasm, he dedicated to Massenet.18 Entitled Cinq Mélodies, the compilation (comprising poetry by Alfred De Musset, Lamartine, and Hugo) stressed a French heritage later only fully utilized in his masterful setting of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac. When time permitted, Alfano immersed himself in Leipzig’s vibrant and colorful artistic life. This included concerts at the famed Gewandhaus, inebriated

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by the rich, dynamic, and exotic shades of Richard Strauss’s tone poems, which he then proceeded to study “note by note.”19 An indelible impression was also made by Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion (especially the choral sections) at the Thomaskirche. Gewandhaus rehearsals led by Arthur Nikisch, whose interpretations of portions of the symphonic repertory was an important advancement in Alfano’s formation, imbued him further with a deeper understanding of conducting (albeit something he would never do). Another highlight of the Leipzig stay was meeting his idol Edvard Grieg. At a concert comprising music by Jadassohn and Grieg’s Quartet no. 1 performed in the presence of both composers at the small aula (hall) of the Gewandhaus, Alfano, similar to other students present, could scarcely take his eyes off the celebrated Norwegian. We, the students, dreaming of success and notoriety, watched him . . . as if he were one of the world’s [most] tangible, glorious, phenomena. One marveled how such gifts could be contained and embodied in such a frail individual . . . whose luminous face harbored incredibly celestial eyes, which his blond hair made ethereal, evanescent.

It proved to be a triumphant evening for Grieg, regardless if the Jadassohn opus received scant applause. However, the following day, Alfano found his teacher seated at a table, immobile, his head in his hands. Strewn about were numerous newspapers. I entered and greeted, and the good maestro, ever the kindly father . . . raised his head. “Have you read?” he asked me with a pained expression, “Have you read the papers? The least they say is that my music is Ghetto-Musik.” He wept.20

The memory endured a lifetime. Apart from Jadassohn, he also attended courses given by Hugo Riemann and the violin instructor Hans Litt. The latter was a jovial man who enjoyed taking his young students to various inns outside Leipzig where he himself could indulge in his two great passions: discussing music and drinking wine. Not surprisingly, Jadassohn later related that Alfano sometimes failed to attend class.21 Though small of stature, the composer was now remarkably handsome. Chestnut-colored hair framed a clean-shaven face emanating an impish sense of buoyancy and charm, marked by a full—almost feminine—mouth. An aquiline nose drew attention to clear grey/blue eyes harboring marked intelligence and extreme sensitivity. This was an open, approachable, and yet inordinately driven face. Indeed, it is not difficult to imagine the effect of his

Posillipo—Leipzig—Miranda (1875–1896)

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romantic (and still slender) appearance upon contemporaries. It is likely that, at this point, the composer met the German woman with whom he later sired his only natural child, Herbert. No documentation remains concerning either his offspring or nameless companion. He did, however, recount Herbert’s tragic and premature death to Mussolini in World War II. For the present, fatherhood must certainly have complicated his life. With no knowledge of the current happenings, Alessandro Longo, in Leipzig for a new edition of selected pieces by Scarlatti, visited his former pupil in the summer of 1896. He found him at a desk overflowing with orchestral scores intent on perfecting his knowledge of instrumentation. Less than a year later, however, Alfano would regretfully ascertain that no one had in fact been able to impart this: It “failed . . . to enlighten me; it was not what I had imagined and felt it would be. . . . I questioned and hoped to receive rules . . . they offered me theories instead.” This brought him to the rather painful conclusion that the future of his technical abilities lay solely within himself or, as he stated later, “In my time I had to do it all on my own!”22 Branching off onto a more autodidactic level as an Italian also implied testing his operatic capabilities. His first attempt, Miranda, was derived from Antonio Fogazzaro’s (1842–1911) verse romance of the same name. Written in 1874, its estimable success was due to as much its sentimental subject as the author’s father being a wealthy industrialist and member of the Camera dei Deputati. Influenced by Chateaubriand and Sir Walter Scott, Fogazzaro created a work in three parts (“La lettera,” “Il libro di Miranda,” and “Il libro di Enrico”) centering on Miranda’s unrequited love for the egocentric poet Enrico. The romance concludes when Miranda, physically ailing owing to Enrico’s dismissal, seeks medical help at a sanatorium where the excitement of her lover’s unexpected return kills her. With its dearth plot and heady romanticism nostalgically recalling a bygone “Storm and Stress” period, Miranda seemingly covets the position of an Italian Leiden des jungen Werthers. Inherent similarities are particularly apparent when, on the brink of death, the heroine rejects Enrico after promising her mother not to return to her onetime suitor. Voiced in youthful rapture budding amid a Rousseauian depiction of nature, Fogazzaro’s metaphorical poetry appealed to Alfano’s romantic vein. Goethe’s influence on the novel perhaps accelerated the selection of a subject wherein he could actively acknowledge his long-held admiration for Massenet—creator of the operatic Werther.23 Begun 24 January 1896, Alfano’s operatic adaptation resulted in a single act comprising three scenes.24 It is difficult to ascertain who actually fashioned the libretto (penned in both Italian and German), since the Ritratto solely refers to “a good friend from Naples,”25 while later stressing it to be the composer himself. Left with the main effort of shearing and refashioning the original,

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Alfano’s version “gravely sacrificed” its namesake.26 With only eleven pages of the original score in existence, it is essentially prohibitive to form an adequate impression of the composer’s initial operatic attempt. We must therefore rely on Jadassohn’s largely favorable critique. Indebted to Grieg and Massenet, Alfano later defined the opera as “quite singable, containing pleasant harmonies, good taste, some rather severe touches, and melancholic.” The use of piano in the score’s orchestration derived less from “love of innovation” than in an effort to “fill in the lacunae.”27 His studies concluded on 11 February 1896 with a public concert incorporating the Vierte Hauptprüfung (fourth main exam). For this, Alfano performed his freshly composed Three Preludes and Fugues for Piano, relaying qualities as a promising young composer in addition to an enviable prowess at the keyboard. He received his graduation papers on 18 July. Jadassohn noted that Alfano “demonstrated his outstanding talent” in the composition of an opera in three scenes (Miranda).”28 Mentioned also was his expertise as a pianist. Alfano remained convinced Fogazzaro’s name would facilitate entry into one of Italy’s prestigious publishing houses. He would be gravely mistaken.

NOTES 1. Alfano’s mother called him “Franck” and he sometime signed his name “Franko.” In Germany, he referred to himself as “Frank,” and, later in life, remained with “Franco.” “Francesco,” it seems, was never an option. 2. Alberto Alfano, grandson of the composer’s brother Alberto, claims that the Italianization of her name (“Forcati”) resulted during World War I. Alberto Alfano to the author, 3 March 2008. 3. Andrea Della Corte, Ritratto di Franco Alfano (Turin: Paravia, 1935), 4. 4. Longo sported an autodidactic knowledge of counterpoint. 5. Della Corte, Ritratto, 6. 6. Alfano, unable to forget the important role Longo played in his life, later dedicated four piano pieces (later published by Ricordi) to his one-time teacher. 7. The San Pietro a Majella archive no longer possesses documentation regarding Alfano’s studies. 8. This is the information personally provided by Alfano upon entering the Leipzig Conservatory on 3 October 1895. 9. According to Della Corte, his grade point average usually swayed between 7.50 and 8.65. 10. Della Corte, Ritratto, 12. 11. Alan Mallach, The Autumn of Italian Opera, (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2007) 365. 12. Della Corte, Ritratto, 13.

Posillipo—Leipzig—Miranda (1875–1896)

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13. Nikisch became the conservatory’s director in 1903. 14. Quoted from Alfano’s lecture at San Pietro a Majella’s Sala Scarlatti on 16 March 1953. (Courtesy Nina Alfano.) Alfano never forgot the important library at San Pietro a Majella and its alarming state of disarray, making study excessively difficult or nigh impossible. Ritratto, 12. 15. Extract from Alfano’s matriculation papers, courtesy Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Leipzig. Alfano became n. 6783 in the conservatory’s ledgers. 16. His publications include: Elementare Harmonielehre (1883), Kontrapunkt/Kanon und Fuge (1884), Formen in den Werken der Tonkunst (1886), and Lehrbuch der Instrumentation (1889). 17. When asked to express his own critique of Jadassohn’s compositional style, Alfano responded: “It was Mendelssohn diluted in its invention and of a more severe construction.” Ritratto, 18. 18. Cinq Mélodies (for piano and voice) op. 1. “Quand par un jour de pluie,” “Pourquoi! Pourquoi reveilles-tu?” “Fut-il jamais douceur,” “Envoi à ***—Roses et papillons,” and “Sonnet—Je vous ai vue enfant.” 19. Della Corte, Ritratto, 20. 20. Della Corte, Ritratto, 17–18. 21. His diploma also mentions his not having attended lectures (held by a certain Prof. Paul) in music history. 22. Della Corte, Ritratto, 16. 23. This recalls Leoncavallo who, in his first operatic effort, Chatterton, pays both a dramaturgical as well as musical debt to the composer. 24. The Ritratto erroneously lists the work as being in two acts, regardless if Jadassohn, on Alfano’s Leipzig diploma, states that it consisted of three scenes in keeping with Fogazzaro’s original. The title page of what remains of the original holograph score documents Miranda’s being a “melodrama in one act” divided into three scenes. 25. Della Corte, Ritratto, 17. 26. Massimo Bruni, “Franco Alfano e la Cerchia della ‘Generazione dell’80,’” Musica italiana del primo Novecento. Atti del Convegno, Florence 1980. 27. Della Corte, Ritratto, 21. 28. This quotation stems from Jadassohn’s critique of Alfano’s qualities as it appears on the composer’s diploma (Lehrer-Zeugnis). Courtesy Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Leipzig.

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La fonte d’Enscir (1897–1899)

I n early January, Alfano finally wrote Fogazzaro requesting permission to set

Miranda to music, regardless if the project had been “completely finished,”1 with scene 1 receiving a German translation by Dresden’s Ludwig Hartmann with an eye to performing the work in that country.2 This preceded the composer’s return to Italy, with Naples a mandatory stop. He was now an impeccably dressed young man; a lock of hair dangled to the left of his forehead à la Turgenev. The silk tie, immaculate white button-down collar, and impressive watch chain tucked into his waistcoat defined further the impassioned artist he sought to personify. Milan was of course the reason for his return, with the Lombard capital essentially de rigueur for an aspiring composer. Many had spent their “galley years” in a city boasting not only La Scala but the country’s most powerful publishing firms as well. In dire need of an influential personality, Alfano now approached Umberto Giordano (Andrea Chenier having recently premiered at La Scala in 1896). A San Pietro a Majella alumni, the latter returned frequently to the conservatory, lending credence to the assumption that the men originally chanced to meet in December 1891. The affable Giordano agreed to introduce Alfano to Edoardo Sonzogno (his own publisher and director of Casa Musicale Sonzogno). Unimpressed by Miranda, Sonzogno refused to add Alfano’s name to his roster of composers, however. This reaction, notwithstanding Giordano’s intervention and Alfano’s own strenuous training, came as an unexpected shock. Fortunately, an acquaintance suggested he contact Luigi Illica who, having supplied the libretti to Andrea Chenier, Alfredo Catalani’s La Wally, and Puccini’s La bohème, worked for both Casa Sonzogno as well as its archrival Casa Ricordi. 8

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9

Illica remained cordial at the first meeting. Impressed by Miranda’s score if not its libretto, he agreed to present Alfano to the firm. Thus, the composer found himself reintroducing Miranda to a formidable Giulio Ricordi who judged that he merited further scrutiny regardless if the opera did not. Instead, he offered the young composer a new Illica libretto in two parts and an intermezzo entitled La fonte d’Enscir3 (The Spring of [H]Enshir), which may originally have been constructed (and rejected) for another composer. Alfano’s elation was short-lived upon actually setting eyes on the blatantly melodramatic and pseudo-exotic work, however. Set in the Tunisia of legendary times, the plot relates Hedmà’s predestined and ill-fated love for Jezid, with the couple eventually united in death. Although a trifling creation of meager substance, La fonte d’Enscir pays service to Illica’s style.4 Its static plot nevertheless afforded sparse possibilities (or inspiration) for an operatic adaptation, regardless if its redemptive theme and poetic metaphors may have slightly consoled the composer. Expressed in Illica’s phrase “Ma amor è grande; amor è tutto il mondo!” (But love is great; love is the entire world!), this vein emphasized a form of “universal love” employed repeatedly in the majority of Alfano’s future works. Feigning delight, he returned to Leipzig to take up work on his second opera. In Germany, Alfano neutralized and refreshed his powers by playing the piano music of Beethoven, Brahms, and Schumann. He also found time to compose his Piano Concerto in A.5 Choosing a similar key Schumann employed for his sole piano concerto seems no coincidence. An excellent pianist, he sought, in the summer and autumn of 1898, to increase his earnings by giving recitals in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The music of Russia’s composers, especially Mussorgsky and his contemporaries, imparted an enormous impression. Time spent in Russia enabled an enhanced and deeper understanding of Tolstoy’s Resurrection when he chanced, years later, to see a stage adaptation in Paris. When approaching La fonte d’Enscir, Alfano subjugated Illica’s attempts as “artificial” and “mechanical” hackwork, incorporating an intolerable and “completely false” second part. This, then, would serve as a work of experiment, wherein he could inject a more complex (and Germanic) orchestral palette—something he had been largely incapable of doing in Miranda. Abundant choral sections, an extended intermezzo depicting Jezid’s desert journey, and atmospheric dances for the wedding festivities rounded out a score upon which the future of his career lay. “Decorative” was how Alfano chose to label a work that failed miserably to provide him with the requisite framework for his art.6 It is not difficult to imagine his trepidation when finally presenting La fonte d’Enscir to Giulio Ricordi who, especially enamored of part 1, felt it

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merited a premiere. The problem remained part 2, which failed to sustain the quality of the first. Alfano correctly blamed this on Illica’s execrable libretto, though it seems rather unlikely that he had the courage to voice his opinion at the meeting. However, Ricordi’s verdict that Alfano’s talent was no longer in question and merely necessitated a little guidance signified a new milestone indeed. Both Arturo Toscanini and Puccini, two men who later fatally influenced his career, voiced encouragement when introduced to portions of the score. This nevertheless failed to succeed in altering Ricordi’s opinion of refusing to stage the opera in Italy. In Germany, Alfano tried convincing the publishers Bote & Bock. They, in turn, cabled Theodore Löwe, artistic director of the Breslau (presently Wroclow) Opera who, under pressure, agreed to produce the work.7 Thus, the premiere of La fonte d’Enscir (An der Quelle von Enschir) took place on 8 November 1898 in a double bill with Pagliacci.8 Politics played a role when Ricordi’s Gazzetta musicale di Milano unabashedly reported that “Frank” Alfano’s “complete and indisputable success”9 culminated in some ten curtain calls. Leopold Weintraub conducted a cast featuring dramatic soprano Henny Borchers (Hedmà), Harriet Behné (Leyla), heldentenor Adolf Wallnöfer (Prince Kaddour), and the buffo Hans Geißler (Abdallah). German reviewers, in reference to the score’s innovative tendencies expressed in a symphonic idiom distancing itself from Italy’s customary contemporary offerings, acknowledged Alfano’s indebtedness to Wagner. They surmised that it signified a “new” era in his native country. The term Liebestod was even coined in relation to the heroine’s death. Some articles referred to the opera’s noticeably high tessitura, a factor establishing itself as one of the composer’s trademarks—to the detriment of his future interpreters. Sensitive to Alfano’s “foreign” influence, Ricordi was perhaps correct when opting to place the work in Germany. However, its journalists unilaterally agreed that Illica’s libretto was a disservice that, combined with an inadequate translation, crippled the opera. Especially lauded was Alfano’s exemplary attention to atmospheric detail, however. Ten days later, Berlin’s Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung defined Alfano’s music as “the work of a temperamental, imaginative, but still incomplete artist.”10 No one was more aware of this than the opera’s twenty-three-year-old composer who, although content with the premiere’s success, could not fail to overhear the score’s deficiencies. He now realized the extreme (and hardly to be underestimated) importance of securing adequate libretti—a detrimental factor capable of irreparably damaging a career. Composers were mostly obliged to begin toiling on a still incomplete libretto. Upon presentation of the ensuing acts, they sometimes realized that the composite structure ultimately failed to satisfy expectations and, with precious time already invested and sparse alternatives, plowed ahead with a

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doomed project. Few possessed Puccini’s innate perceptiveness regarding the necessary dramatic and literary components required to create a riveting and, above all, enduring stage work. Leoncavallo initially adhered to Wagner’s solution of authoring his own libretti, and it is highly probably that, at some point, Alfano may have also toyed with the idea. His future adaptation of La leggenda di Sakùntala certainly was an improvement over the two Illica texts; indeed, it is difficult to imagine composers churning out libretti of poorer quality than those readily offered. The creator of La fonte d’Enscir roused interest, with Bote & Bock vying for a second work, preferably to a German text. This he refused to do, countering that his German, though fluent, was nevertheless largely incapable of expressing the necessary nuances. With no subject forthcoming, he then employed the aid of the Neapolitan journalist Ugo Ricci, an effort that also proved futile. Having composed two operas to poor libretti signified that if there was to be a third, it demanded a more refined source. This ultimately strengthened his resolve to compose an opera to a libretto of his own choosing. Lacking work, he opted to compose an impressive array of piano pieces for Bote & Bock, including the Quatre danses roumaines, Quatre danses napolitaines, and Quatre pièces pour piano. Greatly discouraged, he bade Germany farewell in the spring of 1899. Understandably enervated by his son’s inability to support himself, Vincenzo now insisted upon an immediate return. Vulnerable and despondent, the composer realized that only a tangible financial and artistic success could restore his confidence with any rapidity, regardless of having inhaled the rather fleeting scent of independence.

NOTES 1. Alfano to Fogazzaro, 4 January 1897 (BV). 2. Nina Alfano later owned the first eleven pages of the original Miranda score. It is uncertain whether the remainder was destroyed during World War II or is still in private hands. Nina was quite generous when making gifts of some her father’s original manuscripts. These problems also plague the fragment I cavalieri e la bella and, to an even larger extent, the complete score of La fonte d’Enscir, which, similar to La leggenda di Sakùntala, may perhaps one day also be “rediscovered” at the Ricordi Archives. 3. The Ritratto refers to the opera as La fonte d’Enschir, whereas the published libretto housed at the San Pietro a Majella archive reads La fonte d’Enscir, thereby retaining the correct pronunciation in keeping with the scenario’s location. 4. Illica’s immediately recognizable phrases include such frequently coined words as altare, aurora, delle viole, non morte—vita! and Prendimi morta! etc. 5. Another “lost” opus.

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6. Della Corte, Ritratto, 22. 7. Managing a triptych of theatres, Löwe was known for his interest in contemporary foreign works, having premiered Andrea Chenier the previous year. 8. The majority of operas were sung in the vernacular. 9. Della Corte, Ritratto, 23. 10. Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung, xxv/46 (18 November 1898) quoted in Johannes Streicher, ed., Ultimi splendori: Cilèa, Giordano, Alfano (Rome: Ismez, 2000), 949.

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Resurrezione and Il Principe Zilah (1899–1909)

R

eluctant to remain in Naples, and with Ricordi demonstrating little to no interest in producing La fonte d’Enscir, Alfano now turned to France. Italy had instilled his passion for music, Germany had refined it, and France—the country of Massenet—would perhaps offer him financial compensation. He doubtless sought release from the strains of his own country (parents, publishers, and colleagues), besides those of a more ardent nature in Germany. He yearned to secure an operatic subject and, aged twenty-four, desired a more adventurous and intense savoring of youth as only celebrated in the French capital. Paris at the beginning of this century was an enchantment, a dream, a city filled with joie de vivre, a place for expansion, a place to love. It is impossible to imagine that long ago spring . . . had one not personally experienced it.1

The city held a special appeal for Alfano ever since visiting it in childhood. The language, thanks to his mother, never posed a problem. The country would now be a suitable antidote to the somewhat oppressive orthodoxy marking his Leipzig sojourn. Although Paris exemplified sophistication, Alfano’s living quarters—a small flat shared with a painter in Auteuil—resembled Henri Murger’s La vie de Bohème. However, the composer relished the indefatigable force that Paris exuded so highly, that he judged it sufficient recompense for his humble lodgings. Shortly after his arrival and by way of his roommate he met Paul Milliet, who had collaborated on the Hérodiade (1881) and Werther (1892) libretti for Massenet. Enamored of Werther, Alfano instantly grasped at the opportunity of a meeting and, somewhat later, asked the librettist to provide him with a scenario containing elements that were “light, simple,” and “gracious.”2 To 13

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the composer’s initial consternation, Milliet suggested a Neapolitan-flavored pantomime/ballet for the Folies Bergères titled Napoli. With lack of funds playing a determinate role, Alfano accepted at once. Laboring during a scalding August heat wave, he completed the trivial work within fifteen days.3 He seemed content with a forty-five-minute score oozing with an (over) abundance of sentimental folklore. The Folies Bergères orchestra was relatively small, and the composer, when confronted with the players, envisioned his assignment as a “new” and relatively daring “exercise in instrumentation.”4 The Bergères’ director, a certain Marchand, accepted Napoli, which, from 21 January to June 1901, totaled some 160 performances.5 It was in fact so successful that Alfano backed it up with a second pastiche unveiled as Lorenza on 4 November 1901. Approaching vaudeville, and created and performed by R. Darzens and Cléo de Mérode, respectively, it incorporated a series of skits including a conjuror and a group of dogs. Curiously, Giordano happened to be present at a performance and expressed admiration for Alfano’s orchestration, particularly his handling of the celli: a compliment, since the score contained merely one. Even with such a trivial piece, Giordano sensed Alfano’s (still unemployed) capabilities. The revenues resulting from Napoli and Lorenza would have enabled Alfano to secure a living. Fortunately, however, he began to reproach himself for squandering talent. The years 1902–1903 witnessed a number of stage adaptations taken from Tolstoy’s Resurrection. On 14 November 1902, Alfano chanced to attend a performance of Henri Bataille’s dramatization created for and starring the actress Berthe Bady at the Théâtre de l’Odéon. Enormously impressed, he instantly realized the possibilities of an operatic adaptation. Within a short period he approached Bataille, who, demanding some ten thousand francs in addition to a significant share of royalties, provided him with “a cold shower.”6 He thus found himself forced to renounce Bataille if not Resurrection; he viewed the project as a welcome escape from the trivialization of his abilities at the Folies Bergères. Fortunately, Bataille’s was not the only dramatization available, notwithstanding Alfano’s initial insistence on composing the opera in French. An Italian version by the composer’s friend, Camillo Antona Traversi, had also been unveiled (to no great acclaim) at Rome’s Teatro al Valle in December of the same year. Alfano, perhaps unaware of the Italian reception, approached Traversi, who, with the help of Cesare Hanau (1873–1940), an Italian journalist, translator, and librettist residing in Paris, immediately accepted the proposal of turning the dramatization into an operatic libretto.7 They strove to create a “clear” and “simple” adaptation by employing a form of rhythmic prose.8 The extent of Traversi’s collaboration remains uncertain, since only Hanau’s name later appeared in publication.

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Finally having the opportunity to compose music to an inspirational subject of his own choosing, Alfano approached the project with “vehemence . . . I am able to say that I completely envisaged the scenario. I embodied each character. . . .” He created, driven by enormous enthusiasm and shunning fatigue, a work that was “compact,” “sober,” and “painfully sincere.” Written in five months, the compositional sites for the operatic Resurrezione spanned four countries, with acts 2 and 3 created in Paris, act 3 in Berlin, the beginning of act 4 in Russia, and the finale (Katiusha/Dimitri duet) in Posillipo. He remained deliberately vague regarding the grounds for his incessant moves, later declaring that he wished to “suppress absolutely” any facts concerning his “private life.”9 Having recently met his future wife Serafina (“Marthe”) Brousseau in Paris, one may assume the reasons to have been amorous rather than artistic. It is to her that the score of Resurrezione is dedicated. From Russia, Alfano, realizing this to be his most important work to date, offered the opera to both Casa Ricordi and Bote & Bock (while presumably working on act 3). Failing to contact the composer immediately, the German publishers thereby left Ricordi the chance to audition the piece in Milan. It evolved to be a simple case of “veni, vidi, vinci,” with the composer recalling: “I went, played, and sang Resurrezione. Ricordi immediately purchased it.” Ricordi and his son, Tito, soon arranged a premiere at Bologna’s Teatro Comunale. These plans, owing to the financial demands of the impresario Luigi Piontelli, were scrapped in favor of Turin. When the city’s main opera house, the Teatro Regio, remained closed due to renovation from 1902 until 1905, Piontelli opted for the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele instead. A fine cast was assembled, including the Neapolitan soprano Elvira Magliulo, whom Alfano described as “fiery of temperament, intensely moving,” and “beautiful.”10 Oreste Miele was due to create Dimitri and Angelo Scandiani the convict Simonson. Chosen was the twenty-six-year-old Tullio Serafin to lead these forces when Toscanini, perhaps bound to Bologna, rescinded the offer. Later a respected Alfaniano, Serafin therewith initiated his rapport with Alfano’s works when the opera finally premiered on 30 November 1904. According to Alfano, news of its success resounded “outside Italy more than within the country itself.”11 Even so, Ars et labor published a laudatory review documenting the triumph the composer so desperately yearned: Risurrezione, a new opera by the young maestro Frank Alfano to a libretto by Cesare Hanau ably adapted from Tolstoy’s celebrated novel, received its first performance at the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele. Turin’s most select audience gathered to hear this daring new work with their customary respect and earnestness. Its success, garnering general

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Chapter 3 admiration for its courageous treatment capturing every contrast and emotion of Tolstoy’s drama, came as a surprise. Acts 3 and 4 generated an even more marked impression regarding the efficacy of the [work’s] musical ideas, as well as its dramatic effects and splendid orchestral treatment. The composer was thrice called to the stage following act 1, three times following act 2, eight following act 3—which also included a da capo—crowned by eight curtain calls at the opera’s conclusion. Even more remarkable . . . is the general impression that revealed, in this work, an elegant musician, fearless and vigorous in both his concepts and in his instrumentation. . . . One hopes Alfano will become a veritable master worthy of the name and art of Italian music. The performance, under the able direction of Maestro Serafin, was excellent. Signora Magliulo was a remarkable protagonist. Praiseworthy are also Signor Mieli (tenor), Signor Scandiani (baritone), and all the other numerous artists. The production and costumes were most impressive. Her Royal Highness Isabella, Duchess of Genoa, present at the performance, summoned Maestro Alfano and Commendatore Tito Ricordi to her box expressing her pleasure regarding the success of this new and interesting work.12

The opera, regardless of the review and Alfano’s momentary elation, was anything but a triumph. It would necessitate a series of revisions before reappearing at La Scala in March 1906, while the intermittent year and a half reiterates the work’s inability to uphold its initial promise. The spiritual journey of two souls, Tolstoy’s Resurrection distinguishes itself from Anna Karenina and War and Peace (and other more traditional novels) in its powerful portrayal of Russia’s corrupt judiciary system. It also, simultaneously, serves as a platform for the author as a “newly-awakened spiritual being,”13 signifying, to his wife’s intense annoyance,14 the radical, philosophical, and social mutations that were to govern his three remaining decades of life. It is, as Prince Dimitri Nekhlyudov—alias Tolstoy—states relatively early, the “purging of a soul,”15 a somber and disturbing portrait foreshadowing Dostoevsky’s From the House of the Dead (and Solzhenitsyn’s work) in its grim and frighteningly realistic depiction of man’s injustice. Resurrection remains a path-breaking work that, in its criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church, “led to Tolstoy’s formal excommunication.”16 The novel’s title refers to Nekhlyudov’s moral and spiritual resurrection regardless if Tolstoy—as the book’s translator Rosemary Edmonds is quick to point out—“does not recognize the Christian conception of resurrection, and therefore it is the process of regeneration that he describes . . . he is merely re-born to lead a (supposedly) better life.”17 Katiusha undoubtedly remains the real heroine (and scapegoat) of the work, providing the all-pervasive deus ex machina enabling the egocentric and caddish prince to embark on a journey of personal enlightenment.

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Resurrection germinated within its author a decade earlier by the “report confided in him of a nobleman serving on a jury and recognizing the prostitute on trial for theft as a girl he had seduced when he was a young man.”18 Tolstoy, in his youth, had in fact enticed a young servant girl from whom he derived the character of Katiusha. It marks a significant segment in his production wherein “Art must not be an end in itself but have an overriding ethical purpose.”19 Thus, both Katiusha and Nekhlyudov convey relatively minor roles in a vast portrait of human suffering that is the novel’s true protagonist. Daughter of a gypsy who died when she was three, Katiusha lives in the home of Nekhlyudov’s aunts (prominent in act 1), for whom she remains “half servant, half young lady. They called her Katiusha, a sort of compromise between Katka and Katenka.” “Just after her sixteenth birthday the student nephew of the old ladies, a rich young nineteen-year-old prince, came on a visit to his aunts, and Katiusha . . . fell in love with him.” Then, “two years later this same nephew stayed four days . . . on the way to join his regiment, and the night before he left he seduced Katiusha and, thrusting a hundredrouble note into her hand, departed. Five months after his departure she knew for certain that she was pregnant.” From then on, she only feigned how “to escape the disgrace which awaited her.” One day, growing increasingly despondent and unhappy, she makes the error of speaking “insolently to her mistresses and,” unlike the opera, “asked to be allowed to leave.”20 She then works as a servant elsewhere for three months until giving birth, “but the midwife, who was looking after a sick woman in the village, infected Katiusha with puerperal fever, and the child, a boy, was sent to the foundling hospital, where . . . he died at once.”21 Inspiration for act 2 derives from a flashback in chapter 37 (part 2), wherein Katiusha espies the prince through a train window while awaiting his arrival with Masha (not Anna) in the rain and windswept night. In the opera, the prince is seen walking on the platform (allowing for an opportunity of verismo parlando on the soprano’s part), while the rain, transformed into snow, offers a gratifying solution for a stage worthy of Anna Karenina. A chain of misfortune besets Katiusha as she makes numerous yet futile attempts to find work, resulting in seven years of prostitution. This eventually leads to her indictment: “[A]t the Hotel Mavritania the sudden death occurred of a merchant . . . Ferapont Emilianovich Smelkov . . . due to rupture of the heart caused by excessive use of alcoholic liquor. . . . The whole day and night . . . Smelkov had spent with the prostitute Lyubov (Katerina Maslova) in the brothel, and at the Hotel Mavritania.”22 A postmortem “revealed . . . that death was caused by poisoning.” Katiusha testifies that “she did, at the instigation of Simon Kartinkin” [a cleaner at the hotel not to be confused with Vladimir Simonson], put into Smelkov’s brandy “some kind of powder

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which she thought was a soporific, in the hope that the merchant would fall asleep and let her go quicker.”23 Act 3 is a composite of chapters 30, 43, and 48, while the idea of Nekhlyudov giving Katiusha a photo stems from chapter 13—all in the novel’s second part. Thus, in the opera, act 3 presents us with a completely altered man who now self-pityingly acknowledges that he is “a rake, a fornicator,” and “a liar,”24 and that everything “appeared possible to this newly awakened spiritual being.”25 Here, Tolstoy refers to Nekhlyudov’s “resurrection.” Although he is the main protagonist guiding us through his own interior world, there is a second and inherently more sincere spiritual rebirth experienced by Katiusha. This becomes the crux of Alfano’s opera, thereby considerably distancing it from its literary forerunner. It is difficult, without prior knowledge of the novel, to realize that Katiusha’s sentence resulted from a mere technicality: “She was not guilty of poisoning and yet” she had been “sentenced to penal servitude” (four years in the novel and twenty in the opera).26 “They were all so worn out and so muddled with arguing that nobody thought of adding the clause, ‘but without intent to take life.’”27 Thus, “[a]ll these punishments were the heaviest that could be inflicted,”28 and the fate of a person’s life was the result of a courtroom filled with people who “all wanted to get away as soon as possible and were therefore ready to agree to the verdict which would bring matters to an end soonest.”29 With the ruling, Tolstoy provides an additional case in point of a corrupt judiciary system wherein he saw “law-courts not only useless but immoral.”30 Vladimir Simonson (known solely by his last name in act 4) derives from chapters 4 and 16 in part 3. He ascribes to the doctrine that “everything in the world is alive; there is no inert body. . . . Therefore he considered it a crime to destroy life, and was opposed to war, capital punishment and killing of every sort, not only of human beings but of animals too.”31 Furthermore, we are informed that his feelings for Katiusha “did not impair this theory, since he loved her platonically, believing that such a love could not interfere with his activity as a phagocyte.” This is presented in opposition to Nekhlyudov’s offer of marriage, which is largely due to “generosity” on account of “what happened in the past. . . .”32 Simonson and Katiusha depart, leaving Nekhlyudov to find “peace and liberation”33 upon commencing an “entirely new life.”34 The first version of Resurrection concluded with Nekhlyudov’s wedding Katiusha. The novel incorporates explicit realism (including the gruesome details of Smelkov’s autopsy) coupled with extensive digressions of a philosophical nature. Thus, Cesare Hanau, when asked to forge an operatic adaptation, had neither a very thankful nor an enviable task when faced with a sprawling work containing elements of a detective novel interspersed with abundant flash-

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backs. It was therefore necessary to rearrange, and, at times (particularly in act 2), develop and expand the mere grains of an indication. Ceaseless criticism has plagued Hanau and Alfano’s adaptation. However, when proceeding beyond the dispute of whether it was anathema to approach such a magisterial work, and in view of the fact that it had been adapted for the spoken stage (and, later, innumerous times for the cinema with questionable results), a careful and objective reading relays a relatively positive impression. It certainly is not inferior to many an operatic libretto; yet, based on the great literature, it is undoubtedly subject to an increased amount of scrutiny. Important is to keep in mind (as with Alfano’s other Literaturopern) that he did not wish to recreate Tolstoy’s novel but to conserve musically some of its atmosphere; and this he undeniably achieved. Paradox, ambiguity, and eroticism formed major aspects influencing art and literature during the fin de siècle, with the image of the femme fatale culminating—among other prevalent examples—in Wilde and Wedekind. Freud’s recently “liberated” female noticeably influenced the visual arts, with Klimt, Moreau, and Mucha devoted to capturing their fascination on canvas. Maeterlinck, Ibsen, Strindberg, and D’Annunzio created literary figures psycho-sexually tormented by slightly degenerate anti-heroes who, in various guises, return to haunt Resurrezione, La leggenda di Sakùntala, and Madama Butterfly. These men provide astoundingly similar prototypes, proclaiming their passion prior to a physical consummation that evolves to be the sacred symbol of the heroine’s love as opposed to a merely blatant example of their own overridingly egocentric (and all-consuming) sensuality. The scarred and abandoned heroines then give birth in a desolate terrain of social ostracism that nonetheless succeeds in strengthening their intense resolve to defeat injustice, complemented by the sudden cultivation of dormant strengths during an enforced purgatory that ultimately transforms them as human beings. Their own personal examples of a spiritual rebirth are later (and somewhat paler) mirrored in Dimitri, the King, and Pinkerton—all of whom seek forgiveness. The turbulent lives peopling Resurrezione find expression in a musical idiom that, by way of Alfano’s impressive pointillist touches, chiaroscuro shadings, intensely human character delineations, flowing melody, pleasing lyricism, and delicate poignancy, remains unsurpassed in the composer’s canon. Katiusha is Alfano’s most full-blooded and complete heroine. A work of immediate impact, it can create a lingering experience that, in its tense and theatrically charged vocalism, evokes a new standard of bourgeois verismo. Although Alfano’s style can readily be placed within the historical context (or confines) of the giovane scuola, it is, similar to Puccini’s style, a separate entity capable of distinct lyric innovation. Only a rapid and superficial appraisal relegates it to a minor position feebly struggling for recognition. This degrading

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categorization stems partially from critical rejection largely due to the opera’s checkered performance history outside Italy, having little, if anything, to do with the work’s formidable qualities. What does favor a Puccini comparison is its inordinate ability to engross and captivate the spectator. Resurrezione is an inspired and passionate creation without a superfluous note that, in its impressive vitality and unabashed virility, reflects the spontaneity of Alfano’s five-month completion at an intensely romantic period in his life. He imbues it with an almost ethereal aural redemption, the impression of which, once heard, proves difficult to forget. Relatively few works are capable of emanating such an innate sense of otherworldliness and purity; these factors remain not only an integral force in this opera but in La leggenda di Sakùntala and portions of Cyrano de Bergerac as well. The verismo soprano Mafalda Favero, upon experiencing Giuseppina Cobelli’s Katiusha, summed up the opera as a “sort of cleansing and purification.”35 Resurrezione, in keeping with other verismo works, shuns such trappings as ballet, overture, and major chorus, thereby remaining a largely intimate opera removed from the dominant traits exemplified a century earlier. Framed by a motif symbolizing resurrection, the work commences and concludes like the pealing of a bell; reiterating the redemption—both physical and moral—of its protagonists. The narrative broadens to incorporate a stirring melodrama that, commented on by a transparent and delicate orchestration, lends the score a distinct interior radiance. The composer pays tribute to Puccini and other Italian contemporaries by way of an accompaniment in octaves—used sparingly and with restraint. However, a frequently unheralded and arresting shifting of keys—especially noticeable in Katiusha’s supplicating prayer “Dio pietoso” (Alfano’s answer to “Vissi d’arte”)—enables the orchestra, through quixotic variances, to underscore the characters’ sentiments. As in Puccini, the voice is kept at mid-range and is frequently used with great slancio. Through either Puccini or Illica, Alfano must have been aware of Madama Butterfly’s “humming chorus,” which he now refashions superbly, relaying the impression of villagers intoning a prayer during the Easter Vigil. Further references to Butterfly—both vocally and dramaturgically—abound in the manner Alfano has structured the major Dimitri/Katiusha love duet. Here, there are musical re-creations of nature versus passion, which later become such a dominant force in act 1 of La leggenda di Sakùntala when evoking the sensuality of a summer’s eve. Introduced in this duet are also the opera’s main themes that will return when appropriate, particularly Dimitri’s purposefully saccharine seduction “E non temere, o dolce mia fanciulla.” Act 1 concludes amid an impressive frenetic gallop that, expressed in chromatic syncopations alternating with diatonic scales, recalls Tosca’s finale in its brevity and force.

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The snow-clad second act opens to the despairing “Dio Pietoso” theme (lending credence to the assumption of Alfano having composed it first) before developing into a dramatic monologue for the soprano interwoven by a patchwork of reminiscences. Its advanced, almost Slavic idiom demonstrates the composer to be his own man, however. There is nothing superfluous here, with the action immediately embracing the heroine’s anguish as she, similar to Butterfly, awaits Dimitri (Pinkerton). Evoking the barely concealed fury of a caged animal, Katiusha now finds expression in music that, similar to a film score, is rapid, throbbing, violent, and filled with hysterical runs conveying breathlessly her agitated spirit. Phrases demanding particular emphasis emerge in a guttural parlando expressing near mania. Incessant diatonic variances serve to complement Katiusha’s varying degrees of desperation. Act 2 concludes as it began—with the “Dio Pietoso” motif—this time in the form of an orchestral elegy. It remains unanswered whether Illica would have opted to portray scenically the novel’s intervening court case given its dramatic viability. Musically, act 3 is the most intricate and complex. Abundant cameo roles, each imbued with a fully developed and distinctive personality, lend a fine example of dramatic verisimilitude. Alfano interjects this with themes previously heard in acts 2 and 3. A roll call (to orchestral accompaniment) summoning the convicts is certainly a debt owed Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. A powerful intermezzo preparing for the intimacy of the Dimitri/Katiusha scene follows. The confrontation of the two protagonists is certainly the opera’s high point. The hushed and rather genial atmosphere concluding the act may perhaps have inspired Puccini for the conclusion of act 1 of his opera La fanciulla del West, which succeeded Resurrezione. Intensely original is the manner in which Alfano lets the act play out in the middle of an orchestral phrase depicting Katiusha’s welcome release in sleep. The vastness and solitude of Russia is apparent in the oboe solo opening the final act, inspired by the desolation marking the shepherd’s pipe in act 3, scene 1 of Tristan und Isolde. Rather sketchily portrayed is the role of Simonson, consisting mainly of two superb arias with little to no character development. However, Alfano fully compensates with the hauntingly beautiful and unusually moving solo “Quando la vidi, una voce mi disse . . .” (When I saw her, a voice told me . . .). This surely must rank with the most inspired of exceedingly sparse verismo baritone arias, while nobly expressing the work’s nucleus (as does his customarily omitted though no less brilliant “Oh! Katiusha, che sogno sarìa . . .”). The opera culminates in an alluring and exceedingly poignant scene with Katiusha and Dimitri, incorporating motifs from earlier acts. Here, Alfano is again able to portray convincingly the fleeting expression of his protagonists in a manner worthy of Puccini. Symbolizing her forgiveness, the duet concludes in unison (“Va, va, mio amor . . .”) to

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the music of Dimitri’s act 1 “Qui sul mio cor” and in the identical key. This musical vignette has Katiusha awakening from what seems to have been a bad dream, enabling a positive denouement followed by a reprisal of the resurrection theme. Premiered less than a year earlier, Giordano’s Siberia, because of its setting and treatment by an Italian contemporary, has frequently stood in comparison to Resurrezione. A pleasant, sometimes maudlin, and occasionally affecting (and affected) work, it nevertheless arguably falls short of Resurrezione’s unflagging expressivity, cohesion, and dramatic urgency. Its painful lack of inspiration remains, for great stretches of the score, largely undisguised. Giordano’s effortful striving to create a Russian atmosphere with the “Song of the Volga Boatman” is embarrassing at best, and his characters remain a commonplace imitation of Fedora, without that opera’s melodic and dramatic appeal. Obviously culled from Siberia, however, is Resurrezione’s text to the redemption motif, with Giordano’s opera concluding to “Cristo è risorto,” inspiring Alfano’s unforgivably similar “Cristo è risuscitato.” Following the premiere, the composer left Turin and returned to Paris. Ricordi now felt obliged to propose a new libretto, placing his son Tito (later heading the firm without his father’s charm) in charge of locating a suitable subject. A suggestion—in view of the fact that Resurrezione was a verismo vehicle incorporating social issues—was Octave Mirbeau’s Les mauvais bergers, a work overflowing with strikes, agitation, and rebellion. Less than pleased, Alfano preferred to await a better solution. Although finally backed by a publisher, he still lacked sufficient freedom to make his own artistic decisions. This evolved to become an almost insurmountable obstacle, aggravated further when asked to return to Milan to hear yet another Illica-authored libretto. Ricordi, aware of Illica’s blundering with La fonte d’Enscir, perhaps hoped to succor the same admirable results so ably demonstrated in the librettist’s recent Iris and Madama Butterfly. Illica’s newest plan, regrettably, was merely a rather conventional Hungarian-flavored pastiche entitled Il Principe Zilah, adapted from Jules Claretie’s sentimental novel of the same name. Alfano, notwithstanding the eccentric librettist’s wiping away a tear when presenting Zilah in a “mellifluous voice” in a hushed atmosphere before the seemingly “hypnotized Ricordis,” was brutally disappointed.36 Ignoring his inner censor and craving work, he defined Illica’s detestable offering as containing a vibrant and dramatic first act dwindling into a valueless corpus. He attempted an objection but, as he later recalled, “I was young and Illica and the Ricordis dominated [the world of the] theater and its business. Who knows what would have awaited me had I not accepted.”37 His muted dejection abated temporarily when the publisher offered him ten thousand lire, to which he now yielded as a “concession”;

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with vague evasiveness, he sought to camouflage his predicament. Lamentable remains the fact that he failed to inform Illica of his opinion until the eve of the opera’s premiere—by which time it was too late. The composer’s effervescent character encountered difficulty with a librettist he haphazardly defined as a “strange character. A mixture of cynicism and goodness, content to ‘launch’ a composer only to abandon him, and, without real malice and merely for amusement, pleased to sow dissension among the composers with whom he associated.”38 Infinitely worse, according to Alfano, was Illica’s insistence on undertaking alterations to a libretto following its musical completion. Alfano experienced these trying and desultory conditions earlier when Illica, upon hearing the act 1 conclusion of La fonte d’Enscir, opted for a last-minute revision.39 This second enforced collaboration also proved to be an excruciating via crucis. Moreover, Tito now also suggested the composer return to take up residence in Italy, hoping to rid him of any French influence. This may or may not have been a subtle response to the critics’ fussing that Resurrezione’s style was ostensibly indebted to Massenet. Meanwhile, following an extended absence and a slight shearing of act 3, Resurrezione returned for a second unveiling—albeit at La Scala—on 7 March 1906, with Eugenia Burzio, Piero Schiavazzi, and Riccardo Stracciari. Leopoldo Mugnone conducted. The production boasted four performances in what Alfano considered a “very questionable temple of art” with “the worst judges.”40 Plans were also forged for a Brussels premiere (in French), notwithstanding incessant delays due to Tito’s involvement with Alberto Franchetti’s Figlia di Iorio at the same theatre. When corresponding with Belgium, Alfano suddenly expressed embarrassment at the “uniformity” of act 4, which, he nevertheless ascertained, was most effective in performance.41 Brusquely reemerging upon Italy’s music scene, the composer, on 14 June 1906, informed Tito of his having orchestrated a significant portion of act 1 of Il Principe Zilah. He nevertheless, in the very same letter, bewailed Illica’s copious revisions, stressing vigorously that his own suggestions failed to generate even the slightest consideration. Trapped in what appeared to be a rather bleak yet delicate position, he now hoped Puccini’s influence might allow for a positive change. The latter, sympathizing fully with Alfano’s predicament, wrote Illica on 21 March 1905 imploring God to liberate the librettist from all the Marie Antoinettes and Hungarian princes (Zilah). This was not likely a topic of conversation when, in December, the three men gathered for breakfast prior to Alfano’s recently scheduled departure for Berlin. Since residing in Paris, Alfano had demonstrated interest in writing an “important orchestral work.”42 Now, trying to escape the Illica-Zilah debacle and employing earlier sketches made in Leipzig, he sought to entice Ricordi with the four-part Suite Italica43 (illustrating musically the romantic voyage of

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two lovers in Italy). It contained a subtle sprinkling of folklore supported by a “sparkling orchestration,”44 with an eye to innovation unable to find expression in Resurrezione. The composer surmised that noticeably few of his Italian colleagues—excepting Giuseppe Martucci and a handful of others—had devoted much effort to the creation of symphonic music. Italy, at the beginning of the century, remained operatic terrain. Tito, sensitive to Alfano’s talent, supported the decision. He only quibbled upon receiving the completed work that its title, upon publication, read Poema italico, suite romantica.45 From Berlin, the composer wrote Tito expressing his reluctance to return home. Resurrezione, following what also appears to have been a rather unsuccessful La Scala run, failed to return to Italy’s theatres for some time. Alfano’s largely thwarted ambition, despite his unceasing effort trying to place the work, coupled with his frustration concerning Il Principe Zilah, began affecting his health. These psychosomatic disturbances accompanied periods of intense stress, later reaching alarming proportions following Zilah’s premiere. With “nothing to do”46 in Berlin, he returned to France in time to witness Puccini’s Madama Butterfly taking Paris by storm. A staunch ally of both the man and his music, he refused to share in the envy marking most of his colleagues. Forced to relocate apartments, he suddenly longed for his former lodgings at Place du Palais Bourbon47 and, in the interim, enjoyed the friendship of Edward Johnson, the young Canadian tenor who, following an important career as Edoardo di Giovanni, became the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. With adolescent-like features and a propensity for writing Alfano gushing letters in French (which the tenor then painstakingly conserved with an eye to posterity), Johnson failed to resemble his later image as a readily identifiable silver-haired grand seigneur. There is, in his correspondence, somewhat the ingénue less striving for recognition than a young foreigner thrilled at the opportunity of having an esteemed composer as a pen pal. At the time, he lived with Bice Serafin, a wealthy if not exceptionally attractive young woman who, after giving him a daughter, died relatively early. Bice followed Edward to Florence (residing at via Solferino), where he furthered his vocal studies by way of a maestro perhaps recommended by Alfano. Together with Marthe (Alfano’s future wife with whom the composer now lived), the couples formed a close friendship. Alfano admired the tenor’s talents while Johnson, whether or not justified, considered him somewhat of a mentor to whom he could report on his vocal progress. Marthe and Alfano suffered when Johnson and Bice left Paris for Italy. Loitering outside the tenor’s onetime apartment, the composer grieved to discover new tenants entering the dwelling who, upon seeing him, “preferred to look the other way.”48 In the autumn of 1908, Alfano and Marthe spent a relaxing month at Bordighera’s charming old-world Hôtel d’Angleterre. This evolved to become

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an annual sojourn. The composer benefited from the mild temperatures. He also walked the promenade, flaunting the white trousers he so loved, topped by the almost obligatory Panama hat. Here, he was finally able to concentrate on orchestrating the First Symphony in E. Following completion of the Poema italico, it enabled him the possibility of independent creation. The prospect of uninterrupted work in a sole location served to remind him that both his and Marthe’s travels had essentially made them “nomads at heart.”49 Meanwhile, Johnson continued relaying a detailed summary of his vocal progress to a composer who, “loathing long letters,” deemed them “time wasted” best used for composing,50 despite Johnson’s extreme courtesy and poetic style. Alfano and Marthe spent the New Year in Naples, where he most likely introduced her to his family. Petite, with dark velvet eyes set in an oval face, Marthe emanated the sensitivity and sensuality of French femininity. Her glance contained integrity and consolation, which, combined with what appears to be a touch of humor and general joie de vivre (if not Alfano’s intellectualism), perfectly complemented her soul companion. Although regarded as a married couple, Marthe and Franco did not marry until 1927, according to their marriage papers. Such personal arrangements seem typical of the complicated and oft impenetrable penumbra afflicting Italy’s composers, whose affairs, marriages, adoptions, reburials, and legitimate (and illegitimate) offspring evoke a sense of awe and bewilderment. His alliance with Herbert’s mother possibly hindered him from entering into a second marriage, or he might have wed Marthe in France with an official Italian ceremony decades later. Health problems were now a cause for concern, with the composer battling a cold and Marthe recovering from food poisoning. The composer’s neurasthenia also threatened to reemerge, thanks to the approaching Zilah premiere, despite his being “prepared for the fight.”51 He told Johnson (who he hoped might attend) that although Ignazio Dygas—the tenor slated to premiere the title role—possessed an admirable mezza voce, he ultimately lacked his friend’s ringing high B natural. Genoa’s Teatro San Carlo premiered the opera (the first of three performances) on 3 February 1909. Ettore Panizza headed a cast comprising the aforementioned Dygas, in addition to Margot Kaftal (Marsa Laszló), José Segura Tallien (Mikali Menko), and Benedetto Challis (Yansky Varhély). Zilah proved to be a foreseeable failure, with Alfano understandably distraught concerning future premieres in Milan and Rome. Another “first,” if also not of a more fortuitous nature, was the world premiere of the Poema italico (now simply titled Suite romantica) on 18 February at Rome’s Augusteo, conducted by Egisto Tango (a San Pietro a Majella colleague whom Alfano chanced to rediscover as director of Berlin’s Komische Oper). Its success was modest. The opus found itself lodged between two Mozart symphonies and, of all things, the “Bacchanal” from Saint-Saëns’s

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Samson et Dalila. A program devoted solely to contemporary music would have benefited its initial hearing. The composer experienced additional dismay when Martucci abruptly left his box following the first movement. The overriding majority of composers present (including Giovanni Sgambati) were reticent at best. Misfortune continued when Zilah opened at Rome’s Teatro Costanzi on 3 April led by Giorgio Polacco. The production benefited from Piero Schiavazzi’s visually attractive prince, which lured attention away from the opera’s deficiencies and his own meager vocal resources. “The number of volumes and essays written” by Arsene (Jules) Arnaud Claretie “surpasses imagination.”52 A member of the Academie Française and, later, director of the Comédie Française, Claretie ascribed to the styles of George Sand and Balzac. This highly prolific author, after producing studies devoted to historical topics, novels, and a biography of Molière, was, following “the flight of the Imperial family from the Tuileries . . . appointed to put into order the various papers, documents, and letters left behind in great chaos, and to publish them, if advisable.”53 Le Prince Zilah (1884), a romantic novel set against a historical background (Hungary’s 1849 fight for independence against Austria), was, one year following its publication, adapted for the stage by its author as a play in four acts. The original is a conventional, somewhat pallid, sentimental, and yet admittedly atmospheric work that varies significantly from its operatic counterpart.54 The plot essentially centers on the narration of its heroine’s dishonor and, in this manner, bears distinct resemblance to not only Resurrezione’s Katiusha, but also the Illica-inspired destinies of Butterfly, Wally, and Iris. Comparisons to Fedora perhaps imply Ricordi’s wishing a pendant to Giordano’s Sonzogno-published work. The narrative’s few (yet impressive) descriptive passages of nature were largely insufficient to generate Alfano’s enthusiasm. But the idea of an opera based on a French novel set in Hungary and composed and written by Italians would conform to the era’s thirst for exoticism. The major drawback of Claretie’s work as operatic fare, however, remains its sparse action, a significant portion of which takes place in the protagonist’s mind or in the form of flashbacks. Notwithstanding its numerous merits, the operatic Zilah remains both a flawed and uneven work largely owing to a lackluster libretto, whose naïveté and blatant lack of inspiration would have proven insoluble for any composer. Freed from Illica’s glaringly incompetent hackwork that allows little, if any, room for character development, Alfano might have created an enduring portrait bordering on Resurrezione’s geniality. He was essentially correct when declaring the work saturated by a rather ingenious form of “pseudo patriotism” that, to say the least, was both “base” and “hybrid” and of the same inferior quality provided for Giordano’s Siberia. Inspired by the novel, he employs

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snatches of the Rakoczy March, while, at the same time, aware that a stage overflowing with gypsies broached the delicate line between romantic opera and operetta. If Zilah fails to succumb entirely to tastelessness, it is because of Alfano’s awareness of the work’s lethal pitfalls. This in itself remains a formidable achievement. Scenes in and around battle customarily fail on the operatic stage and, in the prologue, Alfano sought to circumvent a tangent pasteboard quality by employing the memorable—what I will term—“clasp theme.” Its impressive tenor arietta “La nostra sorte o bruna figlia boèma” serves as the opera’s major motif. Especially lamentable is the fact that act 1 inspired the composer to create one of his most melodious and sensuous duets (“Marsa! Da ieri la mia vita è un’altra vita!”). Thanks to the opera’s complete oblivion, it has failed to survive. Others, such as Leoncavallo, would doubtlessly have refashioned it for another work. However, Alfano’s later style changed dramatically from this richly melodic and Puccinian score, thereby making any attempt to salvage it prohibitive. We are thus robbed of “warm, spontaneous, and effective” music culminating in a treasure trove of flowering lyricism reminiscent (to Tito’s chagrin) of Massenet.55 Insurmountable obstacles present themselves in act 2. Here, Illica provides a flavor of Hungarian folklore at the expense of any strong characterization. Apart from some suggestive choral writing, it remains relatively flat. Similar problems plague the work’s epilogue. This, despite Marsa’s elegantly elegiac scena, “Se avvien che nella oscura via del destin,” damages the work irreparably. With little say in the matter, Alfano later wrote off his ill-spent efforts as a learning experience. Principe Zilah remains an important chapter in Alfano’s artistic vita, eradicating the misconception of Resurrezione being his sole verismo opera. One can merely speculate whether a more advantageous libretto might have prompted the composer to seek a stylistic continuation. Creating another Resurrezione for Ricordi was Zilah’s overriding raison d’être. Its failure undeniably accelerated Alfano’s embracing modernism. Noteworthy is that some of the writing inherent in Marsa’s death foreshadows that of Cyrano’s own. Following the Zilah dress rehearsal, Puccini asked Alfano to address him informally, and one would like to imagine it being a spontaneous reaction to the magnificence of the splendid act 1 love duet. “The composer appreciated immensely this mark of esteem . . . but such was his respect . . . that he could not bring himself to drop the title of deference, ‘Maestro’ . . . and resorted rather to circumlocutions to avoid using either the second or the third person.”56 Tired and distraught and in an effort to restore his debilitated nervous system, the composer sought refuge at the Villa Varenna on Lake Varese. News of a more positive sort appeared in the interim when, thanks to his friend Egisto Tango, Berlin’s Komische Oper decided to premiere

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Resurrezione under the title Auferstehung (Resurrection) rather than Ricordi’s published version entitled Katjuscha. A superb cast (headed by the impressive Italian verismo soprano Maria Labia) presented twenty-five performances in Alfred Brüggemann’s translation.57 The production—successful with the public and shunned by the critics—endured throughout the entire winter into January 1910. Reviewers concluded superciliously that Hanau had butchered Tolstoy (doubtlessly intensified by the German translation), that the music was pseudo Puccini, and that the sole reason for the opera’s outstanding success was due to the authentic-looking train in act 2! This criticism appears rather insignificant, considering that the city’s press greeted Massenet’s Werther, Hector Berlioz’s Damnation de Faust, and Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande with vitriolic dissension in favor of Eugen D’Albert’s Tiefland. Alfano, grasping at the chance to escape the indefatigable Zilah, attended the performances. Ovations greeted each act. Berlin’s Resurrezione succeeded in momentarily restabilizing Alfano’s selfesteem. A return to Italy brought another torturous Zilah premiere, when, in November, Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme displayed the opera’s irremediable shortcomings. Attended by Puccini, Ettore Panizza, and Giulio Ricordi, the dress rehearsal caused excessive strain for the composer, who unstintingly tried to hinder a revival (“But authors are never believed.”).58 In a letter written to his family that very evening, the conductor designate, Gino Marinuzzi, concurred that the orchestra played “magnificently,” with Ricordi resisting even the changing of “a comma” to either the score or its interpretation.59 The same missive confirms that Alfano and Marthe were apparently also enthusiastic—or at least feigned to be. However, Marinuzzi, notwithstanding the fact that Puccini embraced and complimented him on the eve of the opera’s premiere, believed that Alfano was essentially correct in prohibiting additional performances. He surmised that the score, although enjoying a measure of success owing to a few worthy passages (including, in his estimation, the prologue and act 2), would ultimately be sabotaged by the feeble libretto. Zilah failed miserably the following day (6 November 1909). Act 1 encountered a glacial reception. Act 2, thanks to Illica’s deplorable contribution, simply provoked ridicule. An additional drawback was Carlo Ballin, the evening’s Zilah. Tito, regardless, congratulated Marinuzzi for his superb handling of the score (as did the papers the following day). There was, however, no denying that the evening had been a glaring fiasco, leading the composer to state pitiably: “Zilah is dead.”60 Despite the work’s deficiencies, Marinuzzi regretted that Alfano (creator of the “beautiful” Resurrezione) had to undergo such a humiliating experience.61 The composer was understandably devastated. He had been against the project from the start, and it is a grotesque fact that enforced collaborations such as this and the future Turandot ultimately suc-

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ceeded in tarnishing his reputation. An advanced state of neurasthenia now generated perilous (and frightening) episodes of psychosomatic ills, necessitating a series of physicians’ convincing the composer that he was not suffering symptoms of a heart attack. His brain, as he wrote Johnson, seemed “drained” in what, in the blackest of depression, he considered a “stupid life.”62 Accompanied by his mother, he then returned to Varese, yearning to cure what was by now a severe case of melancholy.

NOTES 1. Excerpted from a lecture Alfano gave on 16 March 1953 at San Pietro a Majella’s Sala Scarlatti. Courtesy Nina Alfano. 2. Della Corte, Ritratto, 26. 3. Napoli’s plot centers on three French couples on holiday in Naples, where one of the wives promptly falls in love with a handsome stallholder. 4. The Folies Bergères players comprised violins (five), viola (one), cello (one), horns (four), trumpets (three), trombones (three), flutes (two), oboe (one), clarinet (one), bassoon (one), and tuba (one). 5. Alfano mentions the premiere taking place in 1900, while other sources, including Streicher, list 1901. 6. Della Corte, Ritratto, 28. 7. Hanau later provided Riccardo Zandonai with Il grillo del focolare (1908), a libretto based on Charles Dickens’s Cricket on the Hearth. 8. Della Corte, Ritratto, 28. 9. Della Corte, Ritratto, 30. “Poichè in questo mio ritratto voglio assolutamente sopprimere tutte le notizie della mia vita intima.” 10. Della Corte, Ritratto, 30. 11. Della Corte, Ritratto, 31. 12. Ars et labor, quoted in Della Corte, Ritratto, 31. 13. Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection (Middlesex, UK: Penguin, 1977), 141. 14. “He has described all these regenerations in books very well, but he has never practiced them in life. . . .” Countess Sonya Tolstoy’s Diary, 13 September 1898, 94. Sonya Tolstoy, Die Tagebücher 1898–1910 (Königstein, Germany: Athenäum, 1983). 15. Resurrection, 140. 16. Edmonds, Introduction to Resurrection, Penguin, 15. 17. Edmonds, Resurrection, 9. 18. Edmonds, Resurrection, 7. 19. Edmonds, Resurrection, 5. 20. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 24. 21. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 24–25. 22. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 57. 23. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 58.

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24. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 165. 25. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 141. 26. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 122. 27. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 117. 28. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 119. 29. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 117. 30. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 170. 31. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 474. 32. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 475. 33. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 566. 34. Tolstoy, Resurrection, 568. 35. Lanfranco Rasponi, The Last Prima Donnas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), 515. 36. Della Corte, Ritratto, 37. 37. Della Corte, Ritratto, 38. 38. Della Corte, Ritratto, 39. 39. “Sono i cavalli l’aquile” became “Ride ultima una stella.” 40. Alfano to Kufferath, 11 March 1906 (B). 41. Alfano to Kufferath, 2 April 1906 (B). 42. Della Corte, Ritratto, 41. 43. Alfano refers to the piece as “Suite Italiana.” Alfano to Tito Ricordi, 17 December 1906 (CR). 44. Della Corte, Ritratto, 41. 45. At the same time, Ricordi was issuing the German language score of Resurrezione titled Katjuscha. 46. Alfano to Tito Ricordi, 17 December 1906 (CR). 47. Alfano had also resided at 8, cité Rougement, as stated in a letter dated March 1905. Alfano to unidentified recipient (author’s collection). 48. Alfano to Edward Johnson, 20 November 1907 (G). 49. Alfano to Edward Johnson, 29 October 1908 (G). 50. Alfano to Edward Johnson, 23 December 1908 (G). 51. Alfano to Edward Johnson, 31 December 1908 (G). 52. D’Haussonville, Introduction, Jules Claretie, Prince Zilah (Aegypan Press), 5. 53. D’Haussonville, Introduction, 6. 54. Deletions include Marsa’s dogs’ brutally (and in gruesome detail) attacking Menko in the park at night on his way to blackmail the heroine. This “horrible struggle . . . of a man against the beasts,” was, for obvious dramaturgical reasons, eliminated in the opera, where Varhély awaits Menko for a showdown in Marsa’s villa (Claretie, Prince Zilah, 71). Following this incident, Menko refrains from appearing at the Marsa/Zilah wedding ceremony, employing a servant to deliver letters to Zilah concerning Marsa’s past. She, in turn, succumbs to a catatonic nervous condition necessitating confinement in an asylum. Involved in a conspiracy against the czar, Menko is arrested before receiving a mortal wound at the hands of Varhély in a duel avenging both Zilah and Marsa. Zilah thereupon brings a cured Marsa from the asylum to his Hungarian château. His readiness to forgive, if not forget, leads to Marsa’s demise

Resurrezione and Il Principe Zilah (1899–1909)

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from an emaciated body and soul, cleansing her of “all the shame” of a dishonorable past” (Ibid., 191). 55. Della Corte, Ritratto, 38. 56. Raymond Roussel, “Completion of Turandot: An Interview with Franco Alfano,” Musical Leader, 22 October 1925. 57. Brüggemann was in charge of German translations for Ricordi that, in 1926, also included Turandot. 58. Della Corte, Ritratto, 44. 59. Gino Marinuzzi to his family, 6 November 1909, Gino Marinuzzi, Tema con variazioni (Milan: Mondadori, 1995), 115. 60. Alfano to Edward Johnson, 7 November 1909 (G). 61. Gino Marinuzzi to his family, 7 November 1909, Marinuzzi, 117. 62. Alfano to Edward Johnson, 7 November 1909 (G).

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L’ombra di Don Giovanni (1910–1914)

A lfano began 1910 in Varese, publicly seeking to escape the cold winter and

privately trying to mend a nervous system perilously weakened due to Zilah. The incident must have been doubly painful, having approached the opera with extreme skepticism and trepidation. The fact that the composer remained in contact with Illica and received frequent letters—the latest related to the librettist’s staging Puccini’s La bohème—speaks to his compliant character. However, his health, upon reentering Milan where memories of the ill-fated Dal Verme premiere lingered unflinchingly, deteriorated further. He thus left for Naples, spending time in the company of friends far removed from the theatrical world.1 The Bay of Naples mended his strength and battered self-esteem, while the region’s sun produced succulent fruits he had never been so grateful to consume. The catching of delectable fish for supper and the pleasant conversation of a few trusted friends enhanced the sensation of Arcadia. Adding insult to injury, Casa Ricordi offered Alfano yet another libretto, this time authored by Giuseppe Adami titled I cavalieri e la bella. The composer renounced the project upon completion of act 1, having grown more astute at laying down his provisos regarding subjects offered by the firm. Not until 1925 would he again become involved with an Adami libretto—and then in connection with Turandot. He eventually gathered sufficient strength for a return to Milan where, on 14 March and in the company of Italo Montemezzi, Riccardo Zandonai, Arrigo Boito, and Marinuzzi, he attended the premiere of Giulio Ricordi’s comic opera La secchia rapita (to a Simoni libretto).2 Boito and Puccini also joined him some three months later for the unveiling of the new Ricordi office on Via Berchet. Thereupon followed a return to the First Symphony (dedicated to the conductor Ettore Panizza), which, at the time, remained his most important 32

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(and elaborate) orchestral opus. The post-Zilah compositions mark a momentous breach in style and, for the first time, he embraces an alluring and skillful modern idiom heralding future works. Powerful, romantic, and brooding, the symphony demonstrates an international eclecticism that has evolved into a forceful, coherent, and highly original whole. It pulsates with a dazzlingly vigorous whirlwind opening (fluctuating between Tristan-like rapture and, interestingly enough, the future Turandot), to an almost apocalyptic second movement that is menacing, oppressive, broad, and elegiac. Abrupt rhythmic variations lend this “orchestral drama” an intense yet transparent and ethereal effect, while the blithely capricious finale again bears witness to Alfano’s sense of a positive “purification” and “regeneration.”3 The work’s absorbing interplay of darkness and light, and despair and hope, will remain (as it has hitherto) a significant element and indeed a permanent fixture of the composer’s art. Thoroughly Italianate yet with roots firmly entrenched in Schumann, Grieg, Brahms (especially the Piano Concerto no. 2), and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the symphony convincingly bridges the chasm between a style reflecting a dying, incense-laden fin de siècle and a brazenly new orchestral language. In this work, Alfano purposefully emphasizes technical skills that remained dormant in his recent operas. He especially prizes the composition’s cyclic character, employing, as it does, a da capo in the final movement initially introduced in the first. Bordering on program music, the symphony musically reevokes the following historical eras: the Roman Age, Medievalism, the Renaissance, and the present (that is, 1910). With work on the symphony behind him, Alfano, from Milan, complained to his “artistic brother” Marinuzzi, not only of the heat and the fact that Marthe had gone off to visit relatives in France but, more important, that the opus (which he hoped was void of error) had been handed over to Tito. He now longed for a rapid publication (the sole guarantee of copyright). Casa Ricordi thereupon resumed pressuring him to choose another opera. Having dramatically distanced himself from earlier works, and having unleashed his creative potential in the symphony, Alfano desired a project categorically opposed to any of the firm’s suggestions. A fervid search was thus again taken up that, in due time, included Sem Benelli’s gothic L’amore dei tre re and his equally lurid La cena delle beffe (later ably set by Montemezzi and Giordano, respectively). His rejection derived from antipathy toward tragedies geared at a hopeless denouement as opposed to a positive one. Moreover, he was determined, following all the scenarios enforced by Ricordi, to secure a universal theme in accordance with his personal philosophy and, above all, void of a publisher’s influence. This only served to reinforce his awareness of Tito’s looming presence regarding artistic decisions related to his career. Elegant and charming, Tito

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could also be notoriously sardonic, pompous, condescending, aggressive, and cold. Aware of his importance in forging careers, Tito dictatorially imposed his own standards by furthering specially selected composers such as Zandonai. His inability to acknowledge errors and his incessant absences (to live in Paris) contributed to intensifying pressures. On 8 June 1910, Alfano wrote Edward Johnson’s wife, Bice, a letter that deserves quotation. It illustrates his battered self-esteem irreparably damaged since Zilah. It also documents the initial mentioning of Giovanni Pozza who, in future, would introduce him to Kalidasa’s The Recognition of S´akuntala. Still rejecting Francesco, he now officially employed the name Franco rather than Frank, as he explains in the following missive penned in his customary flowery style overflowing with metaphors: Your friend Frank—presently Franco, now that my nationalism conquered my earlier exoticism—has been incessantly ill. Ill and unhappy. Unhappy and sad, discouraged . . . neglecting everyone, even his friends. . . . What are the reasons or, better said, the causes? The same that brought artists like Bizet (without wishing to compare myself to him) to their graves in addition to so many others. Fortunately, as my letter to you proves this has not yet happened . . . life is not beautiful but what one can make of it. However, since the past few months I have been sauntering about, sauntering, and torturing myself without finding anything. Nothing, do you understand? Nothing that would have attracted my attention and roused my dormant enthusiasm for art or for the theater (an inferior art if you will), nor inspire any kind of expressivity—above all musically, harmonically, melodically, polyphonically . . . nothing! Nevertheless, I had chosen a piece by Calderon that I told you about in Florence [La vida es sueño]. Alas, one requires men of the theater, people with genial, impressive, and definite ideas. Moreover, it is sad to say, there are not any. Not one! Not even one! Not even half of one! Mr. [Giovanni] Pozza (critic for the Corriere) and [Ettore] Moschino have bled their onion brains for four months without coming up with the slightest idea. We remain were we started. Ricordi waits as I do, is as impatient as I am . . . but he also has other problems . . . while I . . . where does that leave me? I swear to you that if I have not already gone insane . . . I am on the verge of doing so. I have considered all the (so-called) Italian poets . . . they quietly submitted to my prodding as well-behaved descendants of their injurious Roman ancestors—without any results. . . . I now have a little hope: I was told Maeterlinck’s latest work, Marie Madeleine, should be quite interesting. I have ordered it in German. I will undertake the compulsory labor and translate it word for word. Who knows! Have you heard about it? You cannot imagine what an immense torture the expression “far niente” is. In addition, one has the gall to place the word “dolce” before it. Buf-

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foons! Sinister filthy buffoons! I thus still presently find myself in the same position . . . that is, facing nothing! Nil! A wonderful state! Even Marthe, la pauvre, even she remembers that besides clothes and caring for a loved one there also exist rectangular objects called books that she has begun reading like a maniac. She has devoured book after book. Every so often, there is a spark, an idea, “un spunto,” that would have sufficed an imaginative man of letters. But, once again, we were engulfed immediately in profound darkness . . . and instantly we set about through new primeval forests in order to find the sought-after-light. She is presently in France. She left me day before yesterday. The remains of her family, following a long absence, have shown signs of life. . . . I embrace both of you mes chers—and it is time—otherwise I will go too far and get on your nerves and on mine.4

A few days later, he again sent Bice a letter informing her that the First Symphony, conducted by Serafin, was slated to premiere in Rome. There remains, however, no documentation whether this concert in fact took place.5 Driven by his dramaturgical leanings that distanced themselves appreciably from Casa Ricordi’s customary subjects, Alfano now sought an epic theme at odds with the standard libretto. In addition, he placed enormous emphasis upon demonstrating his personal artisanship in both a technical and aesthetic manner as well. Breaking away from verismo, the composer sought to secure a vehicle capable of employing the new musical voice recently expressed in the First Symphony. He thus craved a forceful opus relaying a “human scenario” in an “unusual setting.”6 With this in mind, he began questioning friends the likes of Giovanni Pozza, a small, affable man with a prominent turned-up nose whom he met at the Savini restaurant in Milan’s Galleria. It did not take Alfano long to realize that, similar to Andrea Della Corte, Pozza was both a valuable and influential admirer of his music. The men now met on a regular basis—sometimes in the company of Puccini—with Pozza exerting measurable influence. A subject attracting Alfano’s interest at the time was Maurice Barrès’ Du sang, de la volupté, et de la mort, particularly a chapter titled “Une visite a Don Juan.” It served to reacquaint him with the Byronic antihero, while also including an essay by Raoul Colonna de Cesari researching the character of Miguel Manara on whom the work is based. Alfano was both amused and astonished upon asking Boito’s advice regarding the new project when told that his own opinion—after trying to discourage Puccini from tackling La bohème—was relatively “worthless.”7 Early in 1911, however, Alfano mentioned his interest in Don Juan to Ettore Moschino. A poet and playwright residing in Milan, he suggested the composer read his drama, Il demone, dealing with a similar libertine, Don Juan de Manara, who returns to Earth seeking expiation for his sins. The work prompted a long-awaited creative surge

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despite Juan’s innumerous incarnations. It resulted in his next opera, L’ombra di Don Giovanni (Don Juan’s Shadow). An Alfano ill at ease and excluded in Milan began tackling the new project immediately.8 He craved the solitude and tranquility necessary for creation, distancing him from domineering publishers and envious colleagues. A letter written by Marinuzzi dated 24 October reveals much of what the situation at Ricordi must have been like. Zandonai was now Tito’s sacreé bête, with expectations running high for the Teatro Dal Verme premiere of Conchita slated for 14 October. Tito alternatively referred to him as “Richard III,” reflecting ill-founded aspirations for the young man to don the artistic mantle of Wagner and Strauss.9 Such blatant favoritism naturally worked to the detriment of other Ricordi composers, including both the long-established Puccini and, to a similar extent, Alfano. Zandonai’s reserved manner fortunately enabled him to covet the position without publicly flaunting his superiority, a fact to which Alfano could attest when Zandonai introduced him to portions of Conchita’s driven score. However, when Marinuzzi extolled Zandonai’s talents, a severely slighted Alfano coyly offered that his own talent merited the attention. The composer finally found silence and nature in San Remo where, together with Moschino, he resided with friends. The Riviera rewarded him with a splendid Indian summer, nurturing his later decision to take up residence there. Here, he was able to begin L’ombra di Don Giovanni as “in a fever.” He toiled at the score in a continuous and effortless “flow,” determined to write a work incorporating “sentiment” rather than “sentimentality.”10 The premiere of the First Symphony conducted by Ettore Panizza at San Remo’s Casinó Municipal on 6 April 1912 temporarily halted his labors.11 Spectators were enthusiastic, critics less so. Alfano reasoned somewhat justifiably that they were simply “indifferent and hostile” to an Italian symphonic style. The work’s technical difficulties and complex narrative (bordering on program music) hindered also a convincing hearing when Antonio Guarnieri later conducted a “fiasco” performance in 1915. It was not until Marinuzzi’s esteemed 1918 interpretation (prompting a complete revision and deletion of the entire third movement) that the symphony received an adequate rendering. Additional problems arose in June with Giulio Ricordi’s death. No one now remained to restrain Tito’s dictatorial manner. The heir apparent would in fact only head the company for another seven years, whereupon the firm would pass into the hands of owners outside the immediate family. Many must have wondered whether Tito was indeed the right man for the job when Zandonai’s monotonous gladiator opera Melenis was unveiled to a baffled Milanese audience that November.

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Alfano’s immersion in the world of Don Juan afforded little opportunity for him to take much notice. Instead, he prided himself on possessing the “enormous courage” necessary to create a new musical standard seeking to override the preconceptions and prejudices rampant in Italy during the early 1900s.12 He toiled incessantly on the score throughout the remainder of 1912, possibly introducing Marinuzzi to portions of act 3 in Milan during March of the following year. The latter reported that although the music was extremely modern and somewhat affected, it nevertheless contained great nobility of expression. Ricordi had been producing an impressive array of new operas by Puccini, Montemezzi, and Zandonai. These included La fanciulla del West (1910), L’amore dei tre re (1913), and Francesca da Rimini (1914), thereby increasing the pressure on L’ombra di Don Giovanni, now slated to premiere in April 1914. A fine cast was assembled, headed by Alfano’s “dear” and “intimate” friend Edward Johnson as the repentant libertine, with Tina Poli Randaccio as Vannina. Marinuzzi happened to visit Alfano on 28 December and, overwhelmed by the beauty of Johnson’s voice, secured him for his own opera, Jacquerie. The composer was fortunate in having Tullio Serafin—originally leading Resurrezione’s world premiere a decade earlier—to conduct. Alfano had been present at La Scala on 15 December for the premiere of Mascagni’s D’Annunzio-based Parisina and, only a few months later (9 February 1914), Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini at Turin’s Teatro Regio. La Scala would also be the revered location for the first performance of L’ombra di Don Giovanni, which opened in a superb production on 3 April. There is a noteworthy discrepancy between Alfano’s recollection of the premiere in the Ritratto and the vitriolic letter he sent Marinuzzi a few weeks later describing the opera’s failure. The composer’s “official” version lauded a “highly competent” Serafin leading the work with “fraternal care.”13 He additionally states that the opera received five performances and enjoyed mounting success. This was only partially true: A score that forbade comparison with Resurrezione and Zilah simply stunned audiences. L’ombra di Don Giovanni presented enormous difficulties, and tensions ran high between Serafin and the composer. He now fumed that the conductor began rehearsals without being fully in command of the score, while supposedly issuing—in his own presence and before the orchestra—snide remarks concerning the work. This was only part of the misfortune facing Alfano who, on the eve of the premiere, felt horribly alone. L’ombra di Don Giovanni culminated in a devastating experience that, in its wake, created enduring repercussions. One should reiterate that Tito, having read Moschino’s libretto, accepted it without hearing each act upon completion. Alfano had successfully reasoned that this method resulted in suffocating the inspiration necessary to compose, particularly when Tito

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estimated a work’s future (financial) success based on its initial scenes. Alfano was of course not the only composer loathing this despicable modus operandi. It is therefore astounding that he actually managed not to play L’ombra di Don Giovanni a priori. Act 1 proceeded well. Tito, however, was barely able to conceal his irritation regarding the score’s advanced musical language. To Alfano’s utter amazement, he appeared in the theater’s foyer and gave a lengthy tirade, abrasively admonishing his friends (“tout Milan”) for applauding (and thereby encouraging) a composer to continue working in a manner courting insanity. A mortified Alfano now felt the “despot’s” implacable wrath.14 Tito’s virulence ensured the opera’s boycott. The experience wreaked such havoc on Alfano’s self-esteem that, some twenty years later and following Tito’s demise, he insisted on publicly recounting the demeaning occasion.15 Alfano was essentially correct when pointing out that most reviewers failed to condemn the work as did his own publisher. Instead, they agreed almost unanimously that L’ombra di Don Giovanni was a bold declaration of a composer shunning both verismo and realismo. German newspapers especially lauded the score’s “cutting dissonances,” its lack of “thematic development” and “sentimental cantilena,” and its complete absence of any set numbers.16 This, they wrote, served as a prerequisite for the “profound” and “refined expressivity” of Alfano’s “tender” and “mystic” drama.17 In fact, Germany regarded the work less as an opera than a Wagnerian Musikdrama. Foreign reviewers fortunately also acknowledged publicly that the opera’s failure was largely due to a hostile faction whose audible interference manifested itself in act 2. Critics agreed that Alfano set a mark with his technical ability. The opera nevertheless lacked proportion, while sporting an orchestration considered to be dense, dull, and indefinite. L’ombra di Don Giovanni generated a much-needed milestone. It represents a purposeful and explosive break from accepted Italian operatic norms. Since Alfano’s student days (especially those spent in Leipzig), his ardent desire had been to provide a viable bridge between Italian and German opera, to unite his own country’s passionate lyricism with a more advanced harmonic approach. This became apparent in the First Symphony and perhaps remained a reason why his compositions—especially at their respective premieres—had difficulty receiving adequate interpretations. Alfano was determined to proceed against the grain, and L’ombra di Don Giovanni was his second step into the depths of a vast Italian terra incognita. Not surprisingly, he sought an “unusual” operatic vehicle that, above all, failed to adhere to the conventions of modern-day Italy.18 He was by no means the period’s only Italian composer wholeheartedly conscious of the changes deemed necessary following the innovations of Wagner and, later, Strauss, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Debussy, and Jánàcˇek.

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Ildebrando Pizzetti, with his monotonous manner of Italian Sprechgesang, enjoyed a career lauded by the critics, prized by academia, and endured by the public. Zandonai’s mercurial Conchita was also a distinct rebellion against the tendencies of the time, as was Mascagni’s Parisina (1913). However, what was unfortunately lacking at the end of the day in a progressively abstract and incessantly mutating planet on the brink of World War I was Italy’s precious gift of melody. This was concurrently threatened by the inevitable “progress” of contemporary civilization that, in its wake, questioned (and restructured) its major social and moral issues. “Scientific materialism created a climax of rationalism from which music did not remain immune.”19 When the experiment of combining an elaborate orchestral structure with Melos worked (as it sometimes did), the result was hardly negligible.20 This was rarely the case, however. The origins on which he based L’ombra di Don Giovanni implied a distinct alienation from verismo, thanks, in part, to D’Annunzio’s examples of medievalism. To this—especially Vannina’s vision of Don Giovanni in act 2—Alfano added a mystic quality generally absent in Italy. However, it only served to alienate audiences unable to comprehend that the count’s transformation into the dashing libertine was solely an erotic figment of Vannina’s imagination—symbolism that, Alfano later reasoned, was anathema in Italy. Redemption is a prevalent current in most of Alfano’s works and, in L’ombra di Don Giovanni, he purposefully selected a narrative assiduously distancing itself from the customary love interest. Inspired by Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer (in which salvation is attained through a woman—a theme already touched upon in Resurrezione), he sought something of a universal significance in the somewhat superficial world of verismo. Musically, the score contains elements—vocal leaps, an incessantly high tessitura, abrupt diatonic shifts, and a certain restlessness—that Alfano deliberately chose to retain in the majority of his future works. The “ardent, tragic,” and “picturesque” L’ombra di Don Giovanni signifies a watershed in his production that should not be underestimated when approaching the composer’s creative corpus.21 It is also the first time he gives the chorus a significant role (frequently heard offstage seeking revenge, foreshadowing Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes). According to the composer’s own description, the orchestration was both “quivering” and “ambiguous.” Moreover, the vocal writing tends to soar above a ponderous and slightly claustrophobic cantilena. It seeks release in the ethereal presence surrounding the count (Don Giovanni), whom Vannina describes as “Satan, God, darkness,” and “light,” when seeking metaphorical justification of her fascination.22 This is a tense, tormented, and nervous score that relays, at its best moments, the impression of a Greek tragedy and, at its worst, unyielding monotony.

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NOTES 1. It is uncertain whether Alfano attended rehearsals or performances of Resurrezione at the Opéra Comique at this time. 2. Marinuzzi refers to the work as an operetta in his correspondence. 3. Della Corte, Ritratto, 45. 4. Alfano to Bice Serafin Johnson, 8 June 1910 (G). 5. The Ritratto claims 1912 as the year in which the work was probably unveiled. 6. Della Corte, Ritratto, 44. 7. Arrigo Boito nel ricordo di Franco Alfano, Rino Maione, ed., Franco Alfano, Presagio di tempi nuovi con finale controcorrente (Milan: Rugginenti, 1999), 387. 8. In June, Alfano, together with Toscanini and a host of others, signed his name to a protest published in the Gazzetta dei teatri repudiating projected changes in royalties and authors’ rights. 9. Marinuzzi, Tema con variazioni, 156–57. 10. Della Corte, Ritratto, 46. 11. Again, its initial hearing may indeed have been two years earlier in Rome. 12. Marinuzzi, Tema con variazioni, 194. 13. Della Corte, Ritratto, 49. 14. Della Corte, Ritratto, 50. 15. His rage was later given vent in the Ritratto. 16. Heinrich Möller, “Alfanos L’ombra di Don Giovanni,” Allgemeine Musikzeitung XLI/17 (24 April 1914). 17. Möller, “Alfanos L‘ombra di Don Giovanni.” 18. Della Corte, Ritratto, 50. 19. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed. 20. Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini and Montemezzi’s L’amore dei tre re are two fine examples. 21. Della Corte, Ritratto, 46. 22. Della Corte, Ritratto, 47.

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La leggenda di Sakùntala, Tagore and Tragedy (1915–1921)

The repercussions following the premiere of L’ombra di Don Giovanni were

manifold. Though it failed miserably, the opera demonstrated Alfano’s estimable technical capabilities. This resulted in his advancement as a distinguished academic, including an offer to serve on the examination committee of Milan’s conservatory. Aware of the time it necessitated, he reluctantly refused. Meanwhile, a consternated audience wondering which direction his art would take, an approaching world war, and a heated conflict with Tito Ricordi made Milan even less enticing. He also remained firm in his decision not to compose for Casa Ricordi as long as the company remained under Tito’s aegis. Seeking to camouflage the hurt, the composer comforted himself that L’ombra di Don Giovanni’s failure was due to Tito’s influence. This prompted the search for a new operatic subject—albeit not for Casa Ricordi. Considered were numerous themes, including Ben Jonson’s Volpone. The terminally ill Pozza, taking up residence in a San Remo nursing home, rejected these ideas, however. Grateful to exchange Milan for the inspirational tranquility of the Italian Riviera, Alfano visited him at regular intervals. We must credit Pozza for initially suggesting Kalidasa’s fifth-century play, The Recognition of S´akuntala. Also titled S´akuntala Recognized,1 this tale of unrequited love aroused substantial interest in Europe following Sir William Jones’s English translation in 1789 and, later, Antonio Marazzi’s Italian version of 1872. Particular awareness was paid Indian literature when, in 1913, the Bengali poet and mystic Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) received the Nobel Prize in Literature.2 Previously employed by Felix Weingärtner in 1884, the Kalidasa play also found expression in Karl Goldmark’s Sakuntala Overture of 1865. Alfano wholly embraced Kalidasa and Tagore. He prized their belief in an ideal and 41

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their reverence for nature that, in their works, finds expression of unequaled elegance. Inextricably linked to his philosophy, S´akuntala afforded him the opportunity of creating an exotic score that, unlike La fonte d’Enscir, demanded a worthy libretto in keeping with his personal vision. Pozza’s explicit desire (prior to his imminent death) for Alfano to choose the Kalidasa play strengthened his decision to begin working on the project to the exclusion of everything else. He thus approached what evolved to become his opera of predilection, sporting a sense of unrestrained artistic freedom. Akin to Resurrezione and L’ombra di Don Giovanni, it would be a work of his own choosing not tailored to the whims of a publisher. His personal adaptation (and sole venture into the realm of libretto writing) ensured there would be no difficulties of collaboration. Setting to work in the late summer of 1914, he grew increasingly captivated by Kalidasa’s heroine “sprung from a nymph of heaven.”3 Act 2 reached completion in July 1915, with a slight repose granted when Marinuzzi asked him to help secure a dwelling for his own ailing father. The two friends (now neighbors) thus shared the depredations of war as well as an intensified exchange of aesthetic musings no longer distanced by way of correspondence. In the meantime, Antonio Guarnieri conducted an equally bad hearing of the First Symphony at Rome’s Augusteo on 28 November 1915. The composer readily admitted that the performance expressed none of his original intentions. Moreover, he felt stung by the repeated insistence that the opus sounded un-Italianate; he failed to win the immediate praise of the earlier Suite romantica that he now judged to be “folkloristic” and “more comprehensible.”4 He presumed the symphony would reap success if scored less elaborately, thereby adhering to contemporary taste. He again insisted that only he and Martucci had essentially “risked” composing orchestral music in Italy at all.5 This was of course only partially true, notwithstanding his statement’s referring primarily to his operatic colleagues. Immobility resulting from the global conflict created positive working conditions with sparse distraction. While Puccini protested his inability to travel due to the war, Alfano rejoiced in the street with the Marinuzzis upon receiving word of Italy’s Galician victory. The agonizing and inordinately shocking news that his son Herbert died in the war effort came completely unexpected, however. The fact that his death occurred during the composition of La leggenda di Sakùntala—the plot of which centers on the birth of a son—certainly contributed to his inordinate love of the work. While mourning in silence, Alfano was asked by Marinuzzi if he should accept directorship of Bologna’s Liceo Musicale. It was likely, with the conductor at the helm, that there would soon also be a position made available to him. Firmly ensconced as director, Marinuzzi then inquired whether Alfano

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might consider joining the faculty. He agreed to teach composition if not counterpoint. The new position required that he preside over the school during Marinuzzi’s absences, leaving him little time for La leggenda di Sakùntala. Marinuzzi’s almost constant engagements (including the Monte Carlo world premiere of La rondine that March) necessitated Alfano’s continuous presence at the school. Under great duress, he somehow managed to complete act 3 of La leggenda di Sakùntala in April 1917. Three months later, and prior to a well-deserved San Remo holiday, he notified the conductor that the new position prohibited his “writing one note.”6 Meanwhile, Marinuzzi continued juggling his own career as conductor/composer, interspersed with a smattering of rather infrequent Bolognese appearances. This eventually led to Alfano’s replacing him as director in early January 1918. Relieved of his responsibilities, Marinuzzi immediately conducted Alfano’s First Symphony at Bologna’s Teatro Comunale in March. It marked the first performance reflecting Alfano’s mental image of the opus. The conductor led the concert with great skill. His newly revised version incorporating a deletion of the third movement and a gently edited fourth contributed validly to its favorable reception. Alfano wrote Tito the following day of the symphony’s “great success,”7 his overriding diplomacy once again ingratiating himself with the latter for the immediate future, while stressing each and every accomplishment since L’ombra di Don Giovanni. Debussy’s death in Paris occurred the same day Alfano wrote his selfcongratulatory letter. It prompted him to write Boito, inquiring whether he would consent partaking in an honorary committee at the Liceo commemorating the deceased. Despite his not always favorable opinion of Debussy’s compositions, Boito’s reply was instantaneous. He expressed the necessity for Italy to demonstrate a sense of “affectionate homage”8 toward France. Boito died less than three months later. This afforded Alfano the opportunity of presenting his reminiscences in a lengthy eulogy that July. Therein he somewhat nostalgically recalled evenings spent at Milan’s Savini restaurant, where Boito habitually appeared for a game of chess after most had finished dining. The composer lauded Boito’s elegant demeanor as an exceptional grand seigneur. He could duly sympathize with his international art. He also, in lieu of his own cause, made doubly certain to supply numerous examples of his subject’s eclectic style. He reinforced this by then musing what Wagner’s music may have been like without the influence of Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn, or Debussy sans Grieg and Mussorgsky; the latter coupling, of course, illuminated his own approach. Following the demise of these two great men and firmly ensconced at the Liceo, Alfano finally prepared the premiere of his First String Quartet scored for two violins, viola, and cello. Composing during 1915–1916, he

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only now felt sufficiently able to attempt the form, notwithstanding numerous drafts begun during his Leipzig period upon which he failed to elaborate. He forestalled completing the latter half of the final movement due to work on La leggenda di Sakùntala, which he referred to as “the most arduous task” of a contemporary musician.9 Critics in Italy and abroad unanimously considered the Quartet to be a ponderous, pretentious, and irritating forty-five-minute exercise in drab dullness. They insinuated that the work’s raison d’être was to appear progressive and modern at all costs, while the movements (grave, calmo, and largo-allegro deciso) ultimately failed to gel into a coherent whole. Published by Pizzi of Bologna, the opus was performed in Milan (and later Berlin) in March of 1921. How he managed to create the Quartet while orchestrating La leggenda di Sakùntala, juggling his duties at the Liceo, and composing three art songs (Tre poemi di Rabindranath Tagore) taken from poetry from The Gardener is difficult to fathom.10 Tagore was an exceptionally important muse for Alfano, inspiring some of his finest liriche. Approaching the German Lied, his art songs place special emphasis on lyrics and accompaniment. They bear little, if any, resemblance to the rather commonplace efforts of his contemporaries. Discussions in the upper echelons of Italy’s music scene were rampant of luring him away from Bologna to Turin. Ottorino Respighi received the same offer. Both men simultaneously cabled in a negative response. Two years would pass prior to Alfano’s acceptance. This left added time for the completion of La leggenda di Sakùntala’s partitura, Alfano having labored on it from 1918 through 1920. Bologna’s Teatro Comunale also planned to premiere the opera on 10 December 1921. In the interim, Tito Ricordi was ousted from the firm in 1919. Renzo Valcarenghi and Carlo Clausetti succeeded him. In charge of the orchestral forces for La leggenda di Sakùntala’s premiere was Tullio Serafin. The fine cast included Augusta Concato (Sakùntala), her husband Nino Piccaluga (the king), Anna Menerini (Priyamvada), Gina Pedroni (Anùsuya), Bruno Carmassi (Kanva), and Filippo Spada (Durvàsas). Alfano maintained that Casa Ricordi failed to place sufficient emphasis on promoting performances of the work or contemporary operas in general. Fritz Reiner’s ingratiatingly simple critique lauded, “This is the Italian Parsifal.”11 There seemed to be a consensus on La leggenda di Sakùntala’s importance. Many heralded it as Alfano’s finest achievement. Newspapers competed in praising a work that exuded a sacred ambiance, its “elegiac” core “transporting” the spectator to the “ecstatic vision of a melancholy dream.”12 Others noted appreciably that Alfano, although retaining a singularly complex orchestration, had approached the work with a lighter touch—a lesson learned from L’ombra di Don Giovanni. Writing for Il secolo, Giacomo Orefice noted that Alfano’s score was permeated by abundant vocalism, while remaining an opera of which Italy could be proud. Praised as a moment of incontestable

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beauty was the Sakùntala/Kanva scene of act 2. The production’s sumptuous Indian costumes (Daniele Crespi) and exotic settings (Piero Stroppa) undoubtedly contributed to the opera’s resounding success. In his introduction to The Recognition of S´akuntala published 1920, Tagore declares that the “drama was meant not for dealing with a particular passion, nor for developing a particular character, but for translating the whole subject from one world to another—to elevate love from the sphere of physical beauty to the eternal heaven of moral beauty.”13 In addition, he emphasizes that the play “stands alone . . . because it depicts how Restraint can be harmonized with Freedom. All its joys and sorrows, unions and partings, proceed from the conflict of these two forces.”14 This idea of a “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained” specifically attracted Alfano.15 Authored by India’s most celebrated playwright, Kalidasa’s The Recognition of S´akuntala requires little introduction. Inspired by an episode in the epic Mahabharata, it relates a love story promoting the doctrine of karma wherein life’s experiences result from actions of a previous incarnation. It concurrently envisions the relationship between the worshipper and the sacred. Goethe considered it a summation of heaven and earth. Tagore, in his introduction to the play, wrote that the “drama was meant . . . for translating the whole subject from one world to another—to elevate love from the sphere of physical beauty to the eternal heaven of moral beauty.”16 Furthermore, he felt the play “depicts how restraint can be harmonized with freedom. All its joys and sorrows, and unions and partings, proceed from the conflict of these two forces.”17 With “no experience of the outside world,”18 S´akuntala was a character Alfano could aesthetically identify with, particularly when Tagore stresses that Kalidasa expounds “Goodness” being the “final goal of Love” in a drama enthroned “on the holy and pure seat of asceticism.”19 La leggenda di Sakùntala represents a continuation of the innovations originally introduced in L’ombra di Don Giovanni—albeit less radically expressed. The skill of Alfano’s adaptation—regardless of whether the libretto can claim justice to Kalidasa’s sprawling seven-act play—is without question.20 Heavily shorn or altogether discarded were portions emanating sparse operatic viability (such as the prologue and ample parts of the ensuing acts). Halving the dramatis personae, Alfano fortunately chose to retain some of the work’s symbolism, including the bee (if not the elephant or clown). Thus, act 1 of the opera leads directly to act 3 of the play, with the complete omission of Kalidasa’s act 2. Into the sensuous and languorous love duet Alfano has interjected a mandatory operatic kiss nonexistent in the original, regardless if act 3 of the play sports the heading “The Love-Making.” Greatly reduced is act 4. The discourse between Kanva and Sakùntala has been elaborated, serving as their lengthy duet in act 2. Act 5 of the play (“S´akuntala’s Rejection”) becomes the operatic act

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3. Alfano enlarged the musical festivities that originally only included a lute. Finally, the opera concludes with greater brevity. Alfano was now a master of orchestration. The musical imitation of a gong at the opera’s initiation provides viable evidence of his technical expertise. The impressionistic score succeeds in emanating a pronounced exotic flavor, despite its lacking the distinct Indian ambience of Lakmé or Massenet’s Roi de Lahore. Act 1 resounds in an intensely sumptuous otherworldliness to a shimmering and sensuous orchestral accompaniment. The composer’s rhythmic variances recall Jánàcˇek’s Jenu˚ fa while preshadowing Turandot. Engulfed in an esoteric atmosphere, the opera’s initial chorus (“Luce! Luce dei cuori!”) vividly evokes the translucent and ethereal quality of the libretto’s “flowers and incense.” This is complemented by Alfano’s brilliant musical portrait of the heroine’s nymphlike elusiveness and progressive despondency. Nature is, by way of the composer’s instrumental assimilation of butterflies, insects, and heat, thus re-created. Though sporting a Wagnerian/Strauss tessitura, the vocal writing remains predominantly Italianate in its manner of building up to a high note rather than attacking it head-on. Alfano purposefully differentiates between the king’s worldly vocalism (at times reminiscent of Dimitri) and Sakùntala’s otherworldly vocal writing. This complements the score’s magical ambience, which Alfano manages to uphold throughout a complex work incorporating numerous layers forming a whole. Noteworthy is that the main Sakùntala/king love duet is actually void of an alluring center. Packaged professionally, this factor remains unnoticeable or at least irrelevant. Act 2 is purposefully void of the sensuality marking act 1. A feeling of fleeting time manifests itself in a scenario similar to Resurrezione’s act 2. Its music is enchanted. Recalling Klingsor’s magic garden, Durvàsas receives a theme inspired by the opening of act 2 of Parsifal, while debt is due act 2 of Tristan when Priyamvada’s distant voice recalls Brangäne. The harsher colors of this act depict Sakùntala’s hopelessness and desperation. Only upon mentioning the all-important ring does the orchestration fleetingly reevoke the radiance of the preceding act. The symbolism attached to the ring naturally brought Alfano closer to Wagner, as did his striving to create something epic and larger than life. Unusual for Italy at the time, it later found a pendant in Turandot, thereby reiterating Alfano’s spiritual affinity to Puccini. Sakùntala’s major scene not only dramaturgically recalls that of Katiusha in act 2, but also is similar musically to the schemata of “Dio pietoso.” The scena concludes with a foretaste of a theme later employed for Cyrano de Bergerac. Act 3 is the opera’s weakest. It lacks dramatic urgency. The Danza is too ponderous, too ill focused to prove enticing. It leads nowhere and, unlike Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils, concludes without culminating in a high point. The act falls short in its demand for something truly broad and mov-

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ing, swift and fluent. It is merely a continuation of the work’s elegiac style growing increasingly diluted. This also undermines the opera’s finale that, in its unconvincing apotheosis, approaches the flaws of Alfano’s initial Turandot completion. It is precisely in this act that one sorely misses Puccini’s sense of the theater. This is an esoteric work in which the composer wishes the spectator to not only listen to his music, but, above all, to hear through it with himself as medium. Vast portions of the score nevertheless remain embedded in a somewhat ponderous gloom, leaving sparse space for either air or light. This was certainly intentional on Alfano’s part when contrasting the glow of act 1 with the heroine’s desolation in act 2. Evasive and somewhat tedious musical patterns remain uncompensated by melodically memorable vocalism. Prevalent since L’ombra di Don Giovanni, this disadvantage (coupled with impersonal character portrayals) remains a predominant reason why the work ultimately failed to enter the mainstream repertory. A fiendishly difficult tessitura (for relatively thankless roles) contributes further in narrowing its palatability while explaining Mary Garden’s disinterest.21 La leggenda di Sakùntala and L’ombra di Don Giovanni signify Alfano’s musical allegiance to the North, embracing a symphonic approach inspired by myths and legends. The orchestration—the music drama’s actual protagonist—is akin to a symphonic poem. Its distinct spirituality and sense of purity at times risk asphyxiation by Alfano’s insistence in overburdening the work with his entire artistic and aesthetic creed. However, Sakùntala’s act 2 scena “O nuvola . . . nuvola leggera” is, without a doubt, a supreme moment in the composer’s oeuvre—as are portions of act 1. Alfano discerningly employs motifs throughout the course of a work that demands extremely capable singers possessing exceptional interpretive gifts, in addition to an audience willing to succumb to a seductive and harmonically unique operatic enchantment.

NOTES 1. Abhijña¯nas´akuntala. 2. Operatic themes on Indian subjects included Massenet’s Le roi de Lahore, Bizet’s Pearl Fishers, Léo Delibes’ Lakmé, Henri Rabaud’s Mârouf, and Adriano Lualdi’s Il figlio del principe. 3. Kalidasa, The Recognition of S´akuntala, act 2. 4. Alfano to Guido M. Gatti, 18 March 1916 (AASR). 5. Alfano to Guido M. Gatti, 18 March 1916, in Musica italiana del primo Novecento, Florence, 1980. 6. Alfano to Marinuzzi, 19 June 1917, Marinuzzi, Tema con variazioni, 258.

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7. Alfano to Tito Ricordi, 25 March 1918, in Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 460, n. 83. 8. Boito to Alfano, undated, in Piero Nardi, Vita di Arrigo Boito (Verona: Mondadori, 1944), 716. 9. Alfano to Guido M. Gatti, 18 March 1916 (CR). 10. “Mamma, il giovane principe,” “Egli mormorò,” and “Parlami, amor mio.” 11. Giovanni Corvetto, “Franco Alfano, la sua opera, le sue opere,” Il lavoro d’Italia, 30 October 1927. 12. “Sakùntala” in La Critica Musicale, v/1 January 1922, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 965. 13. Rabindranath Tagore, “S´akuntala: Its Inner Meaning,” (Introduction), The Recognition of S´akuntala, by Kalidasa, ed. Jadunath Sarkar (London: Macmillan, 1920), iii. 14. Tagore, “S´akuntala,” iv. 15. Tagore, “S´akuntala,” vii. Kalidasa purposefully transformed the legend into a more credible love story by making the sage’s curse responsible for the lovers’ separation rather than King Dusyanta. 16. Tagore, “S´akuntala,” iii. 17. Tagore, “S´akuntala,” iv. 18. Tagore, “S´akuntala,” v. 19. Tagore, “S´akuntala,” viii. 20. Julian Budden writes, “[T]he verse-libretto remained de rigueur until Alfano’s Sakuntala of 1921.” Julian Budden, Puccini: His Life and Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 178. 21. The soprano’s biographer, Michael Turnbull, claims that Alfano introduced Garden to La leggenda di Sakùntala in Bologna, hoping she would interpret Kalidasa’s heroine for the opera’s French premiere.

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Turandot (1921–1925)

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n October 1921, Puccini came to Bologna for a production of his Trittico at the Teatro Comunale. Alfano took time from his busy schedule at the Liceo to speak with the composer who had begun work on what would be his last opera, the Gozzi-inspired Turandot. Suggested as a subject the previous year, the opera’s dramaturgical gestation was still undergoing incessant revision, which included a decision to conclude act 1 with the riddle scene. The two men discussed the outline. Alfano suggested that the riddle scene be repositioned into act 2, thereby enlarging the work to incorporate three acts as once planned. Later, of course, he derived “great satisfaction to learn . . . that this idea had been accepted, and put into effect by the librettists.”1 Puccini wrote the librettist Giuseppe Adami from Bologna immediately after speaking with Alfano, suddenly mentioning a third act after informing his collaborator, Renato Simoni, only a month earlier that “Turandot must be in two acts only. . . .”2 In autumn 1923, Alfano was in Rome to serve on a panel of judges—that also included Puccini—to select the winner of a new Italian opera. The prize fell to Iginio Robbiani’s Anna Karenina. Puccini again spoke with Alfano concerning his work on Turandot. “He confessed that the close of the opera was worrying him,” and that he was still searching for “something vast, something grandiose.” It again became clear to Alfano that Puccini “had long been tormenting himself to find a musical idea that would be big enough for this situation, but that the inspiration had not yet come.”3 Factors impeding a swift completion included not only the alarming lethargy of his librettists but also the almost insoluble dilemma of creating a convincing denouement for the opera’s final duet and concluding scene. Particularly demanding was Turandot’s transformation following Liù’s 49

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tremendously touching suicide, leading to an apotheosis atypical of Italian opera. The predicament was never resolved. Sometimes considered the composer’s greatest achievement, Turandot, arguably, is the most riveting, cerebral, and self-conscious of Puccini’s scores. Given its visions of hopelessness, terror, and Kafka-like fear, the opera, more nightmare than fairytale, is an astonishingly disturbing paradigm of the composer’s final summing-up. Puccini had orchestrated the work through to the scene of Liù’s death and funeral cortège by 1924, while awaiting his librettists to supply him with a final version of the text. Despite his colleague’s difficulties, Alfano traveled to Düsseldorf to witness the phenomenally successful German premiere of La leggenda di Sakùntala on 25 May.4 Fifty-four curtain calls heralded the work, in addition to a throng of admirers waiting patiently in the rain to congratulate the composer at the theatre’s carriage entrance. Reviewers gratefully acknowledged Alfano’s purposefully steering away from verismo, even if they were largely unable to discern any apparent dramatic impetus. Alfano desperately hoped Milan would share comparable appreciation for his preferred work following its La Scala premiere on 2 February 1924. Italian reviews were less than complimentary, however. The composer later ascribed this to “collective ignorance”5 instigated by Toscanini, with much attention that should have been given his work directed to the same theatre’s upcoming posthumous world premiere of Boito’s Nerone. From Viareggio, Puccini, on 1 September, wrote Adami of his inability to work on Turandot for some six months due to failing health. Still incomplete, he nevertheless cabled Carlo Clausetti to have arrangements made for a La Scala premiere. Toscanini, the theatre’s artistic director, also paid the composer a visit, and it was at this time that Puccini played portions of Turandot. Shortly thereafter (on 8 October 1924), the composer finally received the fully revised text. Confirmed was also the gravity of his illness, prompting the decision to seek treatment at Brussel’s Institut Médico-Chirurgical. Alfano’s own health problems, though admittedly minor, were a source of irritation when an attack of sciatica partially immobilized him. However, by 24 October he was able to inform Arturo Rossato of his interest in an operatic adaptation of La Belle Imperia, taken from the opening tale of Balzac’s Contes Drôlatiques. Rossato (1882–1942) was a taciturn and largely inept librettist/ journalist who, owing partially to his fascist leanings, enjoyed success producing a multitude of insignificant works soon forgotten. His recent Giulietta e Romeo libretto for Zandonai should have made Alfano leery about entering into collaboration, and it is duly unfortunate that he now wedded his talent to someone incapable of doing it justice. Work on his first comedy was due to begin in December.

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In the interim, Puccini’s situation deteriorated. Taking with him the sketches for Turandot’s final duet, the composer died in Belgium of heart failure on 29 November. This came as an immense shock to Alfano. He had planned to meet his older colleague in Brussels while attending the Belgian premiere of La leggenda di Sakùntala in Antwerp, the success of which “intensely interested” Puccini.6 Alfano may have attended a funeral service two days later at the Church of Sainte-Marie in Brussels prior to taking part in an official ceremony at Milan’s Cathedral on 3 December. Three days later, La leggenda di Sakùntala was presented at the Koninklijke Vlaamsche opera in Antwerp in a gala attended by the Queen of Belgium. The country’s newspapers extolled its “incontestable beauty.”7 Respighi promptly sent his congratulations. Following the loss of his favorite colleague, Alfano wrote Rossato on 8 February 1925 that he now planned to devote his entire time to Madonna Imperia. In fact, he even flirted with the prospect of completing the opus during the summer months when relieved of his duties at the Liceo. One of his letters rather uncannily asks whether the librettist contemplated enlarging Madonna Imperia’s “final duet,”8 with what seems to be Turandot ominously lurking in the shadows. April found the composer in Nice, where Resurrezione reentered the Théâtre du Casinó repertory as Résurrection. This marked the first Frenchlanguage performance in some eight years. It prompted Alfano to hope for additional productions in France. Moreover, he was determined to listen to his youthful opera both critically and with “glacial objectivity.”9 As expected, Rossato failed to be of much help when Alfano finally secured time for Imperia. The composer noted that Turin had scheduled the opera for its upcoming season. However, the necessity of awaiting Rossato’s final version of the opera’s libretto made it impossible for him to provide an affirmative statement. Letters penned in July emphasize a highly irritated composer imploring Rossato for the revisions “immediately” and without “any time to lose.”10 The librettist also seems to have been running between two fronts. Recently providing Zandonai with the text to I cavalieri di Ekebù (one of his few worthwhile efforts), its composer now suddenly read of Alfano planning an opera based on the life of St. Julian. Given Rossato would supply Zandonai with the libretto to Giuliano—his own short work inspired by Gustave Flaubert’s story of the saint—implies that he was, if anything, relatively indiscreet. Meanwhile, a search began for someone capable of completing Turandot from the composer’s existing sketches. Candidates at the time included (with possible exceptions) the Ricordi composers Franco Vittadini, Zandonai, and Alfano. On 1 July 1925, Puccini’s son, Antonio, wired Alfano at San Remo requesting an appointment. He arrived shortly afterward specifically geared

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at luring the composer’s acceptance. Regardless of feeling flattered, Alfano admitted being terribly “frightened”11 and “perplexed” by the proposal. He recalled, “Toscanini also begged me to accept the task. So I asked for two weeks to think the matter over, and at the end of that time asked to see the libretto and what music was written. I was, naturally, much flattered at this honor, but could not conscientiously accept an obligation of such enormous responsibilities without examining the work in detail, and pondering it very carefully.” Although there is no evidence to support the claim, mention has been made of Alfano himself once planning to “set the story of Turandot to music.” He had “even sketched out a libretto” later abandoned when hearing of Puccini’s interest. Now, upon “re-reading the story, I was again taken with the fascination of the subject. . . .” Alfano nevertheless immediately estimated the difficulties involved in portraying the final duet convincingly, “because it is at this point that Princess Turandot reveals for the first time her true nature. This fact first appears at the beginning of the duet, and the ensuing finale emphasizes and exalts this changed situation. For this reason, the duet and finale are of fundamental importance in the opera, since it is here that its real dramatic significance lies.”12 Puccini intermittently introduced Alfano to some of his works in progress such as La fanciulla del West and, in this particular case, “the first half of act 3” of Turandot.13 Understandably, Alfano had little interest to “spoil” such a “mature” and “beautiful” work wherein everything seemed so “perfectly balanced and settled.” The exoticism and superb musicianship marking La leggenda di Sakùntala and L’ombra di Don Giovanni were estimable forces governing the selection of Alfano. His respect, affection, and esteem for Puccini as man and artist complemented this, as did his docile, accommodating, and acquiescent manner; important characteristics ultimately impeding Zandonai’s selection. The press later appropriately stated, “Among modern Italian composers, Alfano was in closer communication of spirit with Puccini than anyone else. . . .”14 Following Casa Ricordi’s bidding to discuss the matter further in Milan with Toscanini, the composer, on 5 July 1925, sent a detailed letter explaining his trepidation at accepting the “beautiful but very risqué” offer. He also seized the opportunity to explain Antonio’s having been insufficiently clear when relating his own slightly veiled refusal, while presenting the request in such immensely “affectionate terms” all but prohibiting a negative reply. He then proceeded to list details of his pressing agenda, including Madonna Imperia’s impending Turin premiere (which, largely incomplete, he purposefully failed to mention by name), his composition of a “new quartet that must be finished soon” (the Second String Quartet), a revision of Resurrezione’s French libretto,

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and a production of the opera in Chicago (with Mary Garden). Strained, stressed, and demonstrating weakness, Alfano then blundered fatally by suggesting Adami return to San Remo to discuss the “pros and cons (more cons than pros)” in the peace and quiet of his study. He felt his presence in Milan to be superfluous, while the mere mention of Toscanini’s involvement made the entire situation unnecessarily “official.” He concluded by reiterating that if he again voiced a definite refusal it was because of “serious and plausible reasons.”15 Misgivings from those involved concerning Alfano’s reluctance remained curiously absent; such was the determination to convince him against his better judgment, and the limited freedom over which he governed as a Casa Ricordi composer. Thus, a triumvirate soon appeared in San Remo comprising Antonio, Adami, and Carlo Clausetti. Hopes remained to present the “completed” opera at La Scala in November to mark the first anniversary of Puccini’s death, with Galileo Chini in charge of the mise-en-scène. Following this meeting (and to his enormous chagrin), a defenseless and overruled Alfano felt incapable of issuing a negative retort. It resulted in the muchdreaded Milan invitation to discuss the matter further with Toscanini and the aforementioned men. In an overwhelmingly naïve letter penned 6 August, Alfano wrote that he had hesitated precisely twenty-five days before accepting the completion. Furthermore, he states that his major reason for acquiescing derived from the “truly moving insistence”16 of the aforementioned men. He nevertheless concurrently mentions the “enormous responsibility” and “huge exertion” the project would entail.17 He also, at this point, still harbored the reasonable assumption of being able to “select from the drafts in the manuscript material which he [Puccini] perhaps left enabling him to “discard that which he certainly would have repudiated . . . cut here, enlarge there . . . and then . . . create ex-novo that which isn’t there, without [there being] too much Alfano!”18 The missing parts, he still optimistically acknowledged, “only” included “the last duet and the opera’s conclusion,” precisely those sections of the score wherein “Turandot reveals herself.”19 He ascertained that her character demanded a “relatively brief and concise” musical treatment that would “not [be] very facile.”20 Seeing the honor of his calling, he hoped not to be deemed “too inferior” for the job.21 A few days later, Alfano was notified via Renzo Valcarenghi (who doubled as interlocutor between composer and librettist) of Adami’s justified refusal to alter Puccini’s phrase “Mio fiore mattutino.” The composer, it seems, required time to comprehend fully that his task essentially consisted of solely mending fragments, with the only very limited possibility of original additions. He became “completely immersed” in his work by 11 August, writing

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Valcarenghi of his desperate efforts aimed at contenting Casa Ricordi, “Puccini, Toscanini (???), and, above all, the public.”22 He sensed the conductor’s misgivings from the start. Witnessing Puccini’s exasperation at first hand, and having only just recently experienced a similar situation with his own collaboration on the posthumous completion of Boito’s Nerone, Toscanini regarded the entire project as dubious at best. It was. One cannot help speculating whether the swiftness of Puccini’s demise forbade him from drawing up a legal document forbidding posthumous interference. There was no Helene Berg to stop proceedings. There exists in music, as opposed to other art forms, a deplorable and almost obsessive need for completion at all costs. What, then, was the driving force behind the completion of this “organism without peace?”23 It was deemed necessary to fully demonstrate Turandot’s transformation from icon of hate to loving virgin. The complexity of this issue resulted from the fact that, unlike Ferruccio Busoni, Puccini distanced himself considerably from the rather anemic commedia dell’arte original (thanks to his innate musical sensitivity and genial ability of psychological characterization), creating a masterpiece far removed from any ordinary legend. It would be redundant to claim that no one could have satisfactorily completed the work, considering that Puccini “couldn’t bring himself to humble his venomous goddess.”24 There was more at stake here than simply uniting remaining drafts that, for its creator, signified the achievement of a lifetime. That Puccini composed some of his most touching music to Liù’s funeral cortège is no less strange than Mozart’s Requiem, with Mosco Carner referring to Alfano as the “Süssmayer to Puccini’s Mozart.”25 Perhaps it is the work’s incompleteness that helps lend it an almost mythical status, even if it merits attention as the last great work of Italy’s last great operatic composer. The scene of Liù’s death terminates with an emphatic sense of finality, suggesting a perfectly plausible conclusion without the need of an extraneous ending that would have little, if anything, to do with the unflinching aesthetic demands Puccini always so mercilessly placed upon himself. I do not support the hypothesis that Puccini, had he lived, would have been incapable of completing the work. The Turandot imbroglio may, with better judgment, have been circumvented had Giulio Ricordi not passed away more than a decade earlier. The idea of performing any completion in an era of authentic performance practice and a return to original editions may, one day, appear ludicrous. Meanwhile, Alfano wrote Valcarenghi detailed letters expressing his thoughts on the subject in addition to suggesting necessary alterations. It was only at this point, however, that he realized fully how little there was to work with. The daunting responsibility of creating a grand love duet where “il povero Puccini” marked “Poi Tristano” on the manuscript page seemed im-

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mense.26 Alfano again reiterated that it would be impossible to commence work without having a complete libretto in hand. His letter concludes goodnaturedly, hoping Puccini’s spirit (“He who in life wished me well!”27) would guide him through the project. It is not difficult to fathom what little impact the composer’s idealism and openness had on the firm. A contract was finally signed on 25 August 1925, stating that Alfano would receive “30,000 [lire] upon relinquishing the orchestral score” as well as 4 percent of the work’s revenues.28 In addition, twenty-five hundred lire were to be provided for each month he was forced to remain absent from his directorial duties at the Liceo.29 Alfano again demonstrated diehard naïveté (irritating Casa Ricordi’s meticulously controlled commercial considerations) by granting an interview, allowing insight into the actual completion. The publishers, understandably, were furious. It was anathema that the public should have any inkling of the degree to which Puccini’s manuscript remained incomplete. Later, when the opera premiered, the evening’s program included reproductions of seven of Puccini’s original sketches. What now ignited Casa Ricordi’s wrath was Alfano’s detailed description of the various themes he planned to incorporate, including motifs from the act 2 riddle scene and, seeking to “faithfully follow his [Puccini’s] wishes,” use of the “Nessun Dorma” music for the opera’s finale.30 He also provided, in the same interview, a foretaste of what later resulted in the faults everyone found in the first reworking, stressing that he rejected an “academic imitation of Puccini’s style. . . .”31 This naturally culminated in an overabundance of his input, later necessitating an infamous revision. At this point, Ricordi succeeded in instantaneously stifling Alfano’s loquaciousness via a scathing telegram expressing their “surprise” at his “inopportune [and] premature interview” that succeeded in breaking the “prudently devout silence” protecting the work.32 Alfano, in Venice that September to attend the Third Chamber Music Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music, related to the press that he would try to “make as much use as possible of the themes already existing in the opera, wherever the logic of the situation justifies a repetition of the motif.” He again stressed, “Puccini had mentioned on several occasions to his librettists that the closing measures of the finale should be a restatement, in amplified form, of the tenor aria. . . . I shall observe this wish scrupulously, and this theme, in the form of a chorale, will be heard at the last.” Personally, Alfano felt Turandot to be “Puccini at his best.”33 With difficulty, he now tried to maintain pressures heaved at him from all sides. He informed Rossato of the obvious impossibility of working on Madonna Imperia. A rigorous agenda thus ensured his commuting between San Remo, Turin, and Milan. Even Casa Ricordi steadily acknowledged the futility of receiving the completion by November. A letter to their New York

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branch thus disclosed plans for a premiere rescheduled for April 1926. Trapped in a precarious situation and perhaps sensing imminent negative repercussions, the composer now sought another publisher for Madonna Imperia. With this in mind, he approached the director of Vienna’s prestigious Universal Edition, Emil Hertzka, declaring to be “very happy to enter into a business relationship” with the Austrian firm.34 He immediately stated his financial terms based on Ricordi’s originally paying him five thousand francs “in advance” for his Sonata for Violin and Piano, in addition to 10 percent of the work’s royalties. It was to Hertzka he now offered the new Sonata for Piano and Cello, having personally performed it in Naples on 12 April. Originally commissioned by the philanthropist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, its thirtyfour-page manuscript (in pencil and ink) bears witness to Alfano’s benefactor.35 In addition were three songs to piano accompaniment, again based on the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore (Tre liriche di Tagore), which he felt could successfully be translated.36 This provided him with an opportunity to introduce the firm to that most “original poet and thinker” whom he revered above anyone else.37 He then turned to the Second String Quartet, eager that Universal Edition adopt earlier compositions published by Ricordi, Bongiovanni, and Editions Hachette. He also informed Hertzka of arrangements made with the Teatro di Torino for “an opera in one act derived from a Balzac story” slated to premiere the following year.38 Although failing to name Madonna Imperia, he ascertained that Turandot would postpone all projects for the immediate future. However, this did not deter him from mentioning that he was working on a complete drama as I mentioned in Venice. . . . A great international singer who is performing one of my works this season in America [and] who entered into agreement with a very well known librettist has asked whether I would set to music a world-famous work. I answered yes in principle, but I am still waiting to know under which conditions. . . .39

Fearing the project would never come to fruition, Alfano withheld any information of Mary Garden’s involvement or a specific mentioning of the “world-famous work” that was Rostand’s La Princesse Lointaine. His missive concluded with a listing of recent Resurrezione performances (Marseilles, Nice, Rouen, Chicago, Genoa, and Paris) in an effort to emphasize his importance. The collaboration—a successful alternative to Casa Ricordi—would endure for a number of years. At the end of October, the pressures and expectations of the preceding months culminated in an ocular infarct suffered in his right eye. Ever the self-effacing gentleman, it now became a “petit accident.”40 Clausetti and Valcarenghi were alerted to his state on 1 November in a letter sporting calligraphy astonishingly remote from his customarily distinctive style. This dra-

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matic happening would necessitate three months of complete darkness and an additional one of partial penumbra if he wished to retain his eyesight. In December, he then managed to send Casa Ricordi some nineteen pages of Turandot’s completion, although he was unable to state precisely when work could be resumed. It was the worst scenario the firm could have imagined.

NOTES 1. Raymond Roussel, “Completion of Turandot: An Interview with Franco Alfano,” The Musical Leader, Chicago, 22 October 1925. In his biography of Puccini, Julian Budden erroneously attributes Puccini’s mentioning the “third act” as “an obvious slip of the pen.” However, he is correct in assuming that “Puccini’s change of heart must be sought elsewhere,” regardless if the suggestion failed to arise from a “meeting with the librettists in early December.” Budden, Puccini, 431–32. 2. Puccini to Renato Simoni, 13 September 1921, quoted in Mosco Carner, Puccini: A Critical Biography (Surrey, UK: Duckworth, 1958), 228. 3. Roussel, “Completion of Turandot,” 356. 4. The opera was performed in Alfred Brüggemann’s German translation. 5. Alfano to Rossato, 22 May 1930, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 823. 6. Roussel, “Completion of Turandot,” 356 7. Unidentified newspaper clipping, “La Soirée a Anvers. A l’Opéra Flamand. Création de La Légende de Sakuntala de Franco Alfano.” 8. Alfano to Rossato, 8 February 1925, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 780. 9. Alfano to Vivarelli, 4 April 1925 (AASR). 10. Alfano to Rossato, 2 July 1925, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 781. 11. Alfano to unidentified recipient, undated, Rino Maione, ed., Franco Alfano: Presagio di tempi nuovi con finale controcorrente (Milan: Rugginenti, 1999), 436. 12. Roussel, “Completion of Turandot.” 13. Alfano to unidentified recipient, Maione, Franco Alfano, 436. The impression made by this hearing again confirms the supposition of Alfano working under the influence of its vocal writing when composing L’ombra di Don Giovanni. 14. Roussel, “Completion of Turandot.” 15. Alfano to Casa Ricordi (Clausetti and Valcarenghi), 5 July 1925, quoted in Jürgen Maehder, “Studien zum Fragmentcharakter von Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot,” Analecta Musicologica 22 (1984): 328–29. 16. Alfano to Mario Vivarelli, 6 August 1925 (AASR). 17. Alfano to Mario Vivarelli, 6 August 1925 (AASR). 18. Alfano to Mario Vivarelli, 6 August 1925 (AASR). 19. Alfano to Mario Vivarelli, 6 August 1925 (AASR). 20. Alfano to Mario Vivarelli, 6 August 1925 (AASR). 21. Alfano to Mario Vivarelli, 6 August 1925 (AASR).

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22. Alfano to Valcarenghi (CR) quoted in Maione, Franco Alfano, 432. 23. Gianandrea Gavazzeni, “Turandot, organismo senza pace” in La bacchetta spezzata (Pisa: Nistri Lischi, 1987). 24. Peter Conrad, A Song of Love and Death (New York: Poseidon Press, 1987), 201. 25. Mosco Carner, Puccini, 487. 26. Alfano to Casa Ricordi, 11 August 1925 (CR). 27. Alfano to Casa Ricordi, 11 August 1925 (CR). 28. Maehder, “Studien,” 330. 29. Turandot remained the only Puccini opera from which his heirs still received royalties as late as 1995. Simonetta Puccini to the author, 1995. 30. Maione, Franco Alfano, 116–17. 31. Maione, Franco Alfano, 116. 32. Maehder, “Studien,” 331. 33. Roussel, “Completion of Turandot.” 34. Alfano to Hertzka, 26 September 1926 (V). 35. He was of course not the only composer benefiting from “Santa Elizabetta” when personally taking up correspondence with Coolidge that November. Their letters, interspersed by numerous private encounters, continued until 1931. 36. Not to be confused with the composer’s Tre poemi di Rabindranath Tagore published by Ricordi in 1919. 37. Alfano to Hertzka, 26 September 1926 (V). 38. Alfano to Hertzka, 26 September 1926 (V) 39. Alfano to Hertzka, 26 September 1926 (V). 40. Alfano to Hertzka, 23 October 1925 (V).

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•

Mary Garden—Vienna—Rostand (1926)

A lfano’s ocular ailment improved in January. It allowed him to write

Hertzka a half-typed, half-handwritten letter recounting his feverish work on Turandot’s “much anticipated” score slated to premiere March 1926.1 Fortunately, Mary Garden and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge were two substantially positive forces helping him endure this exceedingly difficult period in his life. The Scottish soprano was currently performing what evolved to become one of her signature roles—Katiusha in Resurrezione—in Paul Ferrier’s French adaptation opening at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre on 31 December 1925. Critics praised the work, with the New York Times reporting it to be “good theatre,” incorporating “some highly effective music. . . . Katiusha is as good a part as Miss Garden has had in years. She is on the stage through most of the opera and it gives full play to many diverse moods from jocund youth to the semi-hysterical fervor with which she projects an emotional outburst.”2 Edward C. Moore, labeling the opera “the greatest lyric drama of its kind, perhaps the only good one of its kind,” left other positive impressions: “It has been slowly growing in popularity. Probably only Miss Garden’s insistence has kept it alive at all. Never was an artist on the operatic stage able to project wistfulness as she does it. A great performance all the way. . . .”3 Garden’s carefully prepared promotional tactics aimed to generate public interest included press releases that her costumes were designed by Russian exiles (Rasputin’s slayer Prince Youssoupoff ) in Paris, with boots borrowed from a general. “She certainly knew how to manipulate the press and they loved the stories she fed them. Quite often, it was a way of getting people to come to see her in the opera house. She seems, however, to have been a very

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private person under it all.”4 Garden later heralded the role’s brilliance in addition to its dramatic possibilities: One of my favorite creations in Chicago was Katiusha . . . one of the most satisfying experiences of my whole career. . . . Oh, how I adored that opera! . . . Each act was different, each about a different woman, really, yet about the different woman that is potentially in all women, and to each act I gave a different voice.5

It helped remind Alfano of his own importance as a composer, regardless if his works languished to give Turandot preference. Mid-January found him in Turin faced with additional problems. Casa Ricordi now demanded he revise (and reduce) the Turandot completion following Toscanini’s misgivings regarding his initial effort. The conductor felt Puccini’s original sketches insufficiently employed, with Alfano’s contribution too long-winded, thereby inadvertently emanating an overabundance of his own style. This resulted in the firm’s decision to delete a significant portion of a job already completed (and orchestrated). He wrote Valcarenghi requesting an additional six to seven thousand lire, conveying frankly the “moral and physical”6 anguish resulting from the project, leaving his own works stranded since July. Responding that he craved to work in a more congenial atmosphere, the infinitely patient composer hoped the second completion would prove “worthy to crown Puccini’s greatest work. . . .”7 Casa Ricordi had sparse empathy either for the composer’s physical ills or for his financial demands. Valcarenghi’s sharp, scathing, and aggressive reply succeeded in further antagonizing Alfano’s relations to the firm. Their adamant refusal of financial bonuses derived from the composer’s contract, which stipulated the necessity of incorporating as much of Puccini’s original material as possible. This, according to Ricordi, Alfano had failed to do. Instead, he chose to create original music (following the Turandot/Calaf kiss) in an effort to render the work more dramatically viable. However, this passage only vaguely assimilated Puccini’s style if not wholly that of La leggenda di Sakùntala. Thus, Toscanini was certainly justified when demanding a revision. In his defense, Alfano’s treatment was not his fault entirely, given the inexcusable fact of his being unable to examine Puccini’s holograph orchestral score until very late. Thus, the initial “brass orgy” of sound greeting the all-important kiss was, rather brutally, and in adherence to Casa Ricordi and Toscanini’s wishes, simply discarded.8 This produced a much slender, less violating, and more congenial version that, in its final form, reduced the revision from 377 to 268 bars. Valcarenghi then argued vigorously that the firm was certainly not to blame if Alfano orchestrated the first version without seeking the approval of

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Toscanini or Casa Ricordi beforehand. Particularly detestable, however, was Valcarenghi’s disdainful attack on Alfano’s vulnerable situation, in which he referred to his visual impairment, stating, with unabashed spite, that it damaged not only the composer but—in view of the score’s delay—the publishers as well. Valcarenghi nevertheless estimated that Alfano would earn the hardly negligible sum total of fifty thousand lire for his involvement. His letter concludes with one of the (still unforeseeable) ironies of music history, a reminder that the completion ensured Alfano’s name would be “forever tied to that of Puccini.”9 Casa Ricordi sent off yet another communiqué the very same day reminding Alfano to provide the piano/vocal score and choral parts by February, in addition to the completed partitura no later than 1 March. The composer, even at this late stage, still awaited Adami’s additional text for the final duet. Meanwhile, the firm informed Toscanini (in New York) that Alfano had finished the second version, which, hopefully, would conform to his demands. The composer then signed his name to the completed work on 28 January before personally bringing the manuscript to Milan. The only wish now remaining was to free himself from “the terrible nightmare” of Turandot.10 Bitter resentment was discernable in his stating that “notwithstanding the friendship that ties me to Puccini, and all the interest that his last work has inspired in me,” there are “things one only does once in one’s life . . . including, perhaps, marriage!!”11 The relief of liberating himself from Turandot also proved evident in a letter addressed Rossato the day of the score’s completion. Here he again refers to his lingering eye ailment, even if no longer fearing the possibility of an enduring impairment. There nevertheless remained a dominant “spot” in his field of vision.12 Physicians recommended a “calm life,”13 lending credence to the assumption that hypertension triggered the attack. Photos from that time forward depict him wearing spectacles. Round in form, they added a curious “oriental” touch to his appearance. According to Mary Garden’s Story, the composer located an optometrist in Nice for further advice following his “frightful state of tension.”14 Composer and muse met frequently, as a series of photographs taken in 1926 attest. Afternoons spent at her luxurious villa at Beaulieu-sur-mer near Monte Carlo surrounded by a park affording spectacular views of the Riviera came as an inordinately welcome antidote to his somewhat shaken optimism. Here, swathed in flowing chiffon, extravagant jewelry, and her customary hat ensuring aristocratic pallor, Garden consoled the much-taken composer. Her influence, coupled with her preference for the role of Katiusha, signified that she grasped every opportunity to have Resurrezione produced as a vehicle for her talent. Even if the diva’s claim that she single-handedly brought the opera “to the attention of the world”15 may seem slightly overemphatic, the

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fact that she was responsible for its tremendous success in North America can hardly be denied. How this essentially placid man managed to befriend such a tremendously forceful personality (“a volcano on stage and an iceberg off it”) is difficult to say.16 Although preferring to “retire to the top of a mountain” to devote time and the “necessary serenity”17 to art, Alfano soon scheduled a meeting with Rossato. He desperately wished to concentrate on his own music as opposed to “imitations” of “other styles.”18 From Milan, where he delivered Turandot’s second version, he journeyed on to Vienna (on 2 February 1926) to meet Hertzka. Prior to taking up residence at the Bristol Hotel, he sent the publisher a cable from Villach confirming a meeting at the firm’s headquarters (Karlsplatz 6). Hertzka and his wife, eager to negotiate Alfano’s swift entrance into Universal Edition, greeted him cordially. Turin followed, where he resumed his much-neglected duties at the Liceo before lunching with Gian Francesco Malipiero (perhaps initially responsible for suggesting Universal Edition). Resurrezione began reemerging in Italy, with the composer present in San Remo for a run featuring Ersilia CerviCaroli. A second production opened that March at the Théâtre du Casinó in Nice. In April, Alfano hoped to receive the rights to set Princesse Lointaine to music, although he still refrained from disclosing its title to Hertzka. His hinting at an “irresistible” subject remained the sole information he was willing to concede.19 At just this time, Turandot was set to premiere at La Scala. Casa Ricordi demanded that Alfano partake in some of the final rehearsals, to which he wearily agreed. This led to a gruesome reopening of former wounds, heightened by Toscanini’s enduring discontent. Rosa Raisa, Toscanini’s choice for Boito’s posthumous Nerone, was to portray the role of protagonist. Miguel Fleta (credited as Michele) created Calaf to Maria Zamboni’s Liù. Placards placed alongside La Scala’s façade announcing the greatly anticipated event on 25 April presented Toscanini’s name considerably larger than that of Puccini. Furthermore, it was announced the previous year that the opera would be “given unfinished, just as Puccini left it, as a mark of respect to the late composer, and that after this commemorative performance, the work will be given in its completed form.”20 That Thursday’s performance commenced at 9 p.m. and concluded—as has been chronicled—with Liù’s funeral cortège. The maestro then told the audience that, at this point, Puccini’s death intervened.21 With that, he left the orchestra pit, and an understandably emotional public broke the silence with a cry of “Viva Puccini!”22 Alfano’s completion was hardly negligible given the unfavorable conditions, and it is unlikely that his efforts will be facilely supplanted in future. Interest in the first version led to a London revival in 1982. The event, touted

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to be the world premiere of the original completion (notwithstanding that this had probably already taken place in Dresden in 1926), was, if not durably so, successful. The second version customarily performed today arguably presents a more seamless unification of Puccini’s intentions and style, and “[t]here is something to be said for proceeding swiftly to the final scene. . . .”23 However, one can perhaps empathize with Mascagni. In a letter shortly following Puccini’s death to his daughter, Emy, he declared that the opera “should be performed as one finds it, even if incomplete: one must not repeat the indecency committed to Nerone . . . it would be an even greater profanation to Puccini. . . .”24 It is also worth quoting Budden paraphrasing Carner that Turandot “represents, even in its unfinished state, the sum of its composer’s creation.”25 Alfano’s revised completion premiered at the second performance. Three days later, he made the courageous decision to stress publicly the facts of his involvement and the initial version’s reworking due to Toscanini’s explicit wish. He also grasped the opportunity to clarify that he originally “imagined and “realized” the conclusion differently.26 The letter’s impact at Casa Ricordi doubtlessly recalled the composer’s earlier ill-advised interview. Not even remotely vengeful, he nevertheless resolved not to forgive Toscanini for his undiplomatic and inelegant handling of the situation. The conductor would remain a lifelong source of irritation. Fortunately, the composer saw an opportunity to forget when embarking on a two-week sojourn to Britain (beginning 25 May) to perform his Sonata for Piano and Cello. Marthe, it seems, rarely accompanied her husband anywhere. If one is to lend credence to the hugely unreliable Mary Garden’s Story, which the singer’s biographer, Michael Turnbull, terms “a farrago of nonsense,”27 Marthe “was a very religious girl, and she never once saw her husband’s opera [Resurrezione]—or set foot off her little property.”28 While a reluctance to travel might explain partially—if not substantially—Marthe’s absence, she did occasionally visit her family in France as well as remain for extended periods (at her husband’s side) in Turin. The first concert, with Alfano at the keyboard accompanying Hans Kindler, took place at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre on 28 May. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge attended this hearing of her commissioned opus, with the composer finally parting from the original manuscript after inscribing it to the benefactress on 22 May. London was the location of a second concert (consisting of the same program) at an unspecified location. Published by Universal Edition, the work signaled Alfano’s first official collaboration with the firm.29 The composer bade Britain farewell before boarding a ship bound for Calais subjected to intense storms. He wrote Hertzka from Paris on 3 June that the British concerts had “enjoyed enormous success,” partially owing

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to Kindler’s “magnificent interpretation.”30 Mention had been made of additional performances in the French capital, although it seems rather doubtful that they in fact materialized. Alfano’s overriding interest in a Parisian sojourn was to entice Edmond Rostand’s widow, Rosemunde, into conceding him the rights to Princesse Lointaine. Arranged by Henri Cain (the venture’s librettist designate), this meeting resulted in an exceptionally high price combined with 50 percent of royalties. Alfano was nevertheless determined to convince Universal Edition of the project’s viability, immediately writing Hertzka the following letter upon reaching Turin: For some time I have been dreaming of an operatic adaptation of La Princesse Lointaine—Edmond Rostand’s only really lyric piece; a marvelous play and famous throughout the entire world . . . which, doubtless, would be welcomed by the directors of all opera houses. . . . I was able to meet Madame Rostand in Paris and to have a most interesting chat with her and, eventually, the promise that Princesse Lointaine would be mine if my publisher and I provide satisfactory conditions. It will necessitate, as I mentioned in my letter from Paris, making a small sacrifice: you on your part, I on mine. . . . I will earn nothing at all prior to the work’s performance. However, I have such confidence in the success of the splendid Princesse that I have, regardless of the modest conditions, decided to set it to music. . . . Reflect, my dear Monsieur Hertzka, on the palpable advantages you will have upon accepting my proposal, and respond as quickly as possible since I must . . . inform Madame Rostand of your decision. . . . I think twenty-five to thirty thousand French francs would constitute a sufficiently tempting offer.31

Deeming the matter financially unfeasible, Hertzka refrained from demonstrating much interest in Alfano’s impassioned request. This prompted another plea from Bordighera’s Villa delle Onde, where the composer remained on holiday until October, trying to combine relaxation with the composition of Madonna Imperia: I understand perfectly the conditions you require for acceptance. . . . [However], the work in question has always been refused to all composers who requested it . . . up until now the heirs have only acceded, to some of the privileged, the rights for the adaptation of two or three plays.32

Alfano, with Madame Rostand’s interest waning during the months spent trying to convince Hertzka, would not be one of the “privileged.” Consolation for what now appeared to be the very real loss of this ambitious project was wrought in Madonna Imperia, a work Alfano felt audiences would “love very

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much” on account of its stage worthiness.33 In addition, Mary Garden again ensured performances of Resurrezione in North America when the Chicago Opera included the work as part of a tour, with Antwerp, Liège, Ghent, Nice, Marseilles, Nîmes, Montpellier, Clermont-Ferrand, and Besançon following suit. Garden also enabled a run at the Opéra-Comique after agreeing to sing a complete run of Pelléas et Mélisande gratis in return. For Alfano, this scheduling implied a “favorable groundwork for [Madonna] Imperia.”34 The opera, with its nostalgic return to melody, signified a dramatically retrogressive approach. However, with his art strongly embedded in orchestral music and the symphonic elements in his operas, he now felt his youthful works—particularly Resurrezione—inferior. Edward C. Moore claims that the composer, the previous summer, had informed him that “to some extent he regretted the choice of Resurrection. He said that while he would always maintain a profound affection for it as an earlier work, he felt that he had learned something about the art of composition since and that he would like to see some of his later music accepted for performance.”35 Meanwhile, Hertzka’s hesitation regarding Princesse Lointaine inspired Alfano to yet another letter aimed at saving the venture: With regard to Madame Rostand . . . she is evidently upset due to my silence, and, shall we say, to a “positive” conclusion of our Parisian negotiations, which she no doubt sensed to be a “transaction” failing to conform to her wishes . . . or pretensions. Madame Rostand has now written Henri Cain (the librettist) that she promised Princesse Lointaine to Honnegger [sic] and that she plans to keep her word. She forgot, at the blink of an eye, that she had promised me the same in the presence of Mr Cain! . . . Henri Cain is simply furious. We met frequently during his stay in Nice, from where he left only a few days ago, and where we brought to the “book” all the ameliorations—in the guise of propositions, of course—necessary to set to music a play that was born for prose; which means: editing, tying together etc. . . . The text had acquired the suppleness of an authentic libretto. . . . In addition, he [Cain] refuses to renounce it. Mr Cain has undertaken all the necessary steps possible in order to succeed in having Mme Rostand relinquish this latest bloody project; especially because Honnegger [sic]—yes—had once considered Princesse . . . only to reject it, not finding it sufficiently violent for his juvenile . . . brutality, choosing Cyrano, and being quite content to cede it to the composer of [La leggenda di] Sakùntala. During my last sojourn in Paris, Mme Rostand and I dined with Mr Cain, and he questioned her particularly regarding this spontaneous renouncement. I am now, following what Mr. Cain has written, awaiting the results of these steps. But I think that if you, from your side, would have already written Mme Rostand, it may be possible that she see light at the end of the

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This signaled the end of Princesse Lointaine. Years passed before the Rostand heirs were again approached—and then on account of Cyrano de Bergerac. Arthur Honegger eventually settled for Rostand’s L’Aiglon instead. With the loss, Alfano was now able to dedicate himself fully to the sorely neglected score of Madonna Imperia. In fact, none of his previous operas—save Resurrezione—had provided such a frenzy of inspiration. By 21 August, he was already at work on the scene between Ragusa and Filippo; more than half the score had already reached completion. He also took special pains to ensure that Rossato’s text remained audible. At times, he nevertheless supplemented his own text, or extracted passages from Rossato’s once-planned dramatization. He thus strove to create a “conversational piece” interspersed with the obligatory aria. Letters concerning Imperia’s genesis explicitly demonstrate not only the composer’s affection for the subject, but his interest in the opera’s lightheartedness as well. Furthermore, he decided to depict the banquet onstage. The only setback was dealing with Rossato’s dawdling; especially regarding the final Imperia/Filippo duet—the entire crux of the piece. “Complete hospitality,”37 including room and board (fish and wine), also failed miserably to accelerate either the librettist’s pace or eel-like evasiveness. Loathing any form of procrastination, the composer reminded Rossato that he hoped to complete the work before taking up his responsibilities at the Liceo. He now considered the opera a “small masterpiece”38 demanding an “irresistible” final scene.39 The concept of providing Imperia with a solo was, for fear of upsetting the work’s balance, now discarded. He opted, rather, to convey Imperia’s emotional state by employing a series of chords depicting the heroine’s amorous palpitations. These he planned to repeat at the duet’s conclusion. He also continued supplying his own textual additions, imitating his librettist’s style when little or nothing resulted from Rossato. The idea stemmed from the librettist. Incapable of comprehending Rossato’s disinterest, Alfano even suggested collaborating on a work inspired by Molière.40 One day later, the composer reported Madonna Imperia’s completion to Hertzka, although the orchestration still lay ahead: It is a “comédie musicale,” amusing, a bit light, agreeable and pleasant to see and hear. It appears to have turned out well. It is a graceful interlude between works of more importance. . . . you will be content, since there are two or three “numbers” that can be performed separately, including a “rustic love song” for the tenor that seems to me destined to become a veritable and durable success. It is wholly “bel canto” . . . without anyone able to claim that it noticeably differentiates itself from the rest. Thus, whoever

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says theatre means sizeable audience, and a vast public has its expectations (usually justified since they are always right!). . . . I have thought of you in that I have wanted to enable an authentic “success.” I know that a work in one act is not as easy to place as one in three . . . but there are exceptions to the rule. I have done my utmost to imbue this small work (lasting an hour and a bit more) with these elements. Audience response will of course decide . . . Your silence regarding Princesse Lointaine is quite expressive!!! I am therefore quite curious about the new subject for an opera of which you spoke in your last letter. When shall we see each other again? I know they will soon be performing Turandot in Vienna, and I would have come out of sheer curiosity, but my experiences with Toscanini and [Casa] Ricordi at La Scala (adventures that I will one day tell you, in order to demonstrate the role that this admirable conductor but simply malicious and raging megalomaniac and veritable traitor plays in our country!!) have taken away all desire. On the other hand, the Viennese “premiere” coincides with the reopening of my conservatory, thus making it impossible. . . . In spite of this, it may be beneficial if I resume contact with Mr Schalk41 enquiring whether he will be performing [La leggenda di] Sakùntala this winter or not. The matter is this: In order to have priority over a German city with regard to Turandot, Vienna’s management must play an additional contemporary piece belonging to Ricordi. With enormous courtesy, Mr Schalk . . . chose [La leggenda di] Sakùntala, which, he told me (in Milan, where we met because of Turandot), he wished to produce next January. However, Dresden . . . snatched Turandot from Vienna. Ricordi, for reasons unknown to me, preferred Dresden to Vienna. . . . Therefore, I believe and fear . . . it is no longer necessary for Schalk to perform another contemporary work. . . . I thereby lose the opportunity of having my most significant work heard in Vienna.42

He could nevertheless console himself when Madonna Imperia reached the theatre in 1928. Alfano then traveled to Rome for what appears to have been his first meeting with Mussolini. Held 23 October at the Palazzo Chigi, the encounter boasted a number of noteworthy composers (including Respighi and Ildebrando Pizzetti) who presented the idea of five concerts to “showcase the finest of Italian contemporary music.”43 Mussolini consented on condition that they took place in Rome. In the end, however, it was to be Bologna. Alfano justifiably felt that his operas earned insufficient attention in Italian theatres, with La leggenda di Sakùntala generally absent from most rosters. Revivals since the Bolognese premiere confined themselves exclusively to Naples (1923) and Milan (1924). Failing to establish the work in Italy, Alfano looked to Düsseldorf, Antwerp, and Buenos Aires instead. Concert halls merely opted

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for a presentation of the “Danza e Finale,” a composite of the opening dance of act 4 and the opera’s conclusion. With his poor standing at Casa Ricordi, Alfano must have felt sorely excluded by the majority of Italy’s artistic directors. These factors constituted the reasoning behind the ill-advised Bolognese concert. The composer then journeyed via Naples to Turin, taking up his duties at a Liceo still numbering only 143 students. Battling Rossato continued to demand a fair share of his time, especially when additional verses received for Madonna Imperia’s final duet proved inadequate. When asked to contribute a concise summary of his future plans for inclusion in Matteo Incagliati’s Strenna Musicale in 1927, Alfano not only erroneously announced that Madonna Imperia’s first performance in Germany would take place in Dresden (visions of Turandot?), but that the opera had been commissioned by Universal Edition. The article also made mention of an adaptation (by Romualdo Pantini) of the Suite romantica evolving into a ballet entitled Eliana. Other than the obligatory “Danza e Finale,” no mention was made of La leggenda di Sakùntala, regardless if he did express interest in another (short-lived) project entitled Alcassino e Nicoletta. The fact that Mary Garden concurrently recorded Katiusha’s “Dio Pietoso” (in French) for Victor Red Seal may have been a very slight consolation, however.

NOTES 1. Alfano to Hertzka, 2 January 1926 (V). 2. New York Times, 1 January 1926. 3. Michael Turnbull, Mary Garden (Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1997), 162. 4. Turnbull to the author, 20 January 2008. 5. Mary Garden and Louis Biancolli, Mary Garden’s Story (London: Michael Joseph, 1952), 221–22. 6. Alfano to Valcarenghi, 15 January 1926, Maehder, “Studien,” 332. 7. Alfano to Valcarenghi, 15 January 1926, Maehder, “Studien,” 333. 8. Maehder, “Studien,” 323. 9. Valcarenghi to Alfano, 18 January 1926, Maehder, “Studien,” 334. 10. Alfano to Hertzka, 23 January 1926 (V). 11. Alfano to Hertzka, 23 January 1926 (V). 12. Alfano to Rossato, 28 January 1926, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 782. 13. Alfano to Vivarelli, 31 January 1926, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 845-46. 14. Mary Garden’s Story, 225. 15. Mary Garden’s Story, 224. 16. Turnbull to the author, 20 January 2008. 17. Alfano to Vivarelli, 31 January 1926, (AASR).

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18. Alfano to Rossato, 28 January 1926, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 782. 19. Alfano to Hertzka, 12 April 1926 (V). 20. Roussel, “Completion of Turandot.” Though speculated in the press, most of the cast, as well as Alfano, were informed shortly before the premiere. 21. Innumerous variations of what Toscanini actually said led Carner to state simply “or words to that effect.” Carner, Puccini, 240. 22. Budden, Puccini, 445. 23. Budden, Puccini, 471. 24. Mario Morini, ed., Pietro Mascagni: epistolario (Lucca, Italy: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1996), 2:120. 25. Budden, Puccini, 478. 26. Maione, Franco Alfano, 131. 27. Turnbull to the author, 20 January 2008. 28. Mary Garden’s Story, 224. 29. Alfano had only recently corrected the sonata’s proofs, requesting Hertzka to forward copies to Kindler and Mrs. Coolidge somewhat later. 30. Alfano to Hertzka, 3 June 1926 (V). 31. Alfano to Hertzka, 15 June 1926 (V). 32. Alfano to Hertzka, 9 July 1926 (V). 33. Alfano to Hertzka, 9 July 1926 (V). 34. Alfano to Hertzka, 9 July 1926 (V). 35. Edward C. Moore, Forty Years of Opera in Chicago (New York: Arno Press, 1977), 304. 36. Alfano to Hertzka, 15 August 1926 (V). 37. Alfano to Hertzka, 15 August 1926 (V). 38. Alfano to Rossato, 14 September 1926, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 785. 39. Alfano to Rossato, 29 August 1926, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 785. 40. This was most likely Le Precieuse Ridicules later set by Felice Lattuada in 1929. 41. Conductor and director of the Vienna Opera. 42. Alfano to Hertzka, 10 October 1926 (V). 43. Franco Sciannameo, “Aspects of Alfano: Turandot, Mussolini, and the Second String Quartet,” Musical Times 143, no. 1881, Winter 2002.

8 Mussolini and Balzac (1927)

A lfano’s year began in Antwerp with Resurrezione. All efforts were then

concentrated on Madonna Imperia’s premiere slated for May in Turin, regardless if the orchestral score was “only half ready.”1 He once again blamed the Liceo for robbing precious time necessary to complete the partitura and, with this in mind, entrusted the conductor Ferruccio Calusio with the task of preparing a piano/vocal score reduction. Contrary to Puccini, Alfano’s calligraphy and notation were extremely legible. He preferred pencil to pen in order to make corrections and revisions more easily. Many of his scores, however, sported a mixture of both; therefore, he recommended Hertzka employ a special fixative liquid to avoid smudging. Meanwhile, Universal Edition began publishing copies of Madonna Imperia’s Italian-language libretto in addition to a German translation by Walther Klein. These were indeed last-minute decisions, prompting Universal Edition to “halt all other work in an effort to produce the piano/vocal score in time.”2 The publishers now also suddenly (and quite unexpectedly) hoped Alfano would accept reduced royalties. The composer, however, responded tersely that his conditions were already “modest,” and that he had grown weary “of being exploited.”3 That prematurely terminated any further deliberations. On 16 February, Alfano tried convincing Hertzka to hear Madonna Imperia at the piano, explaining that “an author knows his work better than anyone.”4 This was done with an eye to introducing the opera to an array of conductors, including the director of the Vienna Opera, Franz Schalk. Universal Edition finally received the manuscript’s third and final part on 21 February. Meanwhile, Alfano still strove to assemble the libretto’s final version, chiding Rossato for his indecipherable handwriting.5 To his astonishment, he noticed

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that some of Rossato’s copious last-minute changes were hardly congenial to the psychological motivations of his dramatis personae. He therefore chose to employ earlier versions when striving to delineate optimally the opera’s final scene between Imperia and Filippo. Hertzka proposed Alfano meet him at the Hotel Britannica in Monte Carlo. Schalk, it appears, was already in nearby Menton. That left the composer to fret over the difficulties of securing a visa, as well as being “in voice” for an occasion necessitating his singing all roles at the keyboard.6 At just this time, Gino Marinuzzi informed Casa Ricordi’s Carlo Clausetti that, after reading through Turandot’s orchestral score, he felt the heavily shorn second version inferior to the first. In 1926, the conductor, with Valcarenghi’s approval, had edited portions of the initial version (following Turandot’s kiss) when performing the work in Buenos Aires. He now expressed his views concerning the entire completion: “I cannot, as a conscientious artist, fully accept all these pages to which everyone has felt the right to voice his opinion, and to which they have carried out modifications believing it will improve the work’s fortune. I am not speaking for Alfano who is completely disinterested in the matter (also because I believe he had enough to do—and re-do even worse!). I am speaking in the interest of a work I admire and respect. . . .”7 Not everyone was in accordance with Toscanini’s shearing, though Marinuzzi was one of few illustrating courage when broaching the delicate subject. On 8 March, Clausetti cautioned him to refrain from undertaking anything that might tarnish performances of a second version that audiences had “painlessly accepted.”8 This was another noteworthy example of Ricordi’s ruthless ways when dealing with opinions not necessarily their own. March found Alfano in Turin, where he informed Universal Edition precisely how Madonna Imperia’s title page should look. It not only failed, following publication, to include Balzac’s name, but Rossato’s Christian name appeared misspelled as “Aturo.” Its subtitle of “commedia musicale” now gave way to “commedia lirica.”9 Universal Edition was growing understandably irritated when, by 9 March, they still had failed to receive not only the completed orchestral score but Alfano’s corrections as well. The situation intensified when Calusio, after succumbing to influenza, was unable to proceed with his work. This left a weary composer trying to reassure himself that it was not “the end of the world.”10 The world premiere of Alfano’s Second String Quartet took place on 29 March at the Società Amici Musica in Naples. The composer cabled Hertzka the same evening pledging to send reviews recounting the work’s “enthusiastic success.”11 “Perhaps more interesting,” the composer confided to the

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publisher from Turin before broaching the subject of Madonna Imperia’s New York premiere, is that H[is] E[xcellency] Mussolini, on the eve of the premiere, welcomed us—the four artists and myself—to Rome . . . where he listened to the first performance of my Quartet after inviting all the city’s major critics. He was very content with the impression made and, from this point on, the work is dedicated to him. . . . However, let us once again speak of Madonna Imperia. . . . I just received, from New York, a very pleasant letter from the conductor M[aestro] Tullio Serafin. . . . He confirms therein that the Metropolitan Opera management (Mr Gatti-Casazza) is in favor of performing my opera . . . on condition that there not be any additional performances following Turin before New York; which is presently slated . . . for mid-February 1928. That is not all. I was warned by them, that a critic of a certain Milanese newspaper (the Corriere della sera) would have a negative influence on New York opinion. The man who authors the reviews for the Corriere is a damned Toscanini disciple and consequently my enemy. He will certainly write against me—perhaps the only one amongst the critics. My friends, Serafin and Gatti-Casazza, are aware of the matter. . . . In other words, they advised me to reflect on the Turin premiere, making me understand that it would be infinitely better to renounce Turin in order to reserve the premiere for New York. That would obviously be better publicity for the entire world. . . . If we do not perform Madonna Imperia here the management will demand damages . . . what should we do? Compromise New York for Mr [Gaetano] Cesari’s assuredly bad critic in the Corriere . . . or pay the damages and reserve the premiere for New York? . . . On the other hand, if Gatti-Casazza decides to produce my work it is because he knows how to do it perfectly in a country that, following Résurrection and Turandot . . . knows and appreciates me very much.12

Alfano’s apprehension was fortunately ill founded. Unexpectedly naïve, however, was Hertzka’s interest concerning the Duce: “News that you were invited with members of the Quartet to perform for Mussolini and that the Duce accepted the dedication extremely interests me, as it affords us an important opportunity for publicity.”13 Publicity, it seems, also constituted Alfano’s overriding interest in a dedication similarly garnering kudos from his Jewish publisher. Hertzka was in accordance that, following Turin, no other theatre should perform the work prior to the Metropolitan premiere. He then sought to assuage Alfano’s anxiety, unable to imagine that “a sole unfavorable critique by Mr Cesari could suffice to hinder Mr Gatti-Casazza and Mr Seraphin [sic] from acquiring Madonna Imperia.”14 He also stressed the “disagreeable con-

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sequences” of a Turin cancellation.15 The only factor justifying such an act, Hertzka reasoned, was if Alfano felt the production failed to maintain his customary standard. The composer now requested that Serafin contact Universal Edition “immediately.”16 Meanwhile, preparations for the Turin premiere were well underway, with Alfano somewhat relieved that the role of Filippo was cast with a sufficiently pleasant voice, even if Antonio Bagnatiol was “inexorably stupid . . . stupid like a tenor.”17 Bologna followed, with Alfano residing at the home of his close friend, Mario Vivarelli. On 10 April, Marinuzzi conducted the “Danza e Finale” from La leggenda di Sakùntala at the Teatro Comunale, combined with a selection of his own works and those of Victor De Sabata, Alfredo Casella, and Mario Labroca. As expected, Gaetano Cesari had little good to say about Italy’s new musical style when reviewing the concert (one of five) in the Corriere della sera. Fortunately, these tribulations were momentarily placed aside when Alfano and Marthe spent Easter with the composer’s mother in Naples. With his career burgeoning, the time seemed appropriate to enter into civil matrimony on 16 April. The nuptial papers refer to her as “Serafina Bruzau,” regardless if the correct spelling was “Brosseau” and that no one called her by her official Christian name.18 Intensely private, the composer refrained from mentioning the event in any surviving correspondence. In the intervening time, the Metropolitan Opera began bargaining for a better offer upon receiving Madonna Imperia’s score. Similar to Giulio Ricordi, Hertzka combined a razor-sharp business sense with an affable and dignified approach that somehow enabled him to retain the asking price of one hundred fifty dollars per performance (in a total of six), supplemented by an additional thousand dollars for production rights. Jubilant, he exclaimed it to be “the first time the Metropolitan issued a contract for a work that had not yet been performed. He credited this to Alfano’s “great popularity in America. . . .”19 Puccini’s Trittico of course refuted the claim, while Madonna Imperia’s good fortune was largely due to Giulio Gatti-Casazza’s esteem for his native colleague. The fact that Hertzka considered the contract to be “a good omen for the future” would also be short lived.20 Alfano celebrated by purchasing a Steinway in Hamburg. Held at the Teatro di Torino on 3 May, Madonna Imperia’s dress rehearsal was a “considerable success.”21 Two days later, the actual premiere finally took place alongside Rossini’s charming—and still relatively unappreciated—Il cambiale di matrimonio. Vittorio Gui conducted a cast that, apart from the riveting Florica Cristoforeanu as protagonist, was unremarkable. Labeled novelties, both works complemented a theatre that swerved between “avant-gardism and experimentalism” during its brief five-year (1925–1930) existence.22

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Alfano and Gatti (the theatre’s director) sent Hertzka news of the triumphant premiere. Cesari’s review complemented this. In fact, it appeared “much less hostile” than originally anticipated.23 He even managed some words of “praise,” leaving the composer certain of the work’s perfection. Basking in the success of this “veritable victory,” Alfano, at the apex of his career, now somewhat coyly reminded Hertzka of “M[aestro] Serafin’s apprehension regarding the Corriere [della sera]’s review for New York!”24 Andrea Della Corte’s critique of La stampa was of course laudatory. Alfano now defined him as “one of Italy’s most esteemed musicologists.”25 His “personal impression” was that the work would “succeed—must succeed! It contains all the [necessary] elements: subject, development, a setting that can be sumptuous (or simple) if one wishes, a tenor aria, arioso for the soprano (“Chissà perché . . .”), and a final duet able to conquer. . . .”26 Inspired by Puccini’s Trittico, Alfano sought to create another work alongside Madonna Imperia. He instantly thought of his ballet Eliana. To this he could join another short piece and, as he mentioned to Hertzka, he had already located a “magnificent comic/sentimental subject” approaching “operetta!!”27 Operetta was precisely how Marinuzzi categorized Madonna Imperia. Present at the second performance, the conductor had difficulty understanding how Della Corte could even consider such a “disjointed” work a “masterpiece.”28 He reasoned that the score was generous to a fault when conjuring up reminiscences of Turandot, while declaring Filippo’s song to reek of vulgarity. Universal Edition perhaps already regretted this new Italian Lehár joining their ranks, notwithstanding the fact that Hertzka was gathering an abundance of complimentary reviews geared at additional “publicity.”29 A German edition was concurrently prepared for performances scheduled the following year. Madonna Imperia was Alfano’s answer to La rondine. It signified, as the latter work had for Puccini, a temporary break with Casa Ricordi, resulting in a momentary flirtation with another publisher. Radically modified was the opera in its attack against the Catholic Church (and its clergy) as opposed to Balzac’s caustic original. Although Rossato and Alfano strove to make the protagonist infinitely more likeable, docile, and sympathetic, she still fails to generate sympathy. Variances between Rossato and Balzac include Filippo’s excuse to the Bishop of Bordeaux that the reason for his visit to Imperia is to play a commissioned motet. He prefers, in the original, to notify the Archbishop of his meeting with the courtesan. Balzac’s banquet is not premeditated. It occurs spontaneously when the grossly overweight Bishop of Chur arrives with a sumptuous buffet explaining that he has come to take Imperia’s confession.

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Cardinal Ragusa (alias Balzac’s chancellor), willing to sell a portion of the cross to satisfy his aims, follows him. Thus, there remain three suitors in Balzac as opposed to Alfano’s four. Imperia’s resemblance to Turandot (her dominating persona and Filippo, her Calaf, battling three suitors—three riddles) is almost uncanny. Madonna Imperia’s selection occurred prior to taking up work on Turandot’s completion, even if Alfano, at an early stage, was fully aware of his older colleague’s exotic subject. The fact that Madonna Imperia was composed later, with music touching on Turandot’s riddle scene, further emphasizes the influence Puccini’s score had on the opera. Balzac even mentions her being sufficiently powerful (with “serpent’s eyes”) to condemn Philippe (Filippo) to death. Alfano’s finale celebrating Filippo and Imperia’s union is infinitely more sober in Balzac, when, in the following story, we discover Imperia’s departure for Rome after bearing Ragusa’s child. The Italian Imperia, on the other hand, sways from femme fatale to sensitive courtesan. Alfano remained steadfast when confronting his adversaries that Balzac was solely a point of departure for his own slightly subdued interpretation. The perfumed and powdered music of this “boudoir” mini-opera pays homage to Alfano’s French heritage. Its orchestration and fleeting chromatics gently acknowledge Debussy. Madonna Imperia is a sparkling score saturated in ebullience and reflective melancholy. It is sensuous, arresting, inspired, and, what is customary for this composer, supremely elegant. Post-impressionistic harmonies selected with the utmost care lend the score pointillist details one has come to expect. This eclectic opera is a distinct and intentional reaction against the modernism of his preceding stage works. If enjoyed as the light fare it is, Madonna Imperia can enchant audiences, provided the cast includes artists capable of making its extreme fragility and finely wrought atmosphere a success. Alfano was keenly aware of this important factor. The score allows ample space for unencumbered vocalism, although portions suffer from a driven quality not atypical of the era. Melos returns to greet Filippo’s “Vero! Ma pensando di Voi, dolce guadagno” (during his initial encounter with Imperia), recalling La leggenda di Sakùntala and foreshadowing Cyrano de Bergerac. His short, effect-seeking serenade (“Dama, se tanto siete pietosa e ornate”), composed to resemble music of the time, is curiously reminiscent of Katiusha’s “Dio pietoso.” Its tenderness looks longingly to France, while strengthening the hypothesis that Alfano would not have been at a loss writing film scores. Filippo is younger than Imperia and sexually innocent, factors that favor the somewhat effeminate lyricism in opposition to Imperia’s demanding and fiery vocalism. The opera’s raison d’être is of course its final duet (“Madonna! Madonna!”). It accounts for a large portion of the score and rests on a composite

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of previously heard motifs. A concise and introspective interlude precedes Imperia’s gentle “Ma nella stanza” that may have served as an impetus for Giovanni’s “Tu vedi in un bel ciel” later incorporated into Don Juan de Manara. Filippo’s extended “Dove son stato?” follows, resuming the strains of “Ma nella stanza” before rising to a climax (“e non voglio altro che questa divina libertà d’andare . . .”) seemingly culled from Turandot.30 It represents the tenor’s most dramatic passage, accounting for Alfano’s reasoning to suggest a cut if necessary. The duet’s conclusion (“Vieni . . .”) is a lilting fusion of the protagonists that is both sentimental and touching in its autumnal glow. Imperia’s “Dammi la man, resta qui . . . così!” is indeed hauntingly beautiful and irresistibly romantic, effectively closing this charming and restrainedly elegant work. Alfano was unable to remain in Turin for the complete run of Madonna Imperia when a production of Resurrezione at the Opéra-Comique beckoned. He thus, on 8 May, arrived in Paris to reside at the Ambassador Hotel on the Boulevard Haussmann, a fitting ambience for the successful composer he now was. The capital would allow him to rejoin Mary Garden (with gratitude) and to catch up with Tito Ricordi whose domicile it was. It also enabled the 54-year-old soprano to interpret a part, affording her the opportunity of being “so many women and so many voices in one opera.”31 The run was a stupendous success, notwithstanding the fact that some reviewers chose to remain hostile. Alfano blamed some of the dissension on the opera’s earning abilities that, he felt, roused both jealousy and a voiced dislike. He nevertheless admitted that the evening enhanced his renown with an audience sporting critics from “all the Anglo Saxon papers.”32 Slated were eleven performances and the possibility of an October reprisal. Roberto Moranzoni conducted a formidable cast, with René Maison’s Dimitri ably partnering Garden’s uniquely accomplished Katiusha. Alfano still had not generated sufficient courage to confront Garden with the prospect of Madonna Imperia in Chicago, preferring to wait for a more “propitious moment.”33 He remained in Paris to perform his Sonata for Piano and Cello at the Sorbonne. He also chanced to meet Schalk, grasping the chance to promote a Viennese premiere of Imperia, which, he suggested, would fare well as a double bill when performed with Bizet’s Djamileh. He reasoned that Italian impresarios might have been more interested in performing the work had Hertzka in fact attended the Turin premiere. A revision of the opera’s final duet was also mandatory. Rossato now suggested a future project in three acts set in the France of the Régence. Hertzka remained pleased at the prospect of a second collaboration, hoping to entice Alfano’s interest in Don Quixote. Turin followed via Milan. In a meeting with Serafin, Alfano discussed Madonna Imperia’s forthcoming Metropolitan Opera premiere. Rossato then

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unfortunately convinced him that their next venture would again be a lighthearted work, this time loosely based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s popular novel Little Lord Fauntleroy. The opera would derive from a stage adaptation entitled L’ultimo Lord (The Last Lord) by the author and playwright Ugo Falena, which enjoyed a Milanese premiere two years earlier. Why a composer who had striven to such tremendous effort to revitalize Italian opera and the symphonic elements contained therein should suddenly content himself with superficial comedies is a question not facilely answered. A ready explanation might be the relative failures of L’ombra di Don Giovanni and La leggenda di Sakùntala, regardless if they, at the time, represented his most finely wrought offerings. However, even if their quality and expertise brought him kudos, they ultimately lacked melody and the public’s favor, thereby precluding a permanent position in the repertory. Resurrezione, written in a flash of youthful inspiration at the right moment and in the right style, remained, obstinately and paradoxically, his only durable success. The sober realization of opera as business and not solely art seemingly altered the course of his career. Meanwhile, Resurrezione enjoyed continued prosperity, while its composer frequently appeared somewhat apologetic for the youthful verismo venture. He later, and in lieu of his temporarily thwarted operatic ideals, found expression in orchestral and chamber music before again doing justice to his talent in Cyrano de Bergerac. One can only abhor the fact that Alfano courted a transitory success, in addition to uniting his own exceptional talent to that of a second-rate librettist. He initially requested permission to set L’ultimo Lord in a letter to the author and playwright dated 13 June 1927. Without failing to mention Turandot, he introduced himself as the composer of Resurrezione, La leggenda di Sakùntala, and Madonna Imperia. Aware of a recent operetta based on the play, he assured Falena that his version would be both operatic and evolved in its musical form. He even, for this reason, suggested a different title if necessary, while volunteering to pay for any possible legal infringements caused by the previous composer. Falena welcomed the idea of an operatic version. Alfano not only planned to update the action to 1825–1830, but to also finish the work swiftly. He reminded Falena that Madonna Imperia had been completed in some “50 days.”34 Despite the excitement concerning L’ultimo Lord, Alfano cautioned Rossato to continue searching for a possible addition to his own “Trittico,” should the new piece encounter any unforeseen legal difficulties. Options included a certain Bel Cavaliere d’Orfleur and another Balzac. Buenos Aires was the location for two performances of Resurrezione at the Teatro Colón conducted by Marinuzzi with the superb Giuseppina Cobelli. Eva Turner, an exceptional Turandot, was singing Puccini’s princess that season and, some sixty years later, recalled that it was “a very fine performance”

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indeed.35 Time had not diminished the enthusiasm and admiration she felt upon witnessing Alfano’s runaway success. Summer found the composer inundated with work at the Liceo. Administering exams shortly before the summer holidays (which he planned to spend between Bordighera and San Remo) made it doubtful whether a return to Paris for another performance of Garden’s Katiusha would be possible. Madonna Imperia was now set to premiere in Vienna at the beginning of 1928. Alfano informed Hertzka of having reviewed the score an additional time for any lingering errors. He also revised portions of the orchestration. Worried of impinging on the work’s success in the Austrian capital, the composer expressed concern regarding the opera’s depicting a bishop onstage. The subject then turned to a certain Rainieri, a “petit musicien” whose adaptation managed to transform Falena’s subject into a “horrible operetta.”36 However, Rainieri’s recent death now suddenly freed up the entire project. In the interim, Hertzka still resolutely maintained interest in Quixote. He sent a copy to Alfano, who quickly brushed it aside with the slightly facetious remark that he would read it when time allowed. The composer’s correspondence relays a slight despondency upon turning fifty-two: a kind of summing-up regarding his posthumous legacy as well as concern with the years remaining. The “disastrous Turandot affair,” and the devastating repercussions it had on Alfano’s rapport with the theatre’s management (which he desperately hoped to see resolved), again took up his thoughts.37 Alfano felt that “La Scala murders the operas of all contemporary Italian composers; it’s monstrous, but that’s how it is.”38 The composer, in a diatribe aimed at the country’s most prestigious theatre, felt that La Scala was to blame for emanating a “negative influence” in Italy.39 He judged that if a work pleased at La Scala it did not necessarily result in a production elsewhere, whereas if an opera received a poor reception in Milan the peninsula banished it. He gathered his entire hatred, declaring La Scala “the assassin of Italy’s productivity.”40 The theatre, with Toscanini at its helm, remained closed to him for the foreseeable future. Alfano, meanwhile, devised an alternative ending for Madonna Imperia, which served as a substitute for theatres with “excessive moral principles.”41 After reading through the opera’s score, Serafin informed the composer that the opera was “truly delightful” and that he would be “happy to prepare a first-rate performance.”42 His career, with Imperia destined for the Metropolitan Opera and perhaps the Paris Opéra as well, was blossoming as never before. He was infinitely proud that, alone in France, Resurrezione played in no fewer than fifteen cities that year. Paris, with eleven performances of the work, earned some thirty-one thousand francs. This constituted a positive influence on his poor standing at Casa Ricordi, with Valcarenghi delighted to

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inform him of the gains. His relations nevertheless again plummeted drastically when offering the firm L’ultimo Lord. It issued not only a negative response but Valcarenghi’s accusation that his dealings with Universal Edition would eventually generate legal difficulties as well. Erroneously hoping Imperia would enjoy the same fortune as Resurrezione, Alfano tried convincing Hertzka (who was taking the waters at Bad Nauheim) into publishing a French translation. He also hoped to secure premieres in Dresden, Frankfurt, and Leipzig. Wiesbaden remained the only German theatre demonstrating interest, however. Furthermore, Universal Edition’s sparse representation in Italy created an important drawback when scheduling Madonna Imperia in his native country. In the summer of 1927, Alfano continued pressuring Hertzka with L’ultimo Lord. Tired of “wasting any more time,” Alfano counseled Hertzka to contact Falena.43 This was not an easy task, since the composer had not even bothered to send Hertzka a copy of the “exquisite comedy” until August.44 It then reached Hertzka’s desk accompanied by a letter describing the mise-en-scène in such perfect detail (emphasizing the theatrical possibilities certain to please a more general audience), that it illuminated the composer’s rationale for selection. It was a brilliant psychological ploy aimed at motivating Hertzka’s interest via imagery: Attractive costumes, bells, even a bagpipe. . . . I suggested that the author [Falena] create . . . a doll shop with a window in the background depicting London’s inhabitants at Christmas. . . . This “image” will be substituted when his admirers, following a masked ball at which the youngster appeared dressed as a small Scottish lord, unveil a miniature portrait. . . . Retained will be all pertinent details. . . . I feel that I will create something good, fresh, and pleasant. The arrival of the Princess with her son (postillon [sic], hunting chorus, fanfares etc.) . . . will take place following the first half of act 2. Naturally, also love at first sight. I can even visualize the act concluding toward evening with a duo between the young people that will not really be a love duet, but something even more refined, nicer, and very poetic, surrounded by a soft rustic atmosphere and otherworldly lighting.45

Alfano’s diplomatic skill reassured the publisher that his own “unfailing intuition” would be capable of reading through the prose.46 Few could have refuted such a beguiling entreaty—not even the jaded Hertzka. Finally, on 16 August, Alfano breathed a sigh of relief: Hertzka had read the work (with help) in its original Italian and succumbed. He nevertheless presented the composer with a detailed summing-up of his reservations. These were plentiful, including the publisher’s inability to understand why Alfano

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had been enamored of the subject in the first place. The fact that the “principal role was a soubrette” increased Hertzka’s hesitation when surmising Alfano’s plans too overtly similar to that of the operetta adaptation.47 Conceived as an opera in one act, Hertzka sought to convince Alfano that it necessitated expansion to serve as an evening filler with Madonna Imperia. He additionally counseled him to alter the title to avoid comparison to its predecessor. Above all, Hertzka warned that Falena’s fee of twenty-five thousand lire was simply “unacceptable,”48 since the opera was bound to remain in constant competition with its stage and operetta rivals. He countered that Falena, even if renowned as an author, was not as a librettist. He then set a limit of nine thousand lire, thrice the amount paid for Imperia. He blatantly stressed that comic operas stood a harder chance of victory, with Gianni Schicchi the “least successful” of Puccini’s output, while Ermanno Wolf Ferrari’s superb lighter works languished in favor of the ponderous I gioielli della Madonna.49 History fortunately proved him wrong. He then extended an invitation to Venice where Alfano met him on 29 August, and where he hoped to make a convincing plea for Don Quixote, a subject he felt infinitely better suited to his talent. The composer had long grown accustomed to regularly spending time with Mary Garden at her sumptuous villa. Sending for him at short notice, she customarily appeared in flowing floral-patterned chiffon wearing a string of pearls. A large summer hat protected her against the Riviera’s potent sun. In this idyllic setting, Alfano patiently listened to the soprano’s newest plans and ideas. These visits, which happened quite regularly throughout the years, always found the composer sans Marthe. Whether the composer and his muse amorously complemented their aesthetic collaboration is difficult, if not impossible, to say. Alfano not only admired her great talent but also felt enormously indebted for all she had done to further his career. It seems unlikely that the self-assured, clear-headed, and dominant Garden entered into a relationship with the considerate, gentle, and sensitive composer, even if she had enjoyed affairs with married men in the past. It was necessary for her to cultivate a seductive image offstage, even if she states in Mary Garden’s Story that she had “never been crazy about men like so many other women.”50 Curiously, one of the first letters Alfano wrote Falena mentions his meetings with the diva, suggestively quoting “[honi soit] qui mal y pense!!” when referring to his relationship.51 He immediately sets the record straight, however, when assuring the writer that Garden was nothing less than a “nobildonna.” The importance of remaining free to meet the soprano even outweighed visiting Falena to discuss Lord. He now entertained visions of Garden performing a “part in breeches,” having successfully done so in Massenet’s Le jongleur de Notre-Dame and Chérubin. A meeting with Falena at which Alfano disclosed Herzka’s terms finally took place in Bologna on 28 September. Falena was able

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to console the composer concerning Rainieri’s operetta: Its inferior quality prohibited a revival and thereby precluded any necessity to alter Alfano’s title. He then insisted on undertaking the adaptation himself. This decision brought about its own share of grief, however. With little hope of having his recent works performed in Italy, Alfano desperately sought a solution enabling Universal Edition to collaborate with an Italian publisher—such as Curci—capable of representing the Austrian firm. He remained confident that, with Resurrezione’s recent Parisian success in mind, Casa Ricordi would consider the proposition. The possibility, however, of Madonna Imperia at La Scala remained blocked by Toscanini’s influence. The situation sparked a renewed diatribe aimed at the conductor when writing Hertzka: L’affaire Turandot additionally damaged our relations to the “firm” [Ricordi] thanks to their submission to a tyrant who wishes everyone at his feet. You have had the opportunity, I at least hope, to realize that I am not a mean person. . . . I want to love my friends; I do not want to fear them or be their victim. That is why I have experienced justice, only a little bit of justice, solely outside of Italy, because I am not Toscanini’s serf like everyone else who wishes to achieve something. . . . I met you on my path and felt we could understand one another. I believe that until now (I think you share the same impression!) . . . neither of us has erred. I think it will remain so for a long time. Yet the “firm” was quite resentful due to my departure—even with a smile—and still is. I realized . . . that I needed to undertake something to alleviate this hollow anger. I made them an offer . . . naturally unacceptable (this is just between us, of course) . . . but the fact that they—the directors of the firm—would like to enter into a working relationship with you in order to represent your company in Italy, makes me dream that perhaps this bitterness will abate with the passing of time. . . .52

Fearing discontent within his firm, Hertzka resolutely renounced any notion of collaboration. He was also unable to detect any ready advantages. This left the Milanese firm of Curci to promote Madonna Imperia in Italy. Meanwhile, Alfano argued that his works (especially Resurrezione) demanded the same international representation as those of Puccini. Just at this point, Madonna Imperia remained set for publication. Alfano dedicated the score to Giulio Gatti-Casazza and Tullio Serafin.53 Fortuitously, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in October invited the composer to Brussels to perform “her” Sonata for Piano and Cello with Hans Kindler. He then, a few days later and from the Astoria & Claridge Hotel, wrote Hertzka of the work’s success. The Pro Arte Quartet also intended performing the Second String Quartet in Italy, Spain, and New York the following January. These

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plans, in addition to a rumored Belgian premiere of Madonna Imperia, failed to materialize despite the composer’s “great success” when auditioning the opera (at the piano) for the Théâtre de la Monnaie’s management. He nevertheless remained steadfast in his conviction that the theatre, at some point, would produce the opera’s first French version. Preparations for Madonna Imperia’s New York premiere proceeded to Alfano’s satisfaction. Speaking with GattiCasazza and Serafin in Milan, he admired Joseph Novak’s sumptuous set designs that superseded those of Turin. Also due for publication at Universal Edition (in a series issued by the Wiener Philharmonischer Verlag) was Alfano’s Second String Quartet, for whose cover he provided an image. The postponement of Madonna Imperia’s Viennese premiere from 20 November to 23 February (1928)—due to the Austrian unveiling of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane—added little to Alfano’s injured self-esteem. Hertzka provided additional irritation when harping on the opera’s brilliant Hamburg world premiere and the “grand style” it received in Vienna, with nothing less than two casts (including Lotte Lehmann and Jan Kiepura). Alfano, on the other hand, only had Wiesbaden to look forward to—and that with a work bordering on operetta. Rome, where he presided over a musician’s syndicate meeting, was next on the composer’s agenda. His return to Turin found the Liceo relocated to Piazza Bodoni. Here, a series of letters penned by an ailing Hertzka (seeking to circumvent the brewing storm regarding L’ultimo Lord and the incessant delay of Madonna Imperia’s Viennese premiere) awaited him. A contract between Falena, Alfano, and Universal Edition regarding Lord remained to be signed. Alfano’s mounting impatience—lest Falena lose interest—augmented with each succeeding letter. In addition, Hertzka now felt (as Alfano had earlier) that the Metropolitan Opera should reserve the right to premiere Madonna Imperia before either Vienna or Wiesbaden. This reasoning resulted from the inordinate publicity devoted to Das Wunder der Heliane. Because Korngold’s father was “the most influential critic in Vienna,” Schalk was incessantly speaking to the press of Heliane.54 Julius Korngold’s vituperative attack aimed at Ernst Krenek’s jazz opera Jonny Spielt Auf further reduced what little space might remain for Alfano in the papers, convincing Hertzka that the moment was simply inopportune. When it came to scheduling Imperia’s singers, Hertzka now also succeeded in adding insult to injury. Notwithstanding the fact that he had originally mentioned such prima donnas as Maria Jeritza (who refused to create Heliane), Lotte Lehmann (who did), and Maria Nemeth (also cast as Heliane) to create Imperia, he now implied that a relatively unknown soprano, Margit

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Schenker-Angerer, would be given the role. Her beauty and an “enormously wealthy” husband ensured her selection.55 Hertzka believed the “charming young woman to possess . . . a ravishing soprano voice that was clear and svelte.”56 He added, “As she has a lot of ambition . . . M. Schalk will give her the role of Madonna Imperia.”57 Lotte Lehmann felt that the demanding part of “Heliane should have been given to the very young and lovely Margit Angerer,” thereby lending credence to Hertzka’s judgement.58 Alfano nevertheless wished a more dramatic-voiced singer placed opposite a tenore leggiero. These difficulties impeded any premieres prior to the Metropolitan. Alfano customarily detached himself at such times to seek consolation in instrumental and orchestral music. A ray of hope shone when Friedrich Wührer (piano) and Joachim Stutschewsky (cello) performed his Sonata for Piano and Cello in Vienna. Additional concerts (with the cellist Arturo Bonucci) remained planned for numerous Italian cities and possibly even Vienna, leaving the composer to toy with the idea of writing a trio. The fact that his confidence was perilously waning became apparent upon requesting Universal Edition to send him scores from their stable of “successful” composers. Hertzka responded by dispatching Jonny Spielt Auf, Max von Schilling’s Mona Lisa, and Franz Schreker’s Der Ferne Klang, in addition to the most recent instrumental works of Leoš Jánàcˇek, Bela Bartok, Alban Berg, Zoltan Kodaly, and Anton Webern. Resurrezione fortunately continued to provide additional income, with performances slated for Venice and Trieste that December, both of which Alfano attended. He then headed to Naples for rehearsals of Resurrezione at the Teatro San Carlo staged by Falena. Here, he sent Hertzka a telegram on New Year’s Eve agreeing to accept minimum payment if the publisher offered a contract allowing him to take up immediate work on Lord.59 Finally, on 3 January 1927, Hertzka responded in the affirmative, even if reminding Alfano that it was not customary for the firm to offer payment a priori. The decision, he explained, was due to the “enormous confidence . . . and great amicability” binding him to the composer.60 His reduced fee also played a strategic role. However, Hertzka’s phrase, “Let us now hope that Falena’s libretto will be really good,” gives clear indication that he was still in no way content with the subject itself.61 Following months of tedious deliberations, Alfano could finally begin the New Year certain that Lord was his. Overjoyed, he immediately sent Hertzka a telegram expressing his thanks. Whether or not his emotional state contributed to his falling ill with a fever for Resurrezione’s Neapolitan premiere on 7 January is debatable, though likely. His agenda remained hectic as he gathered waning strength to participate in a jury in Rome. He then resumed his duties in Turin, where, rather impatiently, he awaited Falena’s “detailed” scenario.62

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NOTES 1. Alfano to Hertzka, 12 January 1927 (V). 2. Hertzka to Alfano, 19 January 1927 (V). 3. Alfano to Universal Edition, 27 January 1927 (V). 4. Alfano to Universal Edition, 16 February 1927 (V). 5. Rossato’s poor penmanship provided difficulties for Universal Edition, who warned the composer of possible errors in Madonna Imperia’s published libretto. 6. Alfano to Universal Edition, 16 February 1927 (V). 7. Gino Marinuzzi to Carlo Clausetti, Marinuzzi, Tema con variazioni, 433–34. 8. Clausetti to Marinuzzi, 8 March, Marinuzzi, Tema con variazioni, 436. 9. Alfano to Universal Edition, 8 March 1927 (V). Alfano felt that additional cuts alienated the subject even further from its literary origin, thereby preferring that Balzac’s name remain absent from the published score. 10. Alfano to Universal Edition, 11 March 1927 (V). 11. Alfano to Hertzka, 29 March 1927 (V). 12. Alfano to Hertzka, 30 March 1927 (V). 13. Hertzka to Alfano, 5 April 1927 (V). 14. Hertzka to Alfano, 5 April 1927 (V). 15. Hertzka to Alfano, 5 April 1927 (V). 16. Alfano to Hertzka, 8 April 1927 (V). 17. Alfano to Hertzka, 8 April 1927 (V). 18. Stato Civile, San Remo. 19. Hertzka to Alfano, 22 April 1927 (V). 20. Hertzka to Alfano, 22 April 1927 (V). 21. Alfano to Hertzka, 4 May 1927 (V). 22. Marinuzzi, Tema con variazioni, 442. 23. Alfano to Hertzka, 7 May 1927 (V). 24. Alfano to Hertzka, 7 May 1927 (V). 25. Alfano to Hertzka, 7 May 1927 (V). 26. Alfano to Hertzka, 7 May 1927 (V). 27. Alfano to Hertzka, 7 May 1927 (V). 28. Marinuzzi to his family, ? May 1927, Marinuzzi, Tema con variazioni, 442. 29. Hertzka to Alfano, 13 May 1927 (V). 30. This is particularly reminiscent of Turandot’s “Non puoi donarmi a lui, a lui come una schiava” immediately following the riddle scene. 31. Garden and Biancolli, Mary Garden’s Story, 222. 32. Alfano to Hertzka, 17 May 1927 (V). 33. Alfano to Hertzka, 17 May 1927 (V). 34. Alfano to Falena, 19 June 1927 (AASR). 35. “Your mention of having been in contact with Franco Alfano’s daughter arouses many cherished memories. I retain great memories of his visits to the Teatro San Carlo, Napoli, where I was singing Turandot, and also the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, when I was singing that role there. In 1927, I was singing at the

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Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, and Resurrection was in the repertoire. The soprano was Giuseppina Cobelli and it was a very fine performance. I loved the opera and wondered why they do not do it more in these days.” Dame Eva Turner to the author, 8 July 1986. 36. Alfano to Hertzka, 19 June 1927 (V). 37. Alfano to Hertzka, 19 June 1927 (V). 38. Alfano to Hertzka, 19 June 1927 (V). 39. Alfano to Hertzka, 19 June 1927 (V). 40. Alfano to Hertzka, 19 June 1927 (V). 41. Alfano to Hertzka, 5 July 1927 (V). 42. Alfano to Hertzka, 5 July 1927 (V). 43. Alfano to Hertzka, 5 July 1927 (V). 44. Alfano to Hertzka, 7 August 1927 (V). 45. Alfano to Hertzka, 7 August 1927 (V). 46. Alfano to Hertzka, 7 August 1927 (V). 47. Hertzka to Alfano, 16 August 1927 (V). 48. Hertzka to Alfano, 16 August 1927 (V). 49. Hertzka to Alfano, 16 August 1927 (V). 50. Garden and Biancolli, Mary Garden’s Story, 137. 51. Alfano to Falena, 9 September 1927 (AASR). 52. Alfano to Hertzka, 21 September 1927 (V). 53. The piano/vocal score fails to contain any dedication, implying that Alfano’s suggestion may have come too late for publication. 54. Hertzka to Alfano, 26 October 1927 (V). 55. Hertzka to Alfano, 26 October 1927 (V). 56. Hertzka to Alfano, 26 October 1927 (V). 57. Hertzka to Alfano, 26 October 1927 (V). 58. Brendan G. Carroll, The Last Prodigy: A Biography of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1997), 197. 59. The productions of Resurrezione in both Trieste and Naples featured Ersilde Cervi Caroli as protagonist. 60. Hertzka to Alfano, 3 January 1927 (V). 61. Hertzka to Alfano, 3 January 1927 (V). 62. Alfano to Hertzka, 20 January 1927 (V).

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O riginally inspired by both Chérubin and Le jongleur de Notre-Dame, the

composer now entertained lofty ideas of L’ultimo Lord evolving to become a second Rosenkavalier. Convincing Mary Garden would be the next step. He forced himself, as the premieres of Madonna Imperia approached, to decide which he would in fact attend. He also unsuccessfully insisted on a reimbursement of his Viennese travel expenses, regardless if the preceding years had brought in more money than his entire career to date. His salary at the Liceo was the basis for an income augmented by the considerable sum received for Turandot, his career as a pianist, and innumerous productions of Resurrezione—despite the opera’s diminished royalties thanks to an older and less gratuitous contract. His latest demand simply served to generate friction between Hertzka and the opera houses of Wiesbaden and Vienna. Meanwhile, on 4 February 1928, Rossato again exposed his meager talent as Zandonai’s Giuliano took the stage at the Naples’ San Carlo. Based on Flaubert’s portrait of St. Julian, the opera magnified the libretto’s deficiencies but was a tremendous success nonetheless. Critics arrived “from all parts of Italy and all corners of Europe. Expectations ran high and Naples only seemed to be speaking of one thing . . . Giuliano.”1 Rossato’s very visible role in the fascist regime arguably provided part of the impetus for the opera’s publicity and brief success. The fact that Mussolini’s brother, Arnaldo, headed the fascist newspaper Popolo d’Italia, for which Rossato worked as editor, explains much. Unlike the majority of his contemporaries, Alfano spoke kindly when referring to colleagues. He demonstrated no interest in gossip and intrigue. Inordinately thoughtful and considerate, his letters emanate wit, intelligence, respect, and charm. This was an energetic man with a touch of the poetic and 86

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wistful melancholy reflected in his works. He was optimistic, docile, exuberant, and good-natured. The white attire he habitually wore in San Remo expressed further the aesthete whose intellectual and artistic pursuits remained the raison d’être of his existence. Alfano never explained why he failed to attend Madonna Imperia’s Metropolitan Opera world premiere. This is especially surprising for such an inveterate traveler. Fluent in three languages (Italian, French, and German), he was a cosmopolite who visited or resided in a great many countries—save North America. The opera opened on 8 February in a double bill with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Coq d’or. The cast included Maria Müller, Frederick Jagel (“Jeghelli” in the composer’s correspondence) as Filippo Mala, and a very young future Met star named Ezio Pinza, whose portrait as Ragusa remains the only image documenting the production. Serafin was on the podium, with Giuseppe Bamboschek leading the Prokofiev that also sported Pinza’s notable King Dodon. Resembling “a Titian portrait,”2 the bass sang “with pithy incisiveness and address worthy of better things,”3 leading Gatti-Casazza to cast him as Don Giovanni. The general manager then informed Alfano via telegram that the work was a “magnificent success” yielding some eleven curtain calls. It made the composer “very happy.”4 Reviews were far from complimentary. Irving Kolodin simply wrote, “Something of quality was expected . . . when Franco Alfano’s one-acter was heard. . . . These were expectations based not on his completion of Turandot, but rather on his impressive Risurrezione, but they were ill founded in any case.” William J. Henderson’s caustic summing-up of an opera he regarded to be a “melancholy waste of drab dullness”5 invariably recalls Mary Garden’s counterattack that “some of the music criticism of my day approached ridicule and rudeness.” However, she went on to add, “The final decision . . . rested with the public” and, in the case of Imperia, they indeed failed to take the work to “its ample bosom.”6 According to Lawrence Gilman, the Novak sets so admired by Alfano were merely “a parlor maid’s dream of the haunts of opulent debauchery.”7 “There is not a distinguished page in the three acts,” was Henderson’s summation of the American premiere of Puccini’s La rondine when performed alongside Madonna Imperia and sung by Beniamino Gigli and Lucrezia Bori. Maria Müller only essayed the role four times. Replaced by Nannette Guilford on 22 March, the production closed with a matinee on 7 April (following five performances).8 The Italian press (headed by Alfano’s friend the critic Raffaello de Rensis) immediately published laudatory reviews heralding Madonna Imperia’s New York “triumph.” The composer was sufficiently objective to await the European premiere for an authentic evaluation. He traveled to Vienna with this in mind. As Hertzka’s guest, he wrote Rossato on 19 February that the sets, lighting, and costumes (by Alfred Roller)

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were “perfect.” The same, alas, failed to apply to singers Alfano felt to be unidiomatic and severely lacking in the essential italianità necessary to bring the work to life. A marked Latin temperament was sorely missing at the Metropolitan as well as in Vienna by casting German-speaking artists as Imperia. He hoped, however, to correct the situation with additional piano and orchestral rehearsals, since it was a question of style rather than vocal quality. He was charmed by Angerer’s pleasant appearance if not by her modest voice, whereas Kolomon von Pataky’s dramatic instrument failed to relay the tender impression of a youthful rake. The evening commenced with the Viennese premiere of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. This illogical scheduling ensured that Alfano’s new opus generated little, if any, sympathy. Greeted by ten curtain calls, the opera was mutilated in the press. The Neue Zeitschrift für Musik regretted the efforts of the two principals seeking to breathe life into a work they felt void of either inspiration or temperament. It was Julius Korngold who offered a fair definition of the score’s qualities. Published in the city’s Neue Freie Presse, his review determined the work to be a delicate and carefully constructed score imbued with evasive impressionistic phrases. However, one cannot help wondering whether this customarily caustic critic softened his manner as a concession directed toward Schalk (Imperia’s conductor and Vienna’s artistic director) for the recent premiere of his son’s Das Wunder der Heliane. A disconsolate and crestfallen Alfano returned to Turin, forfeiting the possibility of attending Imperia’s German premiere at Wiesbaden on 26 February. The spa town paired the opera with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Machiavelli-based La mandragola. Mainly interested in viewing the Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Hertzka cabled Alfano following the premiere assuring him of a splendid victory thanks to a cast infinitely stronger than that of Vienna. Despite her second-rate voice, the soprano cast as Imperia (Reinhard) was better suited to the part than Angerer, due to a “much warmer” timbre and superior acting abilities.9 Her partner, a certain Kremer, also managed to create a more credible and intense rendering of Filippo. Both Vienna and Wiesbaden suppressed Alfano’s original ending in order not to offend the Church. Hertzka believed this handicapped the opera. Castelnuovo-Tedesco sent the composer a complimentary letter largely echoing Wiesbaden’s critics, who declared the score to be a delicately wrought creation presented in a stylish production.10 Hertzka hoped Naples and Rome would follow suit. With the premieres of Madonna Imperia behind him, Alfano resumed work on L’ultimo Lord. Goaded by Hertzka, he agreed to undertake essential alterations to Falena’s original when the librettist shunned all suggestions. Losing “interest in any further dealings,”11 the publisher proposed employing another librettist. This lot, unfortunately, fell to Rossato.

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At the time, Alfano hoped to collaborate with Rossato on Assunta Spina. Authored by the Neapolitan Salvatore Di Giacomo, its plot centers on a laundress, her choleric husband, prison, and revenge. It would be Alfano’s concession toward realism in an attempt to rival Resurrezione. With Posillipo as its setting, the novel also found form as a searing stage adaptation prior to a much-admired silent film starring Francesca Bertini in 1915. He fortunately refrained from mentioning the ill-fated project to either Hertzka or his colleague, Alfred A. Kalmus. That March, Alfano made a point of speaking to Falena in Naples and, shortly thereafter, was able to inform Vienna of having reached an agreement with the playwright. His communiqué sought to arouse Kalmus’s interest in Lord, which, according to its creator, would be a “pleasant work with . . . great scenic possibilities.”12 He planned to “compose light and . . . melodic music suitable to the tender and amusing subject.”13 Money earned from Turandot and Resurrezione now enabled the composer to build a small home in his beloved San Remo; its proximity to Milan was an added advantage. Taking time off from his duties at the Liceo in order to move into his new domicile at 12, Via Solaro—scheduled for completion in July or August—would allow, without further interruption, full concentration on Lord until February 1929. This complemented the composition of a vocalise-étude for the Paris Conservatoire. It was later refashioned for the French publishing house Alphonse Leduc as a trio (cello, violin, and piano) titled Neapolis. Alfano prided himself in being asked to contribute to an anthology comprising such masters as Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Fauré. At Easter, Alfano relaxed at his trusted Bordighera. Here, he informed Kalmus of three additional songs (Tre liriche) taken from Tagore ready for publication.14 He customarily employed the latter’s writings without obtaining permission— a request he now asked Universal Edition to deal with.15 Although there is no evidence to support the claim, it appears that Alfano never entered into personal contact with Tagore, despite his spending a lifetime inspired by the poet. From Minneapolis, Mary Garden informed Alfano of having sung fourteen victorious performances of Resurrezione as part of the Chicago Opera tour. It marked the third consecutive year the opera remained a steadfast fixture of the company’s repertory. Scheduled were eleven additional locations before Garden reintroduced it at the Opéra-Comique. Her enthusiasm ensured that Resurrezione received six hearings during its initial Chicago season, eighteen in 1927, and “only” fourteen when curtailed by her portrayal of Massenet’s Sapho. Also noteworthy was René Maison’s admirable Dimitri, with the composer lauding his splendid voice. Cesare Formichi’s Simonson was sufficiently popular to merit three encores for his aria “Quando la vidi.” Garden personally selected Roberto Moranzoni to lead the work.

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Now, at 53, Alfano began experiencing minor health ailments, including recurrent arthritic attacks. This affliction manifested itself shortly after Easter, when he suffered excessive neck, shoulder, and knee pain. Fortunately, it failed to impede him from carrying out a daunting agenda that also included an upcoming concert at Rome’s Royal Philharmonic Academy performing the Sonata for Piano and Cello with Benedetto Mazzacurati. The evening also boasted the first public hearing of the Second String Quartet, in addition to the older Tre poemi di Rabindranath Tagore sung by Mafalda Favero. Settling at Rome’s Grand Continental Hotel, the composer sent Mussolini two inscribed copies of the Second String Quartet inquiring whether the Duce wished to attend the work’s official premiere after having already heard it privately. He penned the offer in a somewhat tremulous handwriting. Written the same day from Rome’s Hotel Quirinal was a second letter by the French pianist and Mussolini intimate, Magda Brard. Addressed to Mussolini’s secretary, it encouraged a meeting between Alfano and the Duce. However, Alessandro Chiavolini’s response drafted no fewer than five times below a “Il Segretario Particolare Del Capo Del Governo” letterhead regretted that Mussolini’s “unexpected obligations” hindered his attending.16 June found the composer in Vienna where he finally met Kalmus. They discussed a French version of Madonna Imperia aimed at facilitating performances in Monte-Carlo, Antwerp, and Brussels. In addition, he suggested the firm acquire the German rights to La leggenda di Sakùntala, Resurrezione, and the Danza e finale di Sakùntala. Casa Ricordi’s doors were slowly reopening, thanks to Alfano’s “personal friend” Alfredo Colombo.17 Ricordi’s lawyer, he would eventually replace Clausetti and Valcarenghi. This enabled Alfano to envisage cordial relations. A luncheon was hurriedly set up in an effort to alleviate some of the tension rampant since Turandot. It resulted in an enthusiastic letter to Hertzka. Collaboration between Casa Ricordi and Universal Edition now seemed possible. He envisioned a new Viennese edition of Resurrezione’s piano/vocal score, claiming that the current version was “simply ridiculous—puerile as it is.”18 Ever the perfectionist, he also wrote of subjecting La leggenda di Sakùntala to some “insignificant” changes. His communiqué contained Falena’s completed Lord libretto and the wish that the Metropolitan Opera again take up Madonna Imperia. The composer insisted the asking price be 150 dollars per performance for a total of six: “Imagine that they performed Pelléas . . . one time this year. . . . Important is that the work remains in the repertoire!”19 Casa Ricordi agreed to offer Universal Edition the German language rights to Resurrezione, La leggenda di Sakùntala, Principe Zilah, and Eliana. A

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memorandum exists matter-of-factly summing up Alfano’s capacities and, in a meticulous estimate, the marketability of his compositions: I found it interesting to gain a deeper impression of the composer from these works. Risurrezione and Principe Zilah reveal that his origins remain not only with Puccini, but Verdi as well. There is nevertheless an enormous difference between the styles of these operas and [La] leggenda di Sakùntala. . . . I believe Risurrezione to be the most inspired of the aforementioned works. I marvel at the fact that the opera, at the time, was not a unanimous success.20 The melodies, even if not wholly original, are nevertheless quite appealing and grateful for the singer. The strong atmospheric contrasts in the various scenes should actually prove quite effective: the tranquil country house, a train station in winter, prison, and Easter in Siberia.21 Incongruities inherent in the act 4 text perhaps hindered the work triumphing. It is, however, extremely doubtful whether the composition could presently reap success, since its style is relatively archaic. I nevertheless believe there are theatres in Germany where we could succeed in scheduling a performance. I unfortunately failed to understand Principe Zilah’s text, which is only in Italian. My judgment, therefore, can have only limited value. The music is dramatically viable, but the remainder is relatively conventional. . . . [La leggenda di] Sakùntala contains numerous pleasant passages including, judging from the present score, a very colorful final act—perhaps too colorfully orchestrated for us at present. However, in sum total, I find the work to be dramatically lacking, and it certainly fails to correspond to what one presently expects of an opera. Stylistically, it resembles Schreker. Its antiquated subject, employed for numerous stage adaptations, is, in my opinion, no longer stage-worthy unless subjugated to complete revision.22

Alfano would never have dared imagine (or approved of) such a staggeringly blunt résumé of his works nor their being subjected to such severe scrutiny regarding commercial viability. The document epitomizes both Austria and Germany’s awareness of avant-gardism and international music development. In Italy, this current found expression in a generation of composers born in or around the 1880s (Generazione dell’80). Musicians in northern Europe cultivated an important symphonic heritage that later became entrenched in their operas. Italian composers, regardless if their overriding musical culture focused on vocalism, were now largely forced to take up a more orchestral approach, frequently relegating both voice and melody to a secondary position. This concession, judging from the era’s numerous failed operatic attempts, may arguably have contributed to the overall decline of Italian opera.

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NOTES 1. Konrad Dryden, Riccardo Zandonai: A Biography (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1999), 278. 2. Robert Tuggle, The Golden Age of Opera (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983), 214. 3. Pitts Sanborn, Telegram, 29 February 1928. 4. Alfano to Universal Edition, 9 February 1928 (V). 5. Irving Kolodin, The Metropolitan Opera (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 341. 6. Garden and Biancolli, Mary Garden’s Story, 107. 7. Kolodin, The Metropolitan Opera, 341. 8. Guilford sang minor roles at the Met and would create Magda in the American premiere of Respighi’s La campana sommersa on 24 November 1928. 9. Hertzka to Alfano, 6 March 1928 (V). 10. Ernst Zulauf conducted. 11. Alfano to Hertzka, 6 March 1928 (V). 12. Alfano to Kalmus, 22 March 1928 (V). 13. Alfano to Kalmus, 22 March 1928 (V). 14. The original Italian version was published by Carisch in Milan with a German translation by R. S. Hoffmann prepared for Universal Edition entitled Drei Gesänge. The three songs derived from poems 3, 51, and 20 of Tagore’s cycle The Gardener. 15. It was unnecessary to request permission in Austria. 16. Alessandro Chiavolini to Alfano, 8 May 1928 (ACS). 17. Alfano to Hertzka, 20 July 1928 (V). 18. Alfano to Hertzka, 20 July 1928 (V). 19. Alfano to Hertzka, 20 July 1928 (V). Pelléas et Mélisande was in fact given three times. Hertzka received three hundred dollars from the Metropolitan Opera for two additional performances of Madonna Imperia never given. 20. This statement once again proves how much Mary Garden had done to “resurrect” the opera. 21. The German word for “prison” (Gefängnis) appears handwritten, supplanting the word conception (Empfängnis) originally typed in its place. 22. (V).

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I n the autumn of 1928, Alfano and Marthe could finally take up residence

at their new San Remo home (“Villino Alfano”). An immediate task now also included organizing a significant portion of the library brought from Turin, before being able to concentrate on L’ultimo Lord. Act 1 reached completion on 10 October. His thoughts suddenly turned to the problem of casting Lord with a female artist sporting the necessary physique du rôle for Freddie. Although written for soprano, the composer emphasized that the “tessitura was not all that high and could be sung by a good mezzo-soprano.”1 His predilection for Garden and constant referral to Der Rosenkavalier was, given the fact that Hugo von Hofmannsthal originally wrote Strauss a letter hoping that she (or Geraldine Farrar) would consider creating Octavian, quite astonishing. In turn, the tenor role of Cristiano would be relatively modest, with most of the attention focused on the “heroine.” He planned, however, to include a short aria in act 2 helping to “make the part more important.”2 Mary Garden continued to visit the composer on a regular basis and, as a series of photographs attest, delighted in his proximity. He now could boast a new home, a new opera, and the frequent appearance of an adoring muse. What he perhaps failed to realize was that although maintaining an astoundingly youthful appearance, Garden, at age 54, was beginning to wind down her career. Invited to partake in Alfano’s housewarming party, the soprano arrived from Beaulieu with champagne (the sole form of alcohol she supposedly imbibed). He confessed that he owed the house to her. Again, he employed the occasion to promote the idea of her creating Freddie in L’ultimo Lord. It seems probable that he also introduced her to some of its music. Demonstrating sparse enthusiasm, Garden confided in Alfano tactfully and ever so gently that her histrionic gifts were eminently dramatic. Only Resurrezione held her 93

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fascination and appealed to her artistry. She possessed a formidable theatrical instinct combined with a sharp critical assessment of a composer’s abilities that rarely erred. Forced to acknowledge Garden’s dismissal of Lord, Alfano erroneously believed he could create another Resurrezione with Assunta Spina.3 According to the composer, the soprano was “struck” by the plot’s dramatic possibilities regardless if not a note had been written. She requested a detailed outline in French, promising to consider the project further. Thus, in addition to his duties at the Liceo, the move to San Remo, and his frantic attempt to compose Lord, this added the pressure of creating yet another work. Given Alfano’s delicate and nervous physical condition, his health soon suffered. A combination of ambition and the awareness of time fleeting (with much of it wasted in Turin and on Turandot) contributed to this hurried new venture. He encouraged Rossato to continue working on the libretto, while envisioning Garden—that “consummate woman of the theatre”4—guaranteeing the greatest triumph since Resurrezione. By late November, his health showed a marked decline. He blamed this on the struggle of forcing Universal Edition to accept L’ultimo Lord during the harrowing Turandot year. It resulted in a case of nervous exhaustion, making him unable to supply Garden with the agreed-upon Assunta Spina scenario. He vowed to forward it to Chicago. The Italian outline was complete, and the composer delighted in informing Rossato that the final two acts were magnificent, even if act 1 required revision. He then introduced Garden to Madonna Imperia. She showed great enthusiasm. Alfano promised to undertake any changes that would make the work more congenial to her voice and talent. He asked Hertzka to send her a French-language edition of the score immediately. His physical debility resulted in a month’s leave of absence from Turin. A run of Resurrezione in Rome conducted by Gaetano Bavagnoli followed. Opening on 28 December, it presented Florica Cristoforeanu as a formidable Katiusha. Intent on furthering his career, Alfano sent Mussolini a short letter inquiring whether the Duce would attend one of the performances. The run marked the first time Resurrezione appeared in the Italian capital. According to Alfano, it was the greatest performance of the work since Mary Garden. He praised the wonderful sets, the lighting (an important aspect for Alfano), and conductor Gaetano Bavagnoli’s superb musicianship. Hearing the opera again reminded him that it really was a vehicle “written for the voice.”5 It proved triumphant for both press and public alike. Suddenly overcome by melancholy, Alfano surmised that these triumphs came too late. He passively observed that an excess of distress and a series of “continuous disillusions” intermittently spanning the course of his career made

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him leery of anything running smoothly after initiating its course.6 Professionally, Alfano had grown weary of life’s incessant struggles, lamenting somewhat apathetically to his friend, Vivarelli, that his situation was “quite sad . . . but that’s the way it is!”7 This remains one of the few instances in the composer’s correspondence (usually pertaining to the commercial side of his art) wherein we find him delicately poised between his outer image and interior vulnerabilities. Photographs attest to the noticeable transformation of the mischievous, tempestuous, and self-confident young rake peering out from behind Tito Ricordi at the time of L’ombra di Don Giovanni. His new image reflects an introspective and sorrowful individual afflicted by a myriad of physical ailments brought on by an emotionally overwrought personality. Alfano could doubtlessly agree with his fellow Neapolitan Francesco Cilèa who, sharing a similarly frail and delicate constitution, complained of declining health with each opera composed. Cilèa determined that academia was the answer, while Alfano concurrently produced instrumental works, songs, and an extensive reworking of earlier compositions. At this point, he desperately yearned for a popular (and financial) success resembling Resurrezione, especially when the opera earned some 190,000 francs thanks to an Opéra-Comique gala for invited journalists and the country’s president. Mary Garden must have been livid when informed that Katiusha was to be Claudia Vitrix. Vitrix’s assumption that she would play the role derived less from her artistic résumé than from her marriage to the owner of the newspaper Le matin. Learning his lesson from Vienna’s Madonna Imperia, Alfano insisted on attending all rehearsals of future productions, seeking to both instill and maintain a superior artistic level. A revival of the ballet Eliana in Antwerp succeeded in temporarily assuaging his momentary despondency. Act 2 of L’ultimo Lord was also nearing completion, with Alfano convinced that the work contained “elements of certain success.”8 The problem was act 3. Discontent with Falena’s adaptation that still overtly resembled the author’s original play rather than a new operatic libretto, the composer sought to impress upon him the importance of revision. This Falena was unwilling (or unable) to do, even if originally agreeing to carry out any necessary alterations when conferring with Alfano in Rome the previous December. Meanwhile, Di Giacomo awaited a final decision regarding Assunta Spina. About to publish his three new Tagore songs, Universal Edition made him speculate whether the third (“Giorno per giorno”) should in fact be retained for inclusion in L’ultimo Lord. He was excessively proud of the piece, considering it to resemble a German Lied and written in a classic manner with a generous dash of melody— “perhaps too much.”9 He also wished to transcribe it (combined with the second song “Finisci l’ultimo canto”) for piano

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and cello to serve as a concert piece entitled Récit et arietta. Alfano suddenly studded his letters to Vienna with the word popular, demonstrating his incessant striving to appeal to a broader audience.10 Earning potential was also the major force behind Assunta Spina. He owed Casa Ricordi some sixty-thousand lire for unspecified reasons that may have resulted from his ability to leave the firm as hurriedly as he did. Although the sum total fell to fifty-thousand that year, a large portion remained that he hoped Assunta Spina would partially fill. It was therefore of the utmost importance that he again produce works for the firm. All hopes were now pinned on Colombo, regardless if the latter cautioned to let an additional two months pass before presenting Clausetti and Valcarenghi with an initial draft. Convincing himself of Garden’s interest, he began tailoring the work to the soprano’s talents. He relished the idea of an American premiere in Chicago with Garden and one in Italy with Claudia Muzio. Artistically, he felt Di Giacomo’s (“Don Salvatore”) ultra-Neapolitan work called out for a compatriot to create an operatic adaptation—albeit “purified” by his own unique music. Unfortunately, the Metropolitan Opera would forthwith shun all of Alfano’s works before eventually taking up Cyrano de Bergerac almost eighty years later. Resurrezione failed to enter the repertory, although one of Alfano’s brothers wrote that Gatti-Casazza contemplated producing the opera, probably to serve as a substitute for two additionally scheduled (and soon to be scrapped) Madonna Imperia performances. In the interim, Alfano kept Rossato informed of his numerous plans. He nevertheless cautioned him not to leak a word concerning Assunta Spina when meeting Hertzka at his new San Remo home, where he planned to introduce the publisher to the first two acts of L’ultimo Lord. Falena still crassly refused to accede to Alfano’s demand for changes to act 3. This stagnation prompted the composer to declare that although Falena had written a superb play, the operatic adaptation necessitated ameliorations. He went on to add that, “as an ultra-sensitive artist,” he would be unable to “write a note” if incapable of “sensing spontaneous situations and words.”11 Furthermore, Alfano reasoned that act 3 needed to be entirely at variance from the initial two acts to avoid the work becoming monotonous. An immediate (if not necessarily better) solution prompted Alfano to request that Falena find a collaborator in Rossato. He hoped, in blind faith, that Rossato would imbue the remaining torso with “new vigor.”12 Moreover, Alfano threatened to abandon the project altogether should Falena choose to neglect this, his last warning. He reiterated his determination by stating that he had already renounced much in his artistic life and, “in any case, a thousand times better to have lost the composition of two acts . . . than a whole work.”13 Again, Hertzka was not to be informed. Another leave of absence from the Liceo was nearing its end,

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and Alfano needed to return to Turin before again contacting Hertzka that April to extend a second invitation to San Remo after failing to meet him in Cannes. The current atmosphere in Turin was also far from hospitable, with the composer taking up quarters in a hotel when forced to renounce living in an apartment at the Liceo (now conservatory) due to the incessant din of music interfering with his own composing. Still lacking a revised version of act 3, Alfano began orchestrating act 1. Hertzka finally visited the composer’s new home for an entire day, although it is uncertain just how much of Lord he actually heard. Prior to leaving, he turned to Alfano, declaring that he had always accepted the composer’s works, regardless. Despite the publisher’s comment being slightly paradoxical, Alfano felt both relieved and “comforted.”14 A degree of humiliation remained in never knowing whether his newest works would ever receive publication, however. What played in Hertzka’s favor was the confidence and trust he placed in the composer, a trait Alfano cherished that carried its advantages. Misfortune reappeared when Colombo recoiled from promoting Assunta Spina. It made Alfano suddenly yearn for his earlier triumphs under Tito. Following a break of fifteen years, he reiterated that Tito had been unable to admit the “necessary and indispensable evolution” his art craved in 1914. The composer felt his decision justified, reckoning that his name would never have been respected without either L’ombra di Don Giovanni or La leggenda di Sakùntala. After years of struggle and anguish, Alfano still refused to admit that he had sacrificed a major portion of the public’s interest for an esteemed reputation. He was still unable—with the possible exception of Resurrezione—to create a repertory piece. Madonna Imperia and L’ultimo Lord were somewhat pallid efforts at combining his technical expertise with a return to melody. A perilous and largely avoidable chasm separating academia from a theatre-going public (which continues to exist today) rapidly grew. Alfano continued in his efforts to combine modernism and melody with questionable results, claiming that his style reached purity as a result of maturity. The only enemy now remaining was time. Tito would soon return to Italy and, for a brief period, become visible on the Italian music scene with an advisory position at La Scala. The composer hoped the former publisher had altered his stance regarding his earlier works, agreeing to make amendments provided Tito initiated reconciliation. Alfano felt he had only himself to thank for his current position, “owing nothing to anyone.”15 Fortunately, Rossato’s reworking of Falena’s third act of Lord was essentially to Alfano’s liking, even if still inadequate in its character delineations. The composer hoped that a forthcoming meeting at his current Turin residence (66 Corso Vittorio Emmanuele) would alleviate any misgivings.

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Although preoccupied with Lord’s orchestration, he could not resist writing Hertzka that the final act was evolving to be “the nicest of the three.”16 There would be no official mention of Rossato’s involvement until Falena’s agreeing to a collaboration. This finally took effect in a revised contract from the “overjoyed” author toward the end of May. It enabled Alfano—minute retouches notwithstanding—to begin composing act 3. In a letter to Hertzka dated 11 June 1929, he summarized, in addition to a new idea entitled Judas, his proposals for Lord’s premiere: For some time now, I have not had the pleasure of receiving your news. I recently sent you Judas. In addition, I would be quite content if you could inform me whether a German theatre has taken Sakùntala or Resurrezione; in case of which I will indicate the cuts that I must make. I have news today that I must tell you—news that seems good to me. . . . The management at Naples’ San Carlo theatre (a very important theatre, above all today) cabled me that they will be pleased to produce L’ultimo Lord in 1930 (March). I received this “desiderata” from a good number of important people and, upon forwarding it to the administration, realize that they have, without my knowledge, already decided to mount the work. . . . They assured me to produce the opera with the greatest pomp. Thus, there is reason to believe that it is an excellent affair—and a sensational beginning. Now, prior to making a definite response (and one must, I think, not renounce such a good opportunity), I must confess to having only completed the first two acts, although I have already orchestrated them. What remains to be composed and orchestrated is the third. This I would like to complete in six months. However, what I cannot work on is the piano/vocal score. That is all that remains to be done (in order to try to get everything ready for a production in March 1930). I will have the partitura copied here (which I always write in pencil). I will also have a reduction for piano [and voice] made here simultaneously by someone I trust, and by someone who will agree with me that the score should not become too complex. At the same time, I will post the piano/vocal score pages as soon as they are ready . . . assuming that I send you the third act in December or even at the end of December, which will allow space to print the first two and to prepare the orchestral material. In this way, one can arrange the remainder within a short time. One may obviously have to pay a copier. It will, I at least believe, be quite inexpensive. It should be relatively facile to locate someone to create the piano/vocal score, since I have already thought of one of my professors of composition at the Turin Conservatory: Mo Ghedini. He will be happy to be available for . . . a present.17 (I am fortunate that Mo Ghedini is a good musician and composer.) . . . I think you can ask the Naples management . . . a sum of 15,000 lire for six performances guaranteed. In addition, [request] 3,000 lire for each

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performance . . . or less. Besides that, I must ask for two to three thousand lire for my stay in Naples, including all the rehearsals at which I will be present, and which I will direct myself—from the piano rehearsals onward. I will then, at a later point, select the artists and oversee the mise-en-scène. Let me reiterate that this “premiere” will have great importance in Italy. One will be arriving from Rome—and from everywhere. In addition, we have to make it attractive abroad—in France, in Germany, in Great Britain (I am certain Lord will please very much in London), and in America. I will invite Miss Garden etc. . . .18

Alfano had ascertained that a successful run necessitated more work than simply completing a score. Like Puccini before him, he now cautiously and minutely surveyed each relevant detail to ensure performances meeting his criteria, including his decision to title the opera Freddie outside Italy. L’ultimo Lord, he fancied, was a work of substance, necessitating the skillful talents of a Mafalda Favero and Aureliano Pertile (or Tito Schipa). Always the perceptive businessman, Hertzka believed the production’s asking price needed to yield twenty-five thousand lire. This would also ensure payment of Alfano’s expenditures. The composer, however, warned him that the Naples’ San Carlo might fail to concede, given the fact that the aforementioned tenors were now asking some fifteen thousand lire per performance. Unforeseen difficulties also arose when the incessantly strenuous Rossato suddenly and without much ado demanded payment from Falena for an opera that had yet to premiere. Alfano was dreadfully anxious lest Rossato’s brash behavior impede what seemingly resembled a placid collaboration between the triumvirates. His diehard amiability managed to play “devil’s advocate” when assuring Rossato that Falena was a “good person,” while purposefully tantalizing him with an introduction to both Assunta Spina and Mary Garden in future.19 He thereupon remained inundated at his San Remo desk for most of the summer, steadfastly competing with his own self-imposed schedule to complete Lord. He met Garden in Cannes under a scorching July sun, nervously promising that Assunta Spina’s French translation would soon be available for perusal. He nevertheless, for want of time, erred fatally when seeking Rossato’s advice to help locate a translator rather than undertaking the task himself. Meanwhile, the journal La propaganda musicale announced that the composer was at work on the opera. Marinuzzi also paid Alfano a visit, declaring that the Rome Opera (and the city’s political factions) insisted on premiering L’ultimo Lord prior to Naples. This ignited a tedious series of letters and meetings, despite his remaining legally bound to a Naples premiere. The most important aspect, however, was the abundant interest and anticipation shown the premiere of an Alfano

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opera per se. It nurtured hope that Casa Ricordi, when learning of his value in Rome and Naples, might decide to acquire the Italian rights after all. He contemplated (with an estimable degree of bitterness) that, of the so-called newer composers, Casa Ricordi was mainly interested in the sizeable posthumous revenues generated by Puccini. He nevertheless insisted that, given time, both he and Zandonai could alter this factor. One can only commiserate (when reviewing the abundant list of unsuccessful scores) with Casa Ricordi’s decision to remain faithful to composers by whom they were able to finance the firm. Numerous (largely stillborn) works such as Giulietta e Romeo and Giuliano (Zandonai); Il gobbo del califfo, Il castello nel bosco, and Astuzie d’amore (Franco Casavola); La bisbetica domata (Mario Persico); Il favorito del re (Antonio Veretti); Romanticismo and Guido del popolo (Iginio Robbiani); Liolà (Giuseppe Mulè); and Caracciolo (Franco Vittadini) sported a Rossato libretto that doubtless accelerated their decline into oblivion. Operas of such feeble quality arguably received publication thanks to the very visible positions their creators held in a fascist society. Meanwhile, Alfano, by mid-August, completed Lord while the political bickering twixt Rome and Naples increased. It was now that he finally found the time opportune to mention Rossato’s involvement: I finished the work two days ago. Moreover, I think that I have finished [it] well. You see, Mr Hertzka, I believe to have written a pleasant opera—an opera one will gladly hear (I hope) and hear again! The libretto is, by all standards, well done. The play will be to the libretto what the skeleton of a pretty woman is to . . . a pretty woman who is also pink and well rounded!! . . . The work’s finale (which is a bit my creation) will certainly make an impact. This was an important factor for me, since the conclusion of every light piece is usually . . . cold! But no! That does not have to be. I have searched . . . and found. Act 3 will perhaps be the most compact and the most successful. . . . Earlier on, I made you aware of the difficulties I had with Falena regarding the changes to act 1, the duet in act 2, and the entire third act. . . . It simply didn’t work. Time passed, and what he did send became increasingly mediocre. I swear that at a given moment I had lost all confidence and, rather than write an inferior third act, preferred to abandon the entire project. It was in such a state of mind that you found me in San Remo this spring. However, and this is strange, you gave me, without really trying, a new push, and, when you left, I made the firm decision to join up with another collaborator; a decision I pursued with the greatest energy until succeeding. . . . That collaborator . . . is Rossato.20

Hertzka feigned contentment, particularly now that the work’s advanced state allowed no time for objection. He also accepted the news of Naples’ reserving

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the legal right to premiere Lord with a degree of disdain. Madonna Imperia thus presented itself in Rome with a cast partially drawn from Lord when the capital (and Marinuzzi) capitulated. Alfano, seeing his Neapolitan plans dashed, concentrated on completing the orchestration to act 3 during these so-called “pseudo-holidays!”21 When Aureliano Pertile replaced Schipa as Prince Cristiano, Alfano insisted that Universal Edition publish the Ghedini piano/vocal score immediately. This allowed sufficient time for the artists to prepare their parts. Riccardo Stracciari, “enthused with the role” of Duca di Kilmarnock, was then added to the roster of stellar performers.22 Alfano, with these preparations underway, reveled in the idea of the San Carlo also premiering Assunta Spina. The critic Saverio Procida nevertheless counseled the composer to postpone the matter until after Lord’s premiere, at which time the two men (together with Di Giacomo) could present a case for the, as yet, unwritten opera. Marinuzzi’s agreeing to conduct Imperia stemmed from an esteemed friendship and the opera’s last minute replacement, rather than any overt love for the score. He again studied the work, and, having done this, advised Alfano to undertake some necessary cuts in addition to slight textual variances pertaining to the final duet, which, the composer agreed, were “necessary in order to make the work smoother and . . . fluent.”23 Similar to Vienna, Rome now also opted to present the opera with its alternate finale. According to the composer, Turin’s Teatro Regio and the Metropolitan Opera had mounted the finest productions of Madonna Imperia, leading to his rather fallible suggestion that theatres scheduling the work in future needed to emulate these. Alfano doubled as regisseur for Imperia (and most of his other operas). Refusing to succumb to passive observation, he now sought every instance to control as many aspects of future revivals of his works as possible. He also immediately informed Mascagni of Imperia’s premiere by sending a copy of the score (alongside other more recent compositions) to Rome’s Hotel Plaza. He expressed special concern (and aggravation) regarding Universal Edition’s wanting publicity when it came to performances of his works in Italy, leaving, he felt, many completely unaware of the firm’s publications—hence the parcel to his older coeval. He fervently hoped Universal Edition would insist on reviving some of his operas in future (especially La leggenda di Sakùntala), seeing that they now owned the German and Austrian performance rights. He fortunately remained unaware regarding the firm’s negative judgment concerning what he estimated to be his most significant work. Alfano’s correspondence during the period again makes mention of Andrea Della Corte, his former student at the Liceo and, more recently, critic (with “a reputation for being quite severe”) for La stampa.24 Della Corte was a staunch supporter and formidable admirer of Alfano’s music. He would soon

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be selected to author a concise yet informative (and uncritical) monograph titled Ritratto di Franco Alfano (Portrait of Franco Alfano) compiled from informal conversations held with the composer. Alfano had long favored such a project and, in December, even alluded to the idea when writing Alfredo Casella. Uncertain, however, is whether its genesis derived from the composer or from Della Corte. The latter’s publications already included volumes on Paisiello and Metastasio, Italian comic opera, and studies devoted to Aida, Otello, and Falstaff. Aspiring to be one of his generation’s most innovative composers, Alfano felt sorely neglected by musicologists and critics, regardless of having created one of Italy’s first symphonies, the not very perduring avant-garde choral opera L’ombra di Don Giovanni, and a series of most unusual (and highly imaginative) art songs. It has been hypothesized that Alfano wrote Madonna Imperia and L’ultimo Lord merely out of public concession. Strauss would have duly commiserated that it was not the first time a composer stifled the echo of his innovative steps. Hindrances of public exposure reemerged when the American Society of Composers demonstrated sparse interest in seeing his Second String Quartet performed in the United States, regardless if the Pro Arte Quartet had, the previous year, interpreted a much-lauded rendering of the First String Quartet. His current exclusion from the Metropolitan Opera (thanks to the ill-fated Madonna Imperia) added further to what he deemed a somewhat fundamental international apathy, even if Gatti-Casazza suddenly demonstrated interest in hearing L’ultimo Lord. The composer then forwarded an article praising Lord to Vienna, where publication of the piano/vocal score was underway. He insisted the work be termed “opera semiseria,”25 with the entire opus dedicated to Mario Vivarelli’s daughter, Nenné. By 7 November, he was also able to inform Kalmus that the orchestration for act 3 neared completion. Universal Edition now stipulated that the Rome Opera pay ten thousand lire to revive Madonna Imperia, a price based on Stravinsky’s Le rossignol and Oedipus Rex. They refused, however, placing Alfano in the rather delicate position of trying to explain to the firm that, in Italy, works containing three acts customarily received ten to fifteen thousand lire maximum. Lord, with twentyfive thousand lire at the Naples’ premiere, was an exception. The performance rights for an opera in one act ran the gamut between two to five thousand lire, with Gianni Schicchi earning an even higher sum. The composer warned Universal Edition that there would be no Roman premiere if failing to “ask a bit less.”26 He doubtless would have preferred a La Scala unveiling, but that was one theatre where “the names of Pizzetti and Alfano do not figure.”27 The Rome management had still not forgiven Alfano for ceding Lord’s premiere

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to Naples, pinning the blame on his personal “weakness.”28 This was one of the reasons he implored Universal Edition to grant a more enticing offer. The capital, however, chose to remain wrapped in a cloak of silence, eventually necessitating Marinuzzi’s intercession. In addition to these problems, the composer’s mother, now aged eighty-four and seriously ill, demanded an additional trip to Naples. His brothers, anticipating her approaching demise, reasoned that his presence was necessary lest her situation deteriorate. Such were the unpleasant happenings awaiting him prior to the much-anticipated calm of a San Remo Christmas.

NOTES 1. Alfano to Hertzka, 20 July 1928 (V). 2. Alfano to Hertzka, 20 July 1928 (V). 3. Discussed was also Libero Bovio’s Neapolitan play Vicenzella. 4. Alfano to Rossato, 18 October 1928, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 800. 5. Alfano to Vivarelli, 8 January 1929 (AASR). 6. Alfano to Vivarelli, 8 January 1929 (AASR). 7. Alfano to Vivarelli, 8 January 1929 (AASR). 8. Alfano to Vivarelli, 8 January 1929 (AASR). 9. Alfano to Kalmus, 19 January 1929 (V). 10. Alfano to Kalmus, 19 January 1929 (V). 11. Alfano to Falena, 5 March 1929 (AASR). 12. Alfano to Falena, 5 March 1929 (AASR). 13. Alfano to Falena, 5 March 1929 (AASR). 14. Alfano to Rossato, 1 April 1929, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 804. 15. Alfano to Rossato, 6 May 1929, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 806. 16. Alfano to Hertzka, 13 May 1929 (V). 17. Alfano proposed Universal Edition publish a Ghedini composition “of great importance” as recompense. Alfano to Kalmus, 7 November 1929 (V). 18. Alfano to Hertzka, 11 June 1929 (V). 19. Alfano to Rossato, undated, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 809. 20. Alfano to Hertzka, 10 August 1929 (V). 21. Alfano to Universal Edition, 4 September 1929 (V). 22. Alfano to Rossato, 2 October 1929, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 814. 23. Alfano to Universal Edition, 4 November 1920 (V). 24. Alfano to Universal Edition, 4 November 1920 (V). 25. Alfano to Kalmus, 7 November 1929 (V). Alfano wrote Kalmus: “A return to opera semi-seria . . . and to vocal melody, very vocal.” 26. Alfano to Universal Edition, 14 November 1929 (V). 27. Alfano to Rossato, 1 December 1929, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 816. 28. Alfano to Universal Edition, 19 December 1929 (V).

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A lfano’s election to the Academy of Rome’s prestigious music conserva-

tory Santa Cecilia ushered in the new year. Meanwhile, the Rome Opera agreed to pay seventy-five hundred lire to premiere Madonna Imperia. It was an outrageous price based on what Universal Edition customarily demanded (and received) in Austria. Recalling the “cold and average” Viennese production, Alfano took the reins regarding every aspect of the upcoming production.1 Selected to create the role of Freddie in L’ultimo Lord slated to premiere that April in Naples was Mafalda Favero, one of Alfano’s favored sopranos and an admirable performer of his songs. Her official acceptance came relatively late (16 March), thereby infuriating the composer who nevertheless realized that La Scala—to whom she remained contracted—was at fault. Permission arrived from the upper echelons of the theatre’s management in the person of Angelo Scandiani (loathed by the composer and courted by Rossato). The entire process endured for some nine months, thanks to Alfano’s strained relations to a theatre he detested and of which he now felt to be a victim. Favero’s introduction to the score took place at the end of February when she met the composer in Milan. This allowed Alfano last-minute alterations to both L’ultimo Lord’s score and libretto. It postponed Universal Edition’s ability to send him the published material until 15 February. The Buenos Aires Teatro Colón now also announced a production of Lord, extending an invitation to conduct the work himself. However, he immediately cabled a response mirroring his unwillingness to lead the theatre’s orchestral forces. Madonna Imperia was first on Alfano’s agenda. The composer reached Rome on 21 March and, from the Grand Hotel Continental, received word that Hertzka had been “forced to renounce the trip.”2 Attending a later performance also became anathema, as did witnessing the Naples’ 104

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premiere of Lord. Accustomed to Hertzka’s incessant cancellations, the composer nevertheless found favor in the Roman premiere that opened 5 April conducted by Marinuzzi with Florica Cristoforeanu as Imperia. The conductor’s revisions also led Alfano to declare this the “definitive” version of his short opera.3 Two performances yielded the not inconsiderable sum of thirty-six thousand lire. The following day, Alfano left for Naples (Lord’s world premiere at the San Carlo was slated for 19 April), opting to make the journey by water rather than by land. Those witnessing the opera’s rehearsals reassured Ugo Falena that the performance merited his efforts. Franco Capuana led a sumptuous cast comprising Pertile, Favero, Stracciari, and Leone Paci. Many considered Favero’s interpretive talents to rival those of the spoken stage. Refusing to squabble regarding Hertzka’s incessant cancellations, Alfano enthusiastically cabled information flaunting the opera’s “great [and] authentic success.” He also provided the résumé of a work he felt distanced4 itself from his others thanks to a unique quality that is touching and amusing, out of the ordinary, tenderly sentimental, and, above all . . . fable-like. It is pure opera-semiseria, which fell from fashion in the mid 1800s and which I am currently seeking to revive in a modern and sensible manner . . . with melodies that are completely Italianate, such as the act 2 tenor aria that received thunderous applause but was not allowed an encore as they are forbidden here. This air requires a separate publication. . . . Mr Procida’s review also seemed quite favorable, and I now await that of Mr Pannain in the newspaper Roma, having requested that Pannain express all his thoughts with [complete] disregard to the amicable bond that binds us. I want a sincere judgment rather than a merely flattering one. Imagine, I did not wish to give a single ticket to my family—which is quite numerous—precisely in order to only have judges in the auditorium and not friends!!! That is why this victory satisfies me. [It was] a first-rate performance. The orchestra played as a homogenous whole never overpowering the singers. The soloists were magnificent, with a perfect interpretation by Mlle Favero who will be the great star of tomorrow. It [was] a personal triumph for this young and pleasant artist who was a student at the Bologna Conservatory when I was its director. A sole regret: we wished to open perfectly prepared and have now come to the end of the season. We will thus only have three or four performances. . . . I said a sole regret; but no, I am mistaken, there remains a second one—and far from minute: I failed to see you. I was so counting on it. You could have judged the work for yourself. One needs to see this piece performed in order to have a complete idea. . . . Next time it should premiere at an important theatre [in Germany] with a fine selection of singers. Dresden? Berlin? Hamburg?

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Chapter 11 So you are going to America? . . . [A] pleasant and enjoyable voyage to you my dear Mr Hertzka, and if you have occasion to see Mr Gatti-Casazza or Mo Serafin, all my greetings to these old friends . . . and the wish that they will produce Lord with [Lucrezia] Bori (in Italian) . . . or perhaps in English.5

His weakest and most ill-advised effort, L’ultimo Lord suffers from a libretto failing to rise anywhere near a standard meriting the composer’s talent. Alfano’s initial attraction to the naïve storyline resulted perhaps from its expounding the merits of love and righteousness. However, the puerility of a text that frequently succumbs to bathos in its desire for sentimentality necessitates a more exacting score to overcome Rossato’s lackluster adaptation. Italianate vocalism once again gives way to a manner of Sprechgesang vacillating between tonal and atonal. Such modern accents unfortunately present an insurmountable obstacle when allowing a blatantly conventional scenario to unfold unhindered. Unable to flower, this relatively vivid and bubbly work thus remains crippled in its efforts to become a spirited and intelligent comedy, thereby distancing itself considerably from more compelling works of its genre. The orchestra underscores an intolerably verbose libretto that, in its hurried breathlessness, rambles on without engaging the spectator. Only the roles of Freddie and Cristiano are able to capture what little remains of Alfano’s lyricism. Written to be a popular piece loosely culled from Little Lord Fauntleroy, the opera inexplicably sabotages its aims by way of its tediousness. The characters (Cristiano in particular) lack depth and development, and one can only marvel at Della Corte’s ludicrous analysis of the work in the Ritratto, convinced that even Rousseau would have been pleased. Musical highlights include the latter half of act 2, especially the Freddie/ Cristiano duet (if one disregards the text). Cristiano’s solo “Il parco non vi parla?” foreshadows Giovanni’s “Tu vedi in un bel ciel” (Don Juan de Manara) and, similar to this, serves as somewhat of a filler piece reminiscent of Filippo’s “Dama, se tanto siete pietosa e ornata” in Madonna Imperia. However, the aria, with its subtle poignancy, prepares for the touching beauty of Cyrano’s death scene. Notwithstanding its attributes and defects, the opera stands as an artistic forerunner to his later masterpiece, with many of the pointillist touches that make Cyrano de Bergerac so outstanding clearly in evidence. Alfano responded to L’ultimo Lord’s world premiere with complete physical and “nervous exhaustion.”6 Physicians consulted for an official diagnosis listed ailments including headaches and stomach problems. Prescribed were rest and enjoyable distractions. For Alfano, this implied distancing himself from the “nausea” of humankind and seeking consolation in the tranquility of nature. Suffering is a word cropping up repeatedly in his correspondence, especially in reference to what he felt were the injustices dealt him by the Ital-

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ian music scene in general. Excessive friction stemming from the Teatro San Carlo also served to augment his seemingly incessant strife with Casa Ricordi. A portion of the blame rested with the composer, who, preferring to place Lord in Rome rather than Naples, believed their offer to give him the honor of a premiere was insincere. This, in turn, succeeded in severing his relations to the theatre. The tribulations endured at La Scala (who had of course long shunned him) regarding Favero’s availability contributed to his recent overexertion, as had preparing the productions themselves, from controlling the costumes to supervising stage directions. “Unfaithful homeland you shall never receive my bones,” was about all he could muster in strength when denouncing Italy from the calm of San Remo.7 Resolute faith in his art enabled him to overcome a hurt intensified by Casa Ricordi and his recent dealings with Universal Edition. Life for Alfano signified artistic creation, with daily trials and the positions he held merely a means to an end. In a self-pitying frame of mind, he now even chose to recall the poor press received by the long-ago Milanese premiere of La leggenda di Sakùntala, considering it an “interesting historical document” of “collective ignorance” inspired by Toscanini.8 Being a composer in Italy, he surmised, was little more than farcical. He sought comfort in future projects and, incredibly, still held fast to Assunta Spina. He met Di Giacomo in Naples to discuss a viable adaptation of act 1. The recent film version played in Turin, although illness prevented his attending. Even so, Assunta Spina remained a diehard illusion until Alfano found a substitute in Il dottor Antonio. Physicians temporarily forbade travel. This left him to speculate whether enforced confinement contributed further to a mounting depression and lethargy that, in turn, robbed him of the necessary inspiration to work. Meanwhile, Rome’s critics carped that Madonna Imperia suffered from an unfortunate plot. Alfano energetically counterattacked by blaming the theatre’s refusal to perform the opera’s original ending as the immediate and sole cause. The situation deteriorated further when Hertzka reported that the German press had little good to say regarding L’ultimo Lord. Holding his client in great esteem, the publisher broached the subject with an inordinate amount of prudence and trepidation: I read your telegram and detailed letter dated 23 April [1930] with the greatest interest, and am pleased that you are content with L’ultimo Lord’s success. I also read the two reviews you sent and find them both to be very good. However, I am unable to conceal from you that the reviews in the German papers regarding the world premiere of Ultimo Lord [sic] are, if not bad, of no great use to us. . . . One speaks of a mild public success while treating the work itself as immaterial. One of the reviews called to my attention stems from Mr. Walter Dahms; a well-known German music critic

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Chapter 11 who reports for many German newspapers. The review—not negative, just somewhat lukewarm—will not harm us, and we will now commence energetically with the marketing preparations. . . . It is of course a shame that Naples only produced the opera a few times. . . . We hope, as we are dealing with an Italian opera in the best sense of the word, to be able to obtain productions in Italy and at La Scala.9

Trying to place the work, he sent his colleague Hans Heinsheimer to Berlin. Dresden followed suit when the attempt failed. Alfano next advised Hertzka to post L’ultimo Lord’s score to La Scala and the Rome Opera. Casa Ricordi meanwhile speculated on the work’s unsuccessful reception, prompting the composer to suppose that they would forever deride him as an “unknown.”10 Naples’ San Carlo remained a source of irritation for some time to come, particularly when the composer suggested cancelling an additional performance of L’ultimo Lord in lieu of a lengthier run the following season. Naples, having little interest, presented a final performance twelve days later. This reinforced his decision to threaten the theatre with legal action should they refuse to schedule the work the following season.11 He was desperately eager that Mary Garden attend in the vain hope of her expressing interest in performing Freddie after all. However, the soprano, in Lucerne and ill upon reentering Europe from the United States, informed him of her inability to travel: She knew the opera and she knew it was not for her.12 A slight improvement in health enabled him, on 31 May, to perform his recent (and still unpublished) Trio in A (for piano, violin, and cello) at Rome’s Accademia di Santa Cecilia. Additional concerts included his Sonata for Piano and Cello in Palermo, Bologna, and Florence, with (one assumes) the composer at the keyboard. These performances, he concluded with muted eloquence, provided “a bit of consolation” from the “bitterness” of recent events.13 Following the concerts, he felt ready to take up legal action against Casa Ricordi’s ostracism, surmising that the National Council of Corporations (of which he was a member) would support the decision. He nevertheless reiterated that his resolve remained based not on his own lamentable relations with the firm, but on the need to illuminate publicly what he (and numerous others) considered the injustices of Italy’s music industry reigned by a malignant brew of politics, gossip, and intrigue. Dissimilar to the litigiously inclined Leoncavallo, Alfano ultimately lacked the necessary ingredients constituting an aggressively vengeful personality. If this docile man resolved to fight, it was solely because of his artistry’s suffering neglect for what he now considered a question of “high morality.”14 Waning support additionally reached him from Hans Heinsheimer, who suggested personally that the “moral means” necessary to create a positive

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change rested not in the hands of a foreign publisher but in his own.15 This thinly disguised snub evidently pertained to the increasing indifference and impatience with which the firm viewed Alfano’s recent ineffective operas, inspiring the composer’s vague and apathetic remark that “everything today is quite difficult.”16 He remained adamant in the hope that Vienna would in fact place both Madonna Imperia and L’ultimo Lord in Berlin and Hamburg, despite their decision to refrain from publishing a German translation of the Lord libretto until certain of a premiere in that country. A visit to Rome renewed contact with the composer and critic Renzo Rossellini who, afforded the opportunity, introduced him to his latest work, Alcassino. Alfano harbored great faith in Rossellini’s talent and his sense of style and equilibrium. The complete lack of a comprehensive archival collection housed in one location has unfortunately eradicated drastically the documentary evidence of Alfano’s contact to many notable and fêted personalities of the era, including, among numerous others, Ravel and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (founder of Futurism).17 Still crestfallen and with little inspiration, the composer began revising L’ombra di Don Giovanni. He aimed at simplifying the work’s orchestration, vocal writing, and dramaturgy in an effort to make the opera more congenial in view of a future revival. However, the utter futility of yielding to public favor now became evident upon his turning to his most complex and modern work, with both Imperia and Lord failing to spark the triumph he desperately craved. Tired of fighting, distraught, and increasingly apathetic, Alfano, in the summer of 1930, decided to devote a significant portion of his time to his “artistic testament.” This, he believed, included L’ombra di Don Giovanni, La leggenda di Sakùntala, the Tagore art songs, and the First Symphony.18 This curative care aimed at posterity and what he felt would be a fairer future judgment marked, with the creation of the Second Symphony, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Il dottor Antonio, his career’s final phase despite another twenty-four years of life. The decision coincided with Scandiani’s death to which, upon hearing the news, he could only utter a sigh of relief. Riccardo Zandonai, an esteemed colleague who also felt ostracized from Italy’s most important theatre, could well have been describing Alfano when he “hoped that La Scala would gradually detach itself from Toscanini’s influence, believing his works to have been boycotted under the conductor’s tenure.”19 A ray of light shone that September: Born under the fascist regime and held in Venice, the first International Music Festival, organized by Alfredo Casella and Adriano Lualdi, included such illustrious participants as William Walton and Paul Hindemith. Numerous Italian premieres were scheduled, including Bartók’s Fourth String Quartet, Darius Milhaud’s La création du monde, and the first public performance of Alfano’s triptych of songs, Tre liriche

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di Rabindranath Tagore, interpreted by Mafalda Favero. The concert served as “the only testing bench then extant in Italy for taking modern music out of the realm of indifference, of ghettoized specialization, or of open ostracism.”20 Thereupon followed one of the most curious events in Alfano’s vita when, on 22 September, he wrote Mussolini declaring that the government of Venezuela had asked him to compose a hymn to honor the centennial of South America’s “national hero,” Simon Bolivar.21 The request reached him by way of a certain Maestro Bracale, who, responsible for performances of Italian opera in Caracas and living in Italy, suggested he “compose and conduct . . . a hymn to the glorification of the venerated South American Libertador.”22 The extent of Alfano’s involvement in creating this carefully construed and highly ambitious political and self-promoting event can only remain speculative. The Buenos Aires Teatro Colón and Rio de Janeiro’s Teatro Municipal were, in addition to other cities such as São Paolo, important centers for Italian opera. Alfano was not the first Italian composer asked to write a hymn for South America. In 1922, Mascagni had already led a chorus of some six hundred for Zandonai’s Inno a Gomes inaugurating an Italian monument honoring the composer Carlo Gomes. Indeed, he was not even the first to write a hymn for Bolivar.23 Alfano’s efforts at ingratiating himself remained miserably obvious upon informing Mussolini of the ceremony’s “enormous importance.”24 Furthermore, he pointed out that “General Vicente Gomez, who rules the destinies of that blooming land, is a loyal friend of our Italy and, above all, a fervent admirer of the Duce. . . .”25 Even political naiveté fails to excuse whitewashing a Venezuelan dictator who controlled the nation through sheer terror, and who was reputed to be one of South America’s wealthiest men at his country’s expense. One may perhaps attribute such an opportunistic act (and one so completely opposed to his essential character) as a frantic and rather contrived effort at public exposure and international recognition. Renewed prestige and the possibility of forging contacts in South America capable of breathing life into a waning career were certainly factors considered. There is reason to suppose that, with a run of Resurrezione planned as well as concerts of his works, he would have gone to South America regardless of the invitation. These events foresaw a sojourn stretching from early November through January 1931, during which time he also hoped to create interest in L’ultimo Lord and the Tre liriche. It remains, nonetheless, a sad and embarrassing chapter in a life noteworthy for its decency, and in which age and depression now played an estimable part. Apparently, he assumed that the project would enhance his artistic legacy: “The memorable date of the celebration will ensure that, in time, my music will be destined to be remembered in all of Latin America.”26 The event demanded a departure for South America within four weeks, which

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in itself may suggest Alfano’s having perhaps been a last-minute replacement. Permission to begin the hymn found form in a telegram sent three days later from Rome’s Villa Torlonia to the composer’s San Remo hermitage Villino al Solaro (formerly Villino Alfano).27 Meanwhile, Alfano again reproached Universal Edition, deploring their inability to organize an Italian representative capable of promoting his work— and those of his colleagues—in Italy. He repeatedly lectured on the validity of personal contact, declaring that business transactions “depended on a good or poorly placed word, or the sympathie of the individual given the task—like affairs of state.”28 However, the diplomatic finesse that the composer had a right to expect remained illusory. The fact that Universal Edition’s prices (recently exemplified by Madonna Imperia) were unreasonably high impeded theatres—especially smaller ones—from scheduling his latest operas. In Italy, the situation fared even worse, with (what he felt to be) both Resurrezione and La leggenda di Sakùntala “sleeping” in Casa Ricordi’s drawers.29 Rather than wait for Universal Edition, Alfano now suggested enlisting the help of Alessandro Paradossi, a wealthy elderly gentleman with ties to San Remo’s theatre. He proposed the idea in the “hope that this time something will be resolved for the authentic advantage of the firm . . . and for us!”30 He also planned a revival of L’ultimo Lord at the theatre if the publishers agreed to lower their fees to match those of Ricordi. Alfano was essentially correct when reminding them that he personally had arranged the financial details regarding performances of his operas, including Madonna Imperia at the Metropolitan Opera. He now admitted to fatigue and the impossibility of carrying out what was essentially their responsibility. Europe’s economy was in a precarious state, and numerous Italian theatres closed. The composer wearily acknowledged, “The times are very bad. There is no money . . . the prices are high . . . everything remains dormant!”31 Austria’s position was hardly better, with Universal Edition forced to save money whenever and wherever possible. The situation of course later spiraled, with Kalmus fleeing Nazi-occupied Austria to found the firm’s London branch. This would signify an end to the hopes Alfano had once placed in the publisher to substitute the backstabbing endured at Casa Ricordi. Luckily, not even the failing market could hinder Resurrezione (“a work of pure theatre”) from playing in a dozen French and Belgian sites during 1930, in addition to Monte-Carlo, Chicago, and Caracas, or, as Alfano proudly related, “From Havana to Cairo.”32 It remained his only opera reaping substantial revenues. In an effort to appease Alfano’s wishes, Universal Edition proceeded to contact Paradossi. The firm perhaps felt this to be duly necessary when Naples’ San Carlo brusquely returned L’ultimo Lord’s score, thereby declaring (formally and unmistakably) their disinterest. The incident, of course, merely served to

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strengthen the composer’s resolve to depart for South America. He also, with time pressing, organized a recital program for Vienna wherein he planned to perform (gratis) his Sonata for Piano and Cello, the Second String Quartet, and the Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano. Both the Trio and an orchestral version of the Tre liriche remained unpublished. On 4 November, he expressed his grievances in a letter to Universal Edition and the fact that he felt “humiliated.”33 A rather curt response implied that the songs had failed to receive publication in an orchestral edition, because they barely sold in a piano/vocal format. Thus, Alfano’s demand seemed “absolutely incomprehensible” to the firm who therewith returned the original manuscript.34 The composer had fortunately already boarded the ship for South America. The journal L’Italia musicale informs us that he conducted the Bolivar hymn on 22 December at Caracas’s Campo Carabobo in the presence of the national government, the diplomatic core, and some estimated thirty thousand spectators. The Teatro Municipal also performed Resurrezione in a season that, ironically, opened with Turandot. It seems rather unlikely that Alfano, following this rather self-indulgent and unfortunate spectacle, returned via the United States to witness what would in fact be Garden’s last American essaying of Katiusha in Chicago on 6 January 1931. He journeyed aboard the Guadeloupe, tossed about by a “sea that was not very . . . kind.”35 He arrived back in Italy with ideas for a new opera provided by what must remain an unknown American author. Shortly thereafter, an aged and feeble Hertzka wrote to say that his health had improved sufficiently to attend L’ultimo Lord in San Remo. His interest, however, stemmed mainly from a desire to attend the Milanese world premiere of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s new opera Bacchus in Toscana. “I still,” he informed the composer, “have not abandoned hope to witness L’ultimo Lord, and, after such a long time, to see its creator. . . .”36 Hertzka would in fact never witness Lord on stage. A largely foreseen cancellation was short in coming when, a few days later, he again wrote claiming that the San Remo premiere (19 March) coincided “precisely the day” he left for Hamburg to embark on yet another journey to the United States. The production was a success, with the tenor’s act 2 aria enjoying an encore. This left Alfano to congratulate himself in having produced a work to the public’s liking that, in this case, was both “gay and moving.”37 Not everyone shared in the enthusiasm, however. Mascagni, present at the final performance, failed to mention even a single word concerning the opera. Vigorous and light-hearted works assimilating those of Tristan Bernard would, Alfano hoped, make the world “smile” again when confronting the overriding despondency of such “uncertain” times.38 A short-lived project over which he now speculated (“nothing could be more poetic”) was Un

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bon petit Diable by the Comtesse de Ségur.39 Set in the Scotland of 1842 and dealing with an orphan maltreated by a wicked cousin, it slightly resembled L’ultimo Lord. He desperately yearned for a work to complement the latter and, since the demise of Assunta Spina, preferably a Neapolitan subject. Another suggestion remained Raffaele Viviani’s drama Pescatori—a copy of which was forwarded (via Renzo Rossellini) Rossato. Additional prospects (following a hearing of his trio in Athens that April during the course of a week featuring Italian music) included his willingness to organize a concert of Austrian music in Italy, provided his gratis concert (set to take place in Vienna on 14 May 1931) receive a broadcast. The violinist Aldo Ferraresi and the cellist Benedetto Mazzacurati (with whom Alfano frequently concertized) agreed to perform without financial recompense. Difficulties lay in securing an Austrian soprano capable of presenting the Tre liriche in the vernacular, while a certain Baroness de Toma was futilely organizing an additional concert at the Club Autrichienne. Vienna signified refreshing contact with Kalmus, even if the latter condescendingly cautioned that the only chance for a meeting—as he needed to be in London the following day—remained the morning of the concert. His afternoon was free, but, it being a holiday, and with little private interest in the composer, not suggested as a possibility. Hertzka’s favored treatment was now out of the question. Driving his own car, Alfano headed for the Austrian capital on 10 May. There, he informed the Society of Austrian Composers that an evening devoted to the country’s music was now planned at the Turin conservatory for January/February (1932), provided they schedule a concert of his own chamber music. Discussions with Kalmus centered on a French version of L’ultimo Lord for Monaco, France, and Belgium, La leggenda di Sakùntala and Resurrezione in German and Austrian theatres, and, rather inconceivably, the suggestion of Rossato as an Italian representative! Given the go-ahead, Alfano returned to Turin (and his duties) to begin the first French translation of L’ultimo Lord himself. Antonio Veretti now suddenly demanded some of the composer’s time (which he always generously conceded) to introduce portions of his new comic opera Il favorito del re. The libretto was by “Don Arturo” (Rossato) who, when it came to the proliferation of his works in fascist Italy, had metamorphosed into an Italian Scribe.40 Even this trifle found a publisher in Ricordi and a premiere at La Scala, regardless if Alfano remained excluded by both. Paris followed on the composer’s agenda after a Turin-based summer filled with exams. Here, joined by the director of the Monte-Carlo Opera, Raoul Gunsbourg, he finally met Hertzka for an “enchanting” dinner at which they discussed, among other things, the French-language premiere of L’ultimo Lord.41 The task of a French adaptation fell to Henri Cain. He signified a

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welcome and noteworthy improvement over Rossato, whose hackwork had needlessly impaired the composer for far too long. Cain, the ill-fated Princesse lointaine collaborator, would be an important ally when trying to champion the French market with L’ultimo Lord or another venture. The translation necessitated altering portions of the score’s notation, thereby annoying Universal Edition who, with little interest in further investment, began questioning the project’s feasibility. Other variances included an “interlude between acts 2 and 3” in an attempt to expand the short work (originally conceived in a single act).42 The French title passed from Dernier duc to Petit lord, a transformation Alfano found “delightful” and of course overtly similar to Un bon petit diable. He nevertheless remained apprehensive lest Falena disapprove. He proceeded to labor on the changes throughout the summer in San Remo where, by 1 August (1931), he informed Vienna of the adaptation’s completion, although it would in fact require another two months. Meanwhile, Alfano’s hopes regarding a reentry into La Scala increased when Erardo Trentinaglia, now called in to direct the theatre, brought such “advisors” as Giordano and Tito Ricordi, the latter thereby reappearing on the Italian music scene following years of absence. Tito’s new position found a welcome echo among established composers who, oddly, now recalled his monarchical regime with fond nostalgia. Alfano, keenly estimating the potential possibilities of the managerial developments, decided to contact Tito immediately: I was content to hear that you have accepted an important position. . . . It is, even if not the position, one you merit fully. . . . Let me add immediately that, due to my poor standing with Toscanini, La Scala has shunned me for the past nine years. I would be content (via your intervention) to perhaps return with the old Resurrezione, for which artists would be available who have already sung the roles and who are engaged this season. One could borrow the production (which is quite beautiful) from Rome [Teatro Reale], where the opera enjoyed its greatest triumph. . . . The OpéraComique will be performing it in May. Could it perhaps be that Milan has forgotten it? Cela nous rajeunirait!43

Even if many were content that the Toscanini era was over, others, such as Zandonai, surmised that Tito would hardly be less of an autocrat. It would be another six years before La Scala presented anything by Alfano, and then Madonna Imperia. Tito would die less than two years later. Alfano proceeded to catch up on his tiresome Turin duties before returning to San Remo on 5 September for further adjustments to Cain’s seemingly ceaseless revisions. He finally sent the completed project to Vienna that October. Hertzka was naturally shocked when confronted by the changes:

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A few days ago, I returned from an extended trip . . . to find your letter of 6 October and the French adaptation of L’ultimo Lord. I can readily imagine that your work on the translation was extremely difficult, and am content that you find it satisfactory. I could unfortunately ascertain from the piano/ vocal score that an inordinate amount of musical changes will be necessary; a factor that particularly grieves me. Hardly a single page remains failing to require alterations. . . . The expense of publishing a French edition for, as you write, a dozen piano/vocal scores, amounts to at least 800 lire, and I have no idea how to cover these costs. . . . The economy in Austria and Germany is, as you probably know from the papers, so catastrophic that it necessitates cutting back in all areas. . . . I am very sorry in being unable to see any other possibility in this case. I am certain you will understand the sad position our country is currently in. I will answer your other questions at the next opportune moment. A publication of your Trio is presently also not possible. . . .44

Foiled were performances of the opera in Germany where, according to Universal Edition, its “puerile” libretto faced opposition. Numerous were those now seeking payment for L’ultimo Lord, including Falena’s heirs, Cain, Universal Edition (!), and Rossato. The celebrated soprano Fanny Heldy, already engaged by Gunsbourg to perform Freddie, made Alfano understandably eager to wade through the financial thicket in order to proceed with the artistic. November enabled the composer to meet Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge one final time when he performed his Sonata for Piano and Cello at the Naples conservatory on the 17th. Held in honor of the philanthropist, the concert also included works by many of Alfano’s colleagues who, on the 19th and prior to Coolidge’s departure for New York, gathered at the Grand Hotel Royal (sporting a sumptuous view of Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples) for a farewell luncheon. As a memento, she requested that those present (including Alfredo Casella, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Ottorino Respighi, and Alfano) collaborate on a spontaneous composition that then received the dedication “Per Santa Elizabetta.” Later, Coolidge herself remembered that “the composers’ only knowledge of each other’s contributions to this ‘round-robin’ was, that they were all limited to the key of C major and to 4/4 time. . . .”45 “Mrs. Coolidge, whose primary interest was in commissioning chamber music from contemporary composers, had offered and obtained commissions from each of these composers by this time.”46 This formal gathering totaling thirteen (including Casella’s and Malipiero’s wives) remains immortalized in a photograph preserved at Washington’s Library of Congress. Paris, where all details regarding the Monte-Carlo production of L’ultimo Lord reached accordance, followed. Two additional concerts remained in

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Bologna before 1931 drew to a close, with the composer reminiscing that only France supported his artistry—that is, France and an American “saint.”

NOTES 1. Alfano to Universal Edition, 6 January 1930 (V). 2. Hertzka to Alfano, undated (V). 3. Alfano to Hertzka, 5 April 1930 (V). 4. Alfano to Universal Edition, 20 April 1930 (V). 5. Alfano to Hertzka, 23 April 1930 (V). 6. Alfano to Rossato, 22 May 1930, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 821. 7. Alfano to Rossato, 22 May 1930, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 822. 8. Alfano to Rossato, 22 May 1930, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 823. 9. Hertzka to Alfano, 29 April 1930 (V). 10. Alfano to Rossato, 1 June 1930, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 823. 11. L’ultimo Lord’s world premiere also enjoyed an Italian radio broadcast. 12. Another source of irritation was Ildebrando Pizzetti’s Lo straniero in Rome, the scenario of which the composer deemed to be overtly similar to L’ombra di Don Giovanni. 13. Alfano to Rossato, 1 June 1930, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 823. 14. Alfano to Rossato, 1 June 1930, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 824. 15. Heinsheimer to Alfano, 3 June 1930 (V). 16. Alfano to Universal Edition, 11 June 1930 (V). 17. Marinetti’s correspondence is held at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Another recipient of Alfano’s letters (Library of Congress) is the American pianist, author, and pedagogue Irving Schwerké, who mentions Alfano in his book Jazz et David (published privately by Les presses modernes, Paris, 1927). 18. Alfano to Rossato, 13 July 1930, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 825. 19. Dryden, Riccardo Zandonai, 309. 20. Harvey Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), 90. 21. Alfano to Mussolini, 22 September 1930 (ACS). 22. Alfano to Mussolini, 22 September 1930 (ACS). 23. The singer Teresa Carreño had composed an earlier version. 24. Alfano to Mussolini, 22 September 1930 (ACS). 25. Alfano to Mussolini, 22 September 1930 (ACS). 26. Alfano to Mussolini, 22 September 1930 (ACS). 27. Segretaria Particolare Del Capo Del Governo to Alfano, 25 September 1930 (ACS). 28. Alfano to Universal Edition, 7 October 1930 (V). 29. Alfano to Universal Edition, 7 October 1930 (V). 30. Alfano to Universal Edition, 7 October 1930 (V). 31. Alfano to Universal Edition, 7 October 1930 (V).

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32. Alfano to Universal Edition, 7 October 1930 (V). 33. Alfano to Universal Edition, 4 November 1930 (V). 34. Universal Edition to Alfano, 6 November 1930 (V). 35. Alfano to Hertzka, 22 January 1931 (V). 36. Hertzka to Alfano, 2 March 1931 (V). 37. Alfano to Rossato, 25 March 1931, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 826. 38. Alfano to Hertzka, 4 March 1931 (V). 39. Alfano to Rossato, 10 May 1931, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 827. 40. Alfano to Rossato, 9 June 1931, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 828. 41. Hertzka to Alfano, 17 July 1931 (V). The composer’s finances remained depleted to such an extent that he opted to lodge (for 35 francs per night) at the Hôtel Belmont et de Bassando, thereby avoiding the exorbitant prices at Hôtel Florida. 42. Alfano to Hertzka, 22 July 1931 (V). 43. Alfano to Tito Ricordi, September 1931 (author’s collection). 44. Hertzka to Alfano, 20 October 1931 (V). 45. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation Collection (LOC). 46. Kevin LaVine, Senior Music Specialist, Music Division, Library of Congress, in a letter to the author, 16 November 2007.

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Cyrano de Bergerac (1932–1933)

A lfano’s difficulties with Universal Edition and Casa Ricordi, and his in-

ability to find a subject that really inspired his creative powers, exhausted his faculties, forbidding a return to Turin until mid-January 1932. Seeking refuge in orchestral music, he placed L’ombra di Don Giovanni’s revision aside for a more ambitious project that evolved to become his Second Symphony in C. Meanwhile, his Due intermezzi, culled from the First and Second String Quartets (scored for two violins, viola, cello, and contrabass) received a hearing that month at Rome’s Augusteo. Unable to comprehend that Universal Edition would no longer publish his music, he remained confident that the concert’s critical and public success might alter the fact. This led to a correspondence tinged by “regret” and sadness in the realization that his future works depended upon another publisher (in Italy) if he wished to see them printed.1 Universal Edition continued to reject his offers based on Austria’s precarious economy and, mainly, their lack of interest. Finalized, though, were plans for the Monte-Carlo L’ultimo Lord premiere, with Gunsbourg suggesting that Alfano conduct to generate publicity. He steadfastly refused, while hoping Monaco would open the way for L’ultimo Lord in French-speaking countries. A plan to record the tenor’s act 2 aria was also in the offing. Another positive development—in a time of setbacks—were performances (by the Berliner Streichquartett) of his Second String Quartet in Milan and Turin. Maintaining his position in Italy’s music circles necessitated keeping up contact—however minimal—with Mussolini. He thus wrote on 1 March from Rome’s Grand Hotel Continental with news of the Second String Quartet’s “enthusiastic reception”2 and that the Duce’s interest had “brought such good fortune to the opus.”3 The main reason for contacting the dictator, 118

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however, was to send a copy of his “major work” (La leggenda di Sakùntala) that he hoped to see restaged.4 Partaking in L’ultimo Lord’s dress rehearsal, he still, even now, hoped Hertzka might attend, piteously commenting that it would be a “great disillusion for me, for everyone, if he fails to come!!!”5 The request was turned down, leaving Alfano furious. Monte-Carlo enjoyed three performances before the composer, on 31 March, journeyed on to Palermo for four presentations of Resurrezione at the city’s Teatro Massimo conducted by Gaetano Bavagnoli and starring Florica Cristoforeanu. He was also present at the Société Nationale de Musique in Paris where, on 9 April, he performed his Sonata for Piano and Cello (accompanied by Benedetto Mazzacurati) in a program including premieres by J. Guy Ropartz, Piero Coppola, André Jolivet, and Claude Arrieu. Here, the “very sad piece of news” reached him (and “after some time”) of his mother’s death.6 Reinforced by the loss, he sent Universal Edition his most brusque letter to date expressing bewilderment regarding “the sparse interest the firm” took in L’ultimo Lord’s Monte-Carlo premiere.7 Knowing that his “personal influence” resulted in having the opera staged, he was understandably hurt when no one bothered to attend. He declared it to be “a small but important negligence on the part of the firm” that was “not very encouraging.”8 This unfortunate missive was the last Hertzka would live to read and, in his final letter to the composer, reiterated Austria’s economic crisis as the reason for his inability to travel. He thereupon mentioned his unsatisfactory health, which forbade him to “undertake longer trips during the winter. If times were normal, I could have combined the trip to Monte-Carlo with a longer sojourn. Then I would, with great pleasure, have attended the premiere which really interested me.”9 Although this was a letter from a dying man, Hertzka had in fact made recent outings to both the United States and Germany—everywhere, save to performances of an opera he published but never saw. On 16 May, Alfano, failing to realize that the recipient was dead, requested a response to his original communiqué. Prior to attending a Society of Authors meeting in Rome, he exclaimed jubilantly to Rossato that the Second Symphony was “almost complete.”10 The project had interfered with L’ombra di Don Giovanni’s revision, which he still declared a “very important” work and “a pity to leave . . . imperfect.” He also acknowledged that Assunta Spina languished owing to his own varying degrees of interest. With “the old publisher at Universal” dead, Alfano, now more than ever, realized the necessity of recapturing Casa Ricordi’s favor. He thus wrote Carlo Clausetti requesting a meeting. Resurrezione continued to reap impressive gains, and the composer felt he possessed the right to reenter the firm “without discussion.”11 It was the unpleasant position of an established composer

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sans publisher who, as if a beginner, was trying to convince Casa Ricordi of his importance. For this reason, Alfano renewed contact with the Italian publisher Suvini Zerboni, a plan he had formulated as early as 1928. He initiated a fresh correspondence with the company’s director, Paolo Giordani, which eventually led to the publication of many of his future works. These included the Trio, numerous songs, and his final operatic effort Il dottor Antonio. Sensing that Assunta Spina was going nowhere, Alfano found a seasoned librettist in Giovacchino Forzano. He had supplied Puccini with texts to both Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, in addition to collaborations with Giordano, Mascagni, and Wolf-Ferrari. His most recent project had been Gino Marinuzzi’s opera Palla de’ Mozzi, premiering the same year at La Scala and published by Ricordi. It thus seems reasonable to assume that Marinuzzi suggested Forzano. In addition, the librettist smoothed Alfano’s way into Suvini Zerboni. On 13 June, Alfano inquired whether a contract might be drawn up in Rome between himself, the publishers, and Forzano, for a new project entitled Pietro il Grande. Inspired by the life of Peter the Great and published in Florence in 1929, Forzano’s drama in three acts and an epilogue was precisely what Alfano felt would “stimulate the curiosity and passion of a large audience.”12 He hoped to devote the entire summer to a project that, unfortunately, remained illusory. It is particularly lamentable that an alliance with Forzano failed, regardless if Suvini Zerboni provided the composer with a solution to his publishing dilemmas by way of a rather fruitful collaboration that endured until his death. Alfano now completed the final additions to his Second Symphony, certain it had developed into a fine “Mediterranean” work.13 A return to Casa Ricordi seemed imminent when the company agreed to publish the Second Symphony, with a premiere set at Rome’s Augusteo the following year. This signified a dazzling triumph indeed. In addition, Ricordi also issued his song “Messaggio” to the verses of Domenico de Paoli.14 With his original publisher back in place and his inability to track down Forzano, he resumed work on L’ombra di Don Giovanni’s revision. Comforted by his recent successes, he was now able to recapture some of the joviality that had threatened to vanish during the preceding months. Still trying to place the Due intermezzi with Universal Edition, he now offered to relinquish royalties should they in fact decide to publish after all. These, of course, were pointless attempts. Kalmus grew increasingly alarmed with Austria’s radical surge of nationalism. He thus, in early September, informed Alfano of the impossibility of presenting foreign works, a decision, it appears, based less on racism than on the firm’s inability to secure royalties beyond the German-speaking realm. The situation improved somewhat when

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Universal Edition cabled that Bologna’s Bongiovanni firm wished to publish the Due intermezzi. On 17 December, Alceo Toni, music critic for the fascist newspaper Popolo d’Italia and composer of minor distinction, drew up a “Manifesto of Italian Musicians for the Tradition of Nineteenth-Century Romantic Art.” It sought to warn of the endangerment of aesthetic principles and traditions by modern musical tendencies, resulting in what Toni felt to be the “destruction of every old and ancient artistic ideal.”15 The signatories included Respighi, Giuseppe Mulè, Pizzetti, Zandonai, Alberto Gasco, Guido Guerrini, Gennaro Napoli, Guido Zuffellato, and Riccardo Pick-Mangiagalli. Astounding was less the idea of issuing a proclamation touting musical conservatism than the inclusion of names of composers the likes of Respighi and Zandonai alongside opportunistic and untalented functionaries. Fortunately, Alfano’s name remained noticeably absent. The loss of Universal Edition was of more importance, especially when it came to Hic est illa Neapolis, a set of three instrumental pieces preceded by a prelude composed during the summer of 1932 following Hertzka’s urging to erect a musical ode to his own birthplace. With little possibility of publication, he now adapted it as a ballet entitled Vesuvius (eventually published by Suvini Zerboni in a revised version in 1949). Meanwhile, Resurrezione resumed its trail of glory in Ghent and Paris with Mary Garden singing some of her final Katiushas. She later recalled, “There was nothing in my last performance of Alfano’s Resurrection in Paris that made me say ‘I can’t do it anymore.’ I will confess this much, however: my voice was still firm, but I had been using it steadily for a good many years, and frankly I was apprehensive of what might happen—maybe the following month, maybe the following year.”16 It was probably during this run that Noël Coward chanced to see her portrayal; he appeared in her dressing room complimenting the credibility of her drunken daze in act 3, of which she then gave a detailed description: I was never drunk, yet there was Katusha [sic] . . . hiding her bottles in her prison bed and getting drunk on vodka. At that moment I was drunk. There I lay on the floor when the prince came in, and he left me because he couldn’t bear it any more. But before leaving, he put into my hands a photograph of my home when I was a child, and in my stupor I looked up and around like a real drunkard to see if anyone was in the place. Then I took the picture and suddenly I was myself, and in that drunken daze I cried hot tears. . . .17

Resurrezione’s enduring success was a positive and very welcome reverberation, especially in view of a somewhat caustic letter from Kalmus that Universal

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Edition was not only “very happy” to hear of its “great triumph,” but the news that Ricordi would soon publish his Trio and Second Symphony as well. “Our joy,” Kalmus wrote somewhat sarcastically, “is only slightly dampened by the thought that we would have preferred to publish them ourselves. . . .”18 What at first glance appeared to be a letter affording Alfano the satisfaction of a Viennese publisher plein de regrets, was essentially an expression of their desire to relinquish their rights to Madonna Imperia and L’ultimo Lord. Having paid some fifty-thousand lire alone for L’ultimo Lord, the company now regretted an investment failing to produce revenues. Hertzka had, of course, been well aware of the fact, but his was essentially a gentleman’s agreement resulting from a personal liking as well as sincere admiration for the composer’s art in general. Now, with the “gentleman” dead, the new guard sought to relieve itself of the pressing burden created by their “esteemed” former director. The composer would have been content to remain with the firm but, as he wrote Kalmus regretfully, “How?” To this he added, “Let us hope in a brighter future and happier solution for the entire world to this unfortunate crisis.”19 He had lost one publisher and, with Casa Ricordi and Suvini Zerboni, gained two. In January 1933, La Scala took up Zandonai’s ponderous Giulietta e Romeo with the superb and unjustly forgotten Giuseppina Cobelli. A fervent admirer of the composer’s music, Alfano immediately sent off an enthusiastic letter. Zandonai, in turn, responded with a rather brief note dotted with the words equilibrated, healthy, and useful, terms customarily employed when describing his own works. Hard put to compliment Alfano, he simply stated that his colleague’s creations would survive if he worked much and gossiped little. Zandonai had little good to say regarding other composers—save Honegger. In fact, he greeted the majority of Alfano’s correspondence as a mere by-product of the Neapolitan’s boisterous and “hyperbolic” personality. It was difficult for Zandonai to comprehend that he did have colleagues who, without exterior motives, were both sincere and generous in their praise. In February, Alfano returned to the Leipzig of his youth for celebrations commemorating the 50th anniversary of Wagner’s death. Elated by the idea of a pilgrimage to the city, he even insisted on booking the very same hotel at which he had resided upon his initial arrival in 1895. In Italy, he returned to his love of Rostand. Perhaps goaded by Henri Cain, he now opted to set the playwright’s Cyrano de Bergerac. If Princesse lointaine attracted him with its message that “human love can lead to love of the divine” and the futility of living life “without a dream,” he now chose the character of Cyrano who, like himself and Rostand’s other literary figures (including Chantecler and l’Aiglon), experience disillusion only to “learn from their experiences and rise above them.”20 These characters act with integrity “even against their own interests,” and “their idealism and panache have pe-

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rennial appeal”—valid factors when embracing a subject worthy of his art.21 His collaboration with Cain preparing L’ultimo Lord’s French adaptation may have increased his awareness of never having set an opera in his mother’s native tongue. Realizing the importance of securing the rights immediately, he wrote Giordani from Turin on 5 February that Cain requested a response before Rostand’s son, Maurice, changed his mind. Alfano wished to sign the contract together with Giordani in Paris at once. The latter instantly withdrew, citing the necessity of having to attend a meeting. Meanwhile, the composer gathered strength to confront the embarrassment of what amounted to a most provincial San Remo unveiling of Vesuvius. “Thus, Franco Alfano has entrusted Cia Fornaroli’s creative talents with the first performance of his new score,” was how the Rivista nazionale di musica chose to tout an event the composer preferred disowning.22 These irritations were somewhat assuaged when Henri Cain announced a stopover in Nice, thereby affording Alfano the much-needed opportunity to discuss Cyrano de Bergerac. He again insisted on Giordani’s presence, a request reinforced by Maurice. The latter, mainly concerned with the earnings the project might provide, reminded the composer of the exorbitant fee his mother had once demanded for Princesse lointaine. In the absence of a contract or a single note written, Alfano now began planning a premiere cast for “his” Cyrano de Bergerac that foresaw Giacomo Lauri-Volpi as the poet. Rome was next on Alfano’s agenda when performing his Trio at Santa Cecilia. The world premiere of the Second Symphony (conducted by Bernardino Molinari) was then unveiled at the Augusteo on 5 April 1933 as part of the “Second National Exhibition of the Fascist Syndicate of Musicians.” Its score was dedicated to the French musician and musicologist, Maurice Emmanuel. As expected, Della Corte gave the piece a brilliant review in Musica d’oggi. Others, such as L. Colacicchi writing in La rassegna musicale, stressed it to be a fine work by a predominantly operatic composer. The Second Symphony is a fine example of the composer’s later period wherein we find a more subtle and refined musician. It represents, in its fashionable Nietzschean philosophy, “three stations in a man’s life,” with the initial movement (the longest) a recollection of “projects, regrets, hopes, proposals” and “nostalgia” that, in its rhythmic variances, prepares for Cyrano de Bergerac.23 The subsequent movement symbolizes “exile” expressed in a superb largo that, in its haunting and transcendent quality, presents Alfano at his most convincing. The third and final movement (solenne—allegro alla marcia pomposo) is a “triumphant return” of the Nietzschean superman and, with its jazzlike rhythms including the use of piano, proves his awareness of Gershwin with passing reference made Sergei Prokofiev and Maurice Ravel.

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A production of Resurrezione (replacing L’ultimo Lord) opening 12 April at Rome’s Teatro Reale with Cobelli and conducted by Gabriele Santini followed. Mildly apologetic for the score’s anachronisms, Alfano sought refuge in a small room backstage unable to bear the strain of hearing the opera from the theatre’s house speakers. “Contrary to the author’s fears,” however, “the Roman public greeted Resurrezione with approval.”24 The same month witnessed a return of the Second Symphony (conducted by Giulio Cesare Gedda) when performed at the Turin conservatory. Alfano reworked the third movement by developing a theme originally introduced in the first. This, he felt, lent a feeling of symmetry. Della Corte then authored an article clarifying the composer’s reasons for modification. Alfano now revised many earlier works that, as he stated in a letter to de Rensis, had not been “born perfect.”25 The arduous labors involved in creating a symphony were hardly compensated financially, nor, as Alfano reasoned, did many sympathize with the pursuit of an ideal largely void of material interest. He hoped the work would succeed in strengthening an Italian symphonic tradition sorely missing in his native country. Summer found him at his “refuge” in San Remo, where he met up with friends and colleagues (including Ernest Bloch).26 Here, he finally received the published version of his Concerto (Trio) from Suvini Zerboni (Vesuvius soon followed). At the same time, he remained concerned regarding Giordani’s incessant excuses (including having fallen into a prompter’s box!) forbidding discussion of Cyrano de Bergerac. This blatantly emphasized Suvini Zerboni’s disinterest in the project and the seemingly insurmountable difficulties of securing Rostand’s play. Another meeting was also cancelled when Alfano became bedridden with a painful case of lumbago. Meanwhile, Rosemonde Rostand continued to write, and Alfano continued to stall. He was apprehensive to accept her conditions (thirty thousand francs) lest he be unable to secure a publisher and the necessary monetary backing. This, however, did not restrain him from speaking to Giacomo Lauri-Volpi about creating the title role, even if the tenor soberly countered that he would only agree to additional performances if the work proved successful. It was a remark that, Alfano justifiably felt, relayed little faith in the potential project and, ultimately, succeeded in renewing his interest in a oneact opera supplied by Rossato. Fortunately, he had grown disillusioned with short operas that were difficult to compose and nigh impossible to place. Following two lighthearted works, he yearned for a project of substance explicitly aimed at demonstrating his dramatic talent. When meeting the composer in Nice that July, Cain failed to understand why he neglected to proceed with the venture and to secure privately the rights from Rosemonde. The librettist surmised that the sum demanded would certainly be the lowest and final

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offer. Alfano thus again tried convincing Giordani of a San Remo premiere with Lauri-Volpi. The matter increased in complexity when Zandonai now also expressed interest in the work. At a given moment, Mary Garden even offered to finance the project herself. The composer gently refused her infinite generosity, perhaps crediting her association with Resurrezione as sufficient recompense. Fortunately, Zandonai reluctantly discarded Cyrano de Bergerac in favor of an ephemeral Rossato collaboration entitled Mimi Bluette. Contemplating the danger of further procrastination, Alfano followed Cain’s advice and arrived in Paris during mid-August to sign privately a contract with the Rostands. Drawn up was a special concession wherein Madame Rostand agreed that Alfano need initially pay only a portion of the requested amount. Granted was a span of five years in which to complete the work before the entire debt was due. Forfeited, however, would be his payment, should he, during the allotted period, fail to meet the challenge of setting Rostand’s play. The agreement enabled the composer additional time to interest another publisher and, with this in mind, Alfano informed Kalmus that the work would reach completion within two years—a remarkably accurate estimate. He then, when offering Universal Edition the German rights, harped that luck was “an insane and capricious goddess” that might not be “smiling” at them “tomorrow!”27 He again guaranteed that the project’s financial advantages granted the play’s popularity. Hans Heinsheimer, with a placid detachment that must have infuriated Alfano, replied for a Kalmus on holiday that Universal Edition could still decide within the next two years. With Cyrano de Bergerac secured for the future, Alfano turned his attention to a radio broadcast of La leggenda di Sakùntala—still his favorite creation—slated for performance in Turin on 5 September with Franca Somigli and Tullio Serafin. Magda Olivero, still in the first years of her career, performed Anùsuya.28 The composer immediately informed Universal Edition who, with no performances of the opera in Germany, could therefore become better acquainted with the work. An additional letter followed to Mussolini, stating that La leggenda di Sakùntala was “one of the first affirmations of neoItalianism” in opera—“if not the first.”29 Alfano suggested Mussolini hear the broadcast “if only via a mechanical apparatus”30 and, leaving no stone unturned to further the cause of his art, even contacted Casa Ricordi. The composer maintained that the opus had neither suffered nor diminished with age. It remained “as modern today as it was then,” coupled with an exquisite sense of Mediterranean vocalism despite its rich orchestration and eclectic style.31 He also praised Serafin’s magisterial handling of the score’s complexities. An extended sojourn in France and Switzerland followed, where he again met the Rostands. He took the waters at Acqui Terme before returning sufficiently refreshed to begin transforming Cyrano de Bergerac into a viable operatic

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libretto. Act 1 provided him with an assortment of qualms that the play was a “tough bone” indeed,32 even if admitting that the risk had only partially stimulated his attraction. Cain now undertook cuts to acts 1 and 2 in order to render the libretto more serviceable. Alfano, in accordance with the play, originally conceived the opera to incorporate five acts. In late September/early October (1933), he commenced composition with the Valvert duel scene and the song of the cadets. This he considered “fundamental to the spirit, the style, and the work’s entire character.”33 The experience of his recent operas lent a lighter and “more agile” touch to Cyrano’s orchestration, and he now strove to create a score void of elaborations based on a relatively “simple structure” supported by “solid counterpoint.”34 Although the opera contained only one theme—that of the cadets in act 2—it would not, he stressed, be accorded the significance of a leitmotiv. This would, of course, change as work on Cyrano proceeded and additional motifs were woven into the score, lending an important and subtle foundation to the work’s whole. “The operatic Cyrano is Alfano’s Cyrano—no longer that of Rostand,”35 was how the composer chose to describe an opera he knew would suffer from those who criticized his choice of subject. He believed Rostand’s characters, by way of his music, would emerge on another very personal plateau in an opera necessitating judgment from Alfano’s point of view and not Rostand’s. In a similar vein, he countered that Faust no longer pertained wholly to Goethe, but to Gounod, Boito, Schumann, and Berlioz as well, thereby drawing attention that a well-known literary source customarily inspired most libretti. Alfano’s ability to deal with the subtleties of the French language was not only an enormous asset but also a prerequisite. It made one wonder why—apart from the Balzac-inspired Madonna Imperia—he had waited so long to set a chapter of great French literature to music. Initially unveiled at the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre in Paris on 28 December 1897, Rostand’s play has fascinated audiences by its ability to graft a rather poetic text to a swashbuckling revival of French history reminiscent of Dumas père in an era drenched in the symbolism of a Maurice Maeterlinck. Authored to display the talents of the Comédie-Française actor Constant Coquelin, the core of the semi-fictitious legend of Cyrano weighs the importance of character against mere physical beauty. Rostand (1868–1918) was initially drawn to the authentic Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) after having read Théophile Gautier’s Les grotesques, in addition to Cyrano’s philosophic/futurist novels Voyage to the Moon and Voyage to the Sun, wherein the poet’s sharp mind and biting wit become the same lethal weapons that resurface in his letters. (“God created your tongue for swallowing and not for speaking!”) Although Voltaire considered Cyrano “insane” by the time he wrote the work, the latter remained a convinced libertine who questioned the

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Church’s autocratic power, and who sought to clarify religious superstitions. This, considering that both his siblings had taken vows, was a brave step.36 The seigneurial Rostand had enjoyed success with his earlier play La Princesse Lointaine (1895) written for Sarah Bernhardt and beloved by Alfano in vain; however, it was the “comédie-héroïque” Cyrano de Bergerac that ensured his lasting fame, with some four hundred performances between 1897 and 1899. Rostand later recalled that he had written the play with pleasure, but also with the idea of fighting against the tendencies of the time. One critic noted with pride that it in fact forced some fifteen hundred Parisians to alter their scheduled dining hour in order to attend the play’s first act. Cyrano also found its way to the silent screen as early as 1909; the only cinematic version Rostand would be able to enjoy before the infamous “Spanish influenza” ended his life nine years later. Although Cyrano de Bergerac may initially astound the listener due to its bombastic grandeur, the composer essentially focuses on the poetic inner turmoil of his protagonist—thwarted desire and immense loneliness similar to Werther—through whose eyes we experience the work. Alfano has managed to capture the emotions of this antihero (in a subject dealing with purity and honor) in a most sensitive, noble, and subtle manner that captivates by his masterful employment of musical brushstrokes emanating a constantly changing pulse, while remaining at the service of Rostand’s text. Here, Alfano has written music of passion, power, and frustration. The composer’s respect for Rostand’s original is apparent throughout the score; this is especially evident in the care taken in the autumnal final act by musically depicting the falling leaves of “Venetian gold.” Extended portions of the opera (the balcony scene and Cyrano’s death) relate a nocturnal atmosphere in which only darkness provides the protagonist with opportunities of self-expression. Alfano allows the action to unfold while tightly reining in the spectators’ emotions, culminating in one of the most moving final scenes in all of opera, precisely on account of its almost unbearable restraint. The composer reminds us that he is indeed a master portraitist with the haunting lament that accompanies Cyrano’s reading of the letter in the last act (“Roxane . . . Adieu! Je vais mourir”). Here, he entrusts the orchestra to disclose the writer’s identity, while the eerie chords (“Oh! Mais je m’en vais . . . pardon”) recalling Berg’s Lulu (following Schön’s death) convincingly depict Cyrano’s transcendent journey from mortality to dissolution. At the same time, Alfano has taken pains to ensure that Rostand’s text remains audible (including Cyrano’s famed final line, “Mon panache!”), thereby seamlessly bridging a gap between the operatic and the spoken stage. In fact, Alfano once wrote that his goal was to create a musical language resembling speech. Resurrezione is vocal, La leggenda di Sakùntala orchestral, and Cyrano de Bergerac literary.

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The most dominant of the score’s motifs is the love theme majestically concluding the famed balcony scene in act 2. It reappears in act 3 and at the work’s finale. Alfano rises to the occasion of the balcony scene with the same hushed intimacy employed in some of his art songs. More than just sensuality, there is genuine expression of Cyrano’s pain—apparent from the first to last note of his role. Alfano focuses attention on the play’s most famous scenes and, for this reason, makes remaining portions of the score appear uneven and less inspired. Still, this is his most heroic score and, regardless of one’s judgment, masterfully constructed. Alfano splendidly imbues the translucent orchestration with a voice all its own, thereby enabling it to participate as a kind of narrator complemented by captivating harmonies supporting Turandot-inspired vocal parts. The opera is not a total abnegation of former styles, however. Elements remain recalling Resurrezione in their urgency and immediacy. This is especially apparent in the Mussorgsky-inspired choral segments of act 3 that, in their timelessness and immensity, could well have suited inclusion into act 4 of the Tolstoy opera. Cyrano de Bergerac is the product of a postimpressionistic Alfano of the French school and, together with Resurrezione, his most inspired and stage-worthy opera as well as a final summation of his most valuable attributes. The fact that the work contains two major tenor roles is also noteworthy. The composer believed that Cyrano marked an era in his operatic output and perhaps that of Italy, while acutely aware that many would chide him for any alterations to a text prized for its immense lyricism. To this, however, he countered that music begins where poetry ends. Massenet would have been proud. In the interim, Ricordi published his Second Symphony. Planned also was a hearing paired with the Due intermezzi that November in Paris. Giordani also foresaw performances of Cyrano in the French capital, although definite plans for a contract remained noticeably absent. Alfano’s dealings with Universal Edition were also stagnant following L’ultimo Lord. His final letters to Kalmus overflow with elegantly concealed irritation related to the firm’s disinterest in promoting his works in the German-speaking realm: I failed to receive any news regarding the broadcast of my Sakùntala of which I made you aware. This really is a shame, being a work German [speaking] countries must produce. . . . I have taken note of the [scheduled] German season and the multitude of operas performed that are not all famous. Is it possible that Universal [Edition] is not able to place Madonna Imperia or Sakùntala??? I hope that one of these days Universal [Edition] will insist . . . and that they will, above all, become convinced that these works are not inferior—either musically or theatrically—to those currently performed.37

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At year’s end, the composer, in a slightly facetious manner, wrote Kalmus, “Publicity, publicity! Otherwise all dies! . . . L’art pour l’art!!! And you, dear Mr Kalmus, you yourself are too much of an artist to fail to appreciate all the effort and sacrifice inherent in the name of art!”38 Gone indeed were the days of “the much-regretted Monsieur Hertzka.”39

NOTES 1. Alfano to Kalmus, 13 February 1932 (V). 2. Alfano to Mussolini, 1 March 1932 (ACS). 3. Alfano to Mussolini, 1 March 1932 (ACS). 4. Alfano to Mussolini, 1 March 1932 (ACS). 5. Alfano to Kalmus, 8 March 1932 (V). 6. Alfano to Rossato, 22 May 1932, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 831. 7. Alfano to Hertzka, 11 April 1932 (V). 8. Alfano to Hertzka, 11 April 1932 (V). 9. Alfano to Hertzka, 11 April 1932 (V). 10. Alfano to Rossato, 22 May 1932, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 831. 11. Alfano to Rossato, 22 May 1932, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 832. 12. Alfano to Giordani, 13 June 1932, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 884. 13. Alfano to Vivarelli, 26 July 1932 (AASR). 14. Alfano customarily referred to his songs as Lieder. 15. La stampa, Turin, LXVI–300, 17 December 1932, quoted in Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 24. 16. Mary Garden’s Story, 229–30. 17. Mary Garden’s Story, 268–69. 18. Kalmus to Alfano, 16 December 1932 (V). 19. Alfano to Kalmus, 27 December 1932 (V). 20. Sue Lloyd, “Edmond Eugène Joseph Alexis Rostand.” Royal Opera, Covent Garden, 8 May 2006. Program notes for Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac. 21. Lloyd, “Rostand.” 22. “Balletti italiani da camera al Casino municipale di San Remo,” Rivista nazionale di musica 14 (February 1933): 296–97. A former ballerina, Fornaroli served as director of La Scala’s school of dance. 23. Alfano to Mario Vivarelli, 26 December 1933 (AASR). 24. Lia Cei Marinuzzi, Il Signore del golfo mistico (Florence: Sansoni, 1982), 310. 25. Alfano to Raffaello de Rensis, 12 May 1933, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 750. 26. Alfano to Suvini Zerboni, 2 June 1933, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 891. 27. Alfano to Kalmus, 17 August 1933 (V). 28. The artist, aged 97, could still sing portions of the role from memory when conversing with the author in December 2007.

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29. Alfano to Mussolini, 1 September 1933 (ACS). 30. Alfano to Mussolini, 1 September 1933 (ACS). 31. Alfano to de Rensis, 9 September 1933, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 751. 32. Alfano to Giordani, 7 October 1933, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 895. 33. Della Corte, Ritratto, 95. 34. Della Corte, Ritratto, 96. 35. Alfano to Cesare Paglia, 27 June 1936 (AASR). 36. A great deal of speculation surrounds the vita of the authentic Cyrano that stands in opposition to Rostand’s elegant portrayal. His death certificate actually remained undiscovered until 1910, while the cause seems to have resulted from a falling log. However, it remains uncertain whether this was merely an accident or a successful attempt at murder. He was not of noble birth, and some of his love letters—originally destined for male recipients—were readdressed. 37. Alfano to Kalmus, 16 October 1933 (V). 38. Alfano to Kalmus, undated, December (?) 1933 (V). 39. Alfano to Kalmus, undated, December (?) 1933 (V).

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arly 1934 provided Alfano with the opportunity to hear some of his songs and instrumental music performed. Florence commenced, with the Sonata for Piano and Cello during February, followed by the first Roman presentation of his concerto at the Reale Accademia Filarmonica Romana on 12 March (with Alfredo Casella, Alberto Poltronieri, and Arturo Bonucci). Maria Pedrini also lent her able talent to a hearing of his Tre liriche at the Augusteo on 31 March conducted by Bernardino Molinari. Venice was then the location for the impressive Second Symphony conducted by Gregor Fitelberg at La Fenice, with a second presentation in April at Florence’s Teatro Comunale as part of the XII Festival of the International Society of Contemporary Music. The beginning of April also witnessed a “first class” production of Madonna Imperia at San Remo’s Teatro del Casinó. Gilda Dalla Rizza’s superb assumption of the title role again confirms that this work (similar to others in the composer’s canon) flourished when performed by a consummate singing actress possessing the necessary magnetism to counter successfully the score’s shortcomings. Alfano felt that the Vienna Opera could have learned an important lesson from this exemplary revival, still, following some seven years, regretting their “poorly selected artists.”1 He was essentially correct when surmising that the work was “small, but that it pleases if performed well!”2 Paris witnessed Mary Garden’s final assumption of Katiusha when Resurrezione opened at the Opéra-Comique with René Maison as Dimitri. The “staging” and the soprano’s portrayal were “very impressive,” combining “her talents as singer and musician with that of a great actress.”3 On the verge of retirement, she still brought unbridled passion to a challenging role that had made her one of its supreme interpreters. Age failed to be a factor when the sixty-year-old artist proved capable of making the heroine’s innocence spring 131

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to life.4 Reviews remained complimentary, with an especially flattering critique appearing in Comoedia that placed special emphasis on her riveting use of speech in act 2: Her grace, the delicious freshness of her voice [and] her dramatic speaking overwhelmed more than one member of the audience. Tenderness was followed by strong emotion without warning; a talent that earned her warm applause the other evening. Katiusha in Résurrection is not a gracious Mélisande, the small figure lost between dreams and amorous passion, but a woman brutally snatched from her illusions and plunged into total physical and moral ruin. With touching tenderness, Mary Garden personified at the beginning the faith of youth dazzled by love. Then, with sorrowing fire, with unusual power, she expressed doubt, anguish, and abandoned herself to the bitter disillusion, which Prince Dimitri’s complete indifference produced in her.5

Garden brought yet another chapter in Alfano’s life to a close when announcing her retirement following the final performance on 29 May. The fêted composer, with numerous awards earned in the past including Italy’s Commandante de la Coronna d’Italia and France’s prestigious Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur now sought, by way of his own nomination, to become a full member (“sociétaire definitive”) of the same country’s Society of Authors (S.A.C.E.M.) after joining the establishment in 1909.6 His collaboration with Cain on Cyrano and the hope of later receiving money from the society may have initially prompted the act. Contemporaneously hoping that Bologna’s Edizioni Pizzi would come to his aid, Alfano remained searching for an Italian publisher to issue the orchestral version of his Tre liriche. However, the composer, following Umberto Pizzi’s death, was soon informed—via Alfred Kalmus—that his widow no longer envisioned a possibility. A similar fate hovered over the still-unpublished Due intermezzi and, of course, Cyrano. It was to Universal Edition that he soon mentioned having written Cyrano’s first three acts in a schemata still incorporating “five” (mirroring Rostand’s original), before opting to combine the play’s final two when forming act 4 of his own version.7 Finally, in March 1935, Alfano was able to send the president of S.A.C.E.M. a letter expressing his “profound and sincere gratitude” at becoming a full member.8 He was, at this time, also nominated to become a member of the fascist Accademia d’Italia. However, as the influential critic Nicola D’Atri was quick to point out to Zandonai (who won), neither Alfano nor the gentle-mannered Cilèa stood much of a chance. Both failed to write operas of a “national character” or adapt libretti to the fascistically revered talents of D’Annunzio.9 Alfano never did become an accademico.

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In April, the composer informed Kalmus that Cyrano would reach completion “within a few months. Rome’s Teatro Regio will perform it . . . which will be an exceptional event. I believe they will also be paying a large sum to a publisher. Would you (before I offer it elsewhere) like to have it? I believe you would be making an excellent deal.”10 A reply from Universal Edition was not forthcoming. Suvini Zerboni also expressed no interest in the opera, and it remained, even at this stage, without a publisher. Suvini Zerboni was mainly concerned with Vesuvius; on 29 June, Alfano wrote that work on Cyrano impeded his concentrating on anything else. He added, however, that the opera would be finished within “the shortest time,”11 thereby enabling him to revise Vesuvius following its “unfortunate” San Remo premiere two years earlier. Matters of greater importance lay at stake when Casa Ricordi agreed to publish Cyrano, making it the first (and last) opera the firm accepted since La leggenda di Sakùntala. Still, Alfano, before approaching Ricordi, undertook one last effort to raise the question with Universal Edition, even if their partially negative response—a sole interest in the work’s German-language rights— became less dramatic in view of the Milanese offer. The Due intermezzi, on the other hand, remained a seemingly insoluble problem. Kalmus blamed the miserably low sales of sheet music on the poor market as well as on radio and other forms of mechanical reproduction. He supplied scores to conductors and critics, he confided, merely as a form of advertisement. His final proposal provided that Alfano pay for a facsimile edition. There was such little interest at Universal Edition that it reverberated in a complete absence of his works in Germany, as well as a total lack of royalties for the initial half of 1935. The situation sparked a petulant letter from the composer, stating that royalties stemming from two recent productions of Madonna Imperia (amounting to thirty-nine hundred lire) were hardly “insignificant” to him.12 Alfano cancelled a trip to Vienna upon receiving word that payment had been forestalled because of debts owed from an advance on L’ultimo Lord (an opera failing to generate revenues). There is reason to suppose that he never again saw Kalmus. The latter, correctly surmising the peril of remaining in Austria, left for London where, on 1 July 1936, he founded the British branch of Universal Edition. The company’s stocks were then forcibly sold to “Aryans” for a fraction of their worth. Shortly thereafter, Casa Ricordi published a superb edition of Cyrano de Bergerac. Alfano immediately sent Mussolini a score accompanied by a letter penned on Ricordi stationery heralding his triumphant return. The missive’s raison d’être essentially served to draw attention to the opera’s world premiere now slated for 22 January 1936 at Rome’s Teatro Reale with Maria Caniglia and José Luccioni. Tullio Serafin, after insisting on creating the work, was

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entrusted with the task. Alfano had originally heard Luccioni when playing, the previous year, portions of the score for the director of the OpéraComique. After witnessing the tenor’s Radames, he felt Luccioni brought to the role a perfect combination of Italian sound and French diction, regardless if Cyrano’s Italian world premiere employed a vernacular version by Cesare Meano and Filippo Brusa. The opera was a critical success, with Musica d’oggi fully realizing why Alfano, “given his temperament pulsating with an abundance of romanticism,” originally chose “to musically re-evoke the legendary Cyrano de Bergerac.” The balcony scene of act 2 impressed with its “refined lyrical expression” as did the splendid final act, where “all is immersed in an infinite autumnal melancholy.”13 Here, the review fittingly described the brilliance of the unity of Alfano’s music and Rostand’s verse. Others, such as the blatantly envious Zandonai, suggested the premiere was anything but a triumph. In fact, he blamed the “fool” Alfano for making the same fatal error Mascagni had with Parisina. . . . Successful were only the many discussions following the work. All the critics praise the opera’s workmanship and the author’s capabilities, though not one has the courage to speak of the rest . . . the play’s true spirit. Everyone is content believing Rostand to be the true protagonist . . . and poor Cyrano remains cheated. . . . Let’s hope he [Alfano] did not also set the stage directions to music.14

A condescending Nicola D’Atri merely commiserated with Zandonai, leaving for Milan on the eve of the premiere to avoid facing his “friend” Alfano. They were unable, owing to their own shortsightedness and personal involvement with Rostand’s works, to recognize Alfano’s exemplary treatment. Of all people, Rossato now also shared Zandonai’s caustic criticism concerning “the fool Alfano”15 who, according to him, had assassinated both Cyrano and himself in the process. He then drew attention to the (very slight) resemblances marking the song of the cadets to that of the cavaliers in his and Zandonai’s own I cavalieri di Ekebù. The publication of Andrea Della Corte’s monograph Ritratto di Franco Alfano appeared perfectly timed to coincide with the premiere. Politics also played a substantial (and largely underestimated) role in Cyrano’s reviews. A noticeable example was Alberto Gasco who, in La tribuna, wrote, “A few months ago, Alfano demonstrated hesitance in signing a manifesto of Italian neo-romanticism. Following Cyrano’s epilogue [sic] his hesitations no longer have a raison d’être.”16 Gasco (and Zandonai) had been one of the signatories of the infamous “Manifesto of Italian Musicians for the Tradition of Nineteenth-Century Romantic Art” in 1932.

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Thereupon followed Ottorino Respighi’s premature death. It added Alfano’s name to a list of composers (including Malipiero, Pizzetti, and Zandonai) considered to lead Rome’s Accademia di Santa Cecilia. The position was nevertheless eventually filled by “Pizzetti’s request to place himself there.”17 This implied that Alfano, at least for the time being, would remain in Turin. It left time to concentrate on Cyrano de Bergerac’s premiere at the OpéraComique in Cain’s original French adaptation. According to various accounts, either Lillie Grandval or a certain Dosia as Roxane partnered Luccioni’s Cyrano.18 Albert Wolff, director of the Concerts Pasdeloup, conducted the entire run spanning three performances. Alfano was able to write the critic Cesare Paglia following the premiere that “Cyrano had an absolutely tumultuous success in Paris!” Reviews were deferential; the critics even suppressed their irritation at an Italian composer’s (who, in fact, was half-French) refashioning one of their most esteemed plays for the operatic stage. This again led Alfano to reiterate, “Once a musician chooses a subject already dramatized,” he recreates it, thus making it his own, even if employing large portions of the original text.19 Proof of this, he felt, was in his conception of Roxane, which distanced itself considerably from her rather anemic literary counterpart. Operas, the composer countered, required a personal evaluation based on individual merits and defects rather than incessant comparison to literary origins. Apart from the quibbles and irksome remarks, Alfano remained convinced that Parisians had inordinately welcomed the new work. In June, he finally found time to pay tribute to Respighi in an official commemoration held at the conservatory, followed by a concert requiring his pianistic abilities. He also, a few weeks later, was able to write Rossato that La Scala planned a production of Madonna Imperia the following year. This, similar to his Ricordi reentry, was a major reversal of fortune. It again points to Toscanini’s departure and possibly Tito’s mediation. Since Vienna, he had come to realize the importance of selecting his singers. For Imperia he envisioned a dramatic soprano such as Gina Cigna. It is significant that he considered one of the most formidable Turandots of the day suited for a role whose vocal writing echoes Puccini’s score. How the robust Cigna would have portrayed the courtesan seemed to matter less. The composer reminisced about the “imbecile Schalk” having presented the world premiere in an inverted manner with a “lyric soprano and a dramatic tenor” instead.20 He now toyed with the idea of cancelling the entire production, should La Scala’s cast fail to satisfy his expectations. This became a central issue preceding the premiere, as did additional text alterations he performed personally (without affecting notes) to seek liberation from Rossato. He also took it upon himself to inform the recently self-appointed director of La Scala, Jenner Mataloni, that he proposed Maria Caniglia, Giuseppina Cobelli, or the

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“intelligentissima” Franca Somigli for the title role. Somigli’s selection derived from her looks and the fact that Alfano had appreciated her interpretation of Sakùntala during a 1933 Turin radio broadcast. His influence governing prospective singers signified an acute advancement accompanying his La Scala return even if he did, in the interim, regret an entire decade having passed since Madonna Imperia’s 1927 Turin premiere. The year 1937 began in Rome with Alfano taking part in a panel of judges comprising Zandonai, Pizzetti, Mascagni, Mulè, Edoardo Vitale, and Mario Labroca to select one opera from twenty-five submitted. There were no winners. This was followed by yet another failed attempt to become a member of the Accademia d’Italia when, on 25 March, Felicina Brezzi, wife of Senator Giuseppe Brezzi, wrote a letter from Turin to Mussolini asking him to hear her “humble prayer” to consider the composer.21 It remains uncertain whether Alfano in fact generated the request or was even aware of Brezzi’s letter. On 31 March, Mussolini’s private secretary, Osvaldo Sebastiani, stated the necessity of receiving and reviewing the composer’s curriculum vitae prior to consideration. In the interim, Vincenzo Bellezza conducted Alfano’s Divertimento (for orchestra and piano published by Ricordi in 1935) at Florence’s Teatro Comunale. This preceded Madonna Imperia’s La Scala premiere on 26 April. Giuseppe Antonicelli led his wife, Somigli, Bruno Landi, and Ernesto Badini—a cast that must wholly have satisfied the composer, despite their being only two performances. The next day he returned to Turin. Naples followed, from where he undertook his second journey to South America— Buenos Aires this time—for the Teatro Colón’s premiere of Cyrano de Bergerac slated to open 31 May. August found the composer relaxing on the beach at Bordighera with his conservatory colleague, Giorgio Federico Ghedini. Gino Marinuzzi returned to Alfano’s music when conducting the La Scala orchestra on 20 October for a performance of the Due intermezzi at Milan’s Teatro del Popolo. A concert held three days earlier at Meran’s Casino Principale again featured Alfano in the company of Pick-Mangiagalli and Albéniz (alongside Beethoven and Rossini). Introduced to Paolo Civil and Giuseppina Sani while attending rehearsals of Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini in Turin, he now scheduled the artists for a Roman radio broadcast of Resurrezione on 24 October. Conducted by Edoardo Vitale, the opera introduced the twenty-seven-year-old Magda Olivero as Katiusha, and an even more youthful Tito Gobbi singing Simonson. The composer of course knew Olivero from Turin (and her portrayal of Anùsuya in La leggenda di Sakùntala), where she coached the role with Marthe at the conservatory prior to the broadcast. Still at the onset of her career and with

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tremendous agility in alto, the soprano, until that time, had been singing such lighter fare as Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Nannetta (Falstaff ), Gilda, Sophie, Zerlina, and Micaela. Recent performances as Cio-Cio-San signified her first essaying into more spinto roles, with the artist’s overwhelming interpretive powers convincing Alfano to engage her for a role whose vocal emphasis (and forceful use of parlando) nevertheless remains centered at mid-range. Intrigue sought to prohibit Olivero’s essaying of the role when Emilica Vera, a soprano whose fascist affiliations placed her in a position of strategic influence, demanded the part for herself. Alfano was understandably livid and refused to rescind Olivero’s contract. This perilously delicate situation was resolved when Vera became ill, thereby enabling Olivero to demonstrate her enormous potential and sweeping intensity. Immensely impressed, the composer instantly wrote Giordano, drawing his attention to the young artist who “lives the role she performs and who suffers with the character! Recently, in the radio broadcast from Rome, she enjoyed an enormous personal success in the part! Her voice—clear, penetrating, expressive—and her natural musicality mean that she is certainly destined to have a brilliant career.”22 Olivero continued to sing the role—albeit somewhat sporadically—until the 1970s. The year 1938 commenced with two lackluster Neapolitan performances of Cyrano de Bergerac on the heels of Cain’s recent Parisian death on 21 November last. A few months later, Paolo Giordani took up renewed contact with Alfano. He was concerned their relations may have suffered because of his refusal to publish Cyrano, as well as an offer for a Vesuvius that seemed slow in coming. Meanwhile, the composer performed his Sonata for Violin and Piano alongside the Second String Quartet at Berlin’s Singakademie (honoring the German-Italian Society). Thereupon followed a hearing of his concerto in Jena. The triumphant reception heralding these concerts was well beyond his expectation. Madonna Imperia presented itself in Naples for two performances with the charming Gilda Dalla Rizza in a double bill including Pick-Mangiagalli’s Notturno romantico and Respighi’s ballet Gli uccelli. It preceded a rather unfortunate incident in Turin, causing Alfano to be replaced temporarily at the conservatory by Ghedini who, since 1936, coveted the position of vice director. The latter, speaking badly of Alfano to his students, initiated a current of gossip that eventually led to Alfano’s resignation. This was the fruit of having entrusted Ghedini with the adaptation of L’ultimo Lord’s piano/vocal score, enabling entry into Universal Edition.23 Alfano’s works were insufficiently popular to allow him to relinquish a career in academia; he was therefore subjected to what he now deemed to be a “life sentence” solely lightened by the process of creation. Creation in this

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instance signified what evolved to become his final opera, Il dottor Antonio (Doctor Antonio). In a letter to Giordani dated 19 June, he confirms Suvini Zerboni’s willingness to publish an operatic adaptation inspired by Giovanni Ruffini’s English-language novel of the same name. Interest seems to have originally stemmed from Mario Ghisalberti, a librettist who previously collaborated with Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari on La vedova scaltra, Il campiello, and Das Dumme Mädchen, and who would provide Alfano with the libretto to his newest project. Suvini Zerboni, perhaps regretting not having accepted Cyrano de Bergerac, was determined to embrace the new venture. Il dottor Antonio’s libretto was soon complete, and Ghisalberti presented it to an enthusiastic composer in Genoa on 27 August. The project served to revitalize instantly his relations with the firm (Giordani now became “caro amico”), and he planned that both he and Ghisalberti meet with Giordani in September. In the meantime, however, he was off to Venice for a convention of conservatory directors presided over by Giuseppe Bottai. It remains uncertain whether Alfano, during his earlier trip to Berlin that May, arranged a run of Resurrezione, or whether Universal Edition, due to Suvini Zerboni’s sudden interest—and the loss of Kalmus and Heinsheimer—enabled the possibility. The opera was performed in a new German translation by the conductor Erich Orthmann and Hans Hartleb at the Theater des Westens. The composer, in attendance, enjoyed a cast boasting Emmy Stoll and Franz Klarwein, with Hartleb doubling as stage director. Twenty performances lasting until December made one sympathize with Alfano’s incomprehension at Universal Edition’s disinterest in promoting the score. In October, the composer returned to Turin for two radio broadcasts of L’ultimo Lord with Magda Olivero singing the part of Freddie for the first (and last) time in her career. He remained hopeful that Giordani would acquire L’ultimo Lord and, with this in mind, begged him to listen to the second broadcast, which, thanks to Olivero, he considered perfect. Work on Il dottor Antonio was temporarily halted in November for an additional trip to Berlin and Leipzig for concerts of his own music. The harsh climate succeeded in his contracting an ear infection that stubbornly carried on for weeks, making his sojourn less than pleasant. He nevertheless, in an effort to save time, informed Giordani of his decision to undertake alterations to Il dottor Antonio in full score. Perhaps for this very reason, he refused to attend a performance of his Second Symphony in Hannover conducted by Rudolf Krasselt in January 1939. Instead, he lent his presence to rehearsals for an upcoming Nicola Benois-designed Resurrezione at the Rome Opera conducted by Oliviero de Fabritiis with Giuseppina Cobelli, Alessandro Granda, and Gino Bechi. He then, joined by Vittorio Brero and Theo Schürgers, performed his concerto at the same city’s Sala Pichetti.

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At this point, a procrastinating Alfano informed Giordani from Turin of his desire to again take up work on Il dottor Antonio. He also planned to ask Ghisalberti for additional text, which became act 2, scene 1, deeming it necessary for the public to know what has happened to the heroine in the eight-year interim separating acts 1 and 2. All of this, Alfano felt, including “her life in London, her broken health, her anguish at not having found Antonio in Bordighera at her return on that rainy day in March . . . all this must be [made] clear to the listener.” Wishing to progress unhindered with the composition of act 1, Alfano purposely forestalled in proposing this alteration to Ghisalberti. A Milanese concert on 3 February at which he accompanied some of his songs performed by the soprano Paola Della Torre was, he felt, a superb chance for a meeting regarding the new scene he deemed “indispensable for the work’s general harmony.”24 Magda Olivero sang a great many of Alfano’s stage works during 1939, commencing with two performances of Cyrano de Bergerac at Turin’s Teatro della Moda partnered by Antonio Melandri and led by Serafin. The composer also ensured that she receive an edition of the score incorporating his most recent revisions. This reached the artist, accompanied by a letter defining the role to be “very important, a bit high, but not at all superficial,” incorporating “much grace, much finesse, much heroism, much pain—and Magda Olivero will be all of these!!!”25 The critics agreed. The Gazzetta del popolo opined, “The part of Roxane suited her better than one could imagine.”26 The soprano made additional important role debuts that year. These included her first essaying of Adriana Lecouvreur for a Roman radio broadcast only a few days prior to taking on the demanding protagonist in La leggenda di Sakùntala for EIAR (Ente Italiano Audizioni Radiofoniche) conducted by Armando La Rosa Parodi. Olivero doubtless shared much of the credit for reviewers’ heralding the work to be “one of the more impressive, interesting, and original operas of the first half of the twentieth-century.”27 On 14 December, the composer Carlo Jachino sent Mussolini’s secretary, Sebastiani, a letter from Rome’s Albergo Continentale (using the informal form of address) forwarding Alfano’s request for a meeting with the dictator. He took the opportunity afforded him to remind Sebastiani of his own “aspirations in succeeding Mo Alfano” as director of the Turin conservatory, a position he would never gain.28 Turning sixty-five the following year, Alfano doubtless wished to discuss his future—and a new position—with Mussolini. Residing at the same hotel, he sent the dictator a letter one day before returning to Turin. Mussolini, believing the composer in Rome, immediately issued a telegram inviting him to the Palazzo Venezia the very same evening. Embarrassed, Alfano formally excused himself for his failure to appear, “never imagining that the Duce would so promptly have granted” him “an audience.”29

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He returned to Rome for rehearsals of La leggenda di Sakùntala in January 1940, and it was then that he again requested another date, which finally took place on the 18th. Sebastiani wrote two drafts before cabling a response, while the Messaggero deemed the reunion sufficiently worthy to inform its readers of Alfano’s having presented Mussolini with a copy of his “new [sic] opera.” It seems fathomable in the absence of documentation that Mussolini suggested Alfano accept the directorship of Palermo’s Teatro Massimo—a post commencing in November. Reaching retirement age and still lacking sufficient funds, Alfano had little choice other than to submit. A prestigious theatre, the Massimo nonetheless signified excessive bureaucracy that, similar to Turin, would leave sparse time for composition. On 27 January, he again wrote Mussolini extending an invitation to attend either the premiere or the second performance of La leggenda di Sakùntala. This time, however, Mussolini was officially “away from Rome” when the opera opened on the 30th with Magda Olivero. A run of Resurrezione followed at the Naples’ San Carlo with the verismo soprano Augusta Oltrabella, Antonio Melandri as Dimitri, and an exceedingly young Giuseppe Taddei as Simonson. Mario Ghisalberti, librettist designate for Il dottor Antonio, acted as stage director with atmospheric sets supplied by Benois. During early June, Alfano opted to spend a few days in Siena, Florence, and San Gimignano—where he also chanced to see Ghedini. Their rapport may have improved somewhat in view of the fact that Alfano had left his post at the conservatory the very same month.30 Ludovico Rocca replaced him. Having written his most important works including Il Dibuk (1934) and Monte Ivnor (1939), Rocca, similar to his predecessor, was now “completely sacrificed to the Turin Conservatory.”31 Alfano’s intermittent liberty left the summer free to work on the revision of L’ombra di Don Giovanni prior to a Roman broadcast of Resurrezione on 18 August with the famed mezzo-soprano Gianna Pederzini, for whom he had also lowered the score. An exceptional and highly sensuous artist with a supple if somewhat unremarkable voice, Pederzini commanded respect for her superb characterizations that placed a mark on everything she sang. Endowed with immense personal charm and great femininity, she became one of Italy’s most sought-after artists for such roles as Carmen, Zandonai’s Conchita, and the bubbly Preziosilla in La forza del destino. She also had the fascists’ backing in the person of Roberto Farinacci, “one of the most ruthless and uncouth of the Duce’s immediate inferiors” and with whom she had an affair.32 This, of course, placed her in a position of enormous influence, although her talent made it superfluous. She thereby joined the ranks of Garden, Cobelli, and Olivero in becoming one of the opera’s foremost interpreters.

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Alfano’s freedom ended abruptly when, on 1 November, he reluctantly succeeded Cardenio Botti as sovrintendente of the Teatro Massimo. He had, within six days of assuming the post, written Beniamino Gigli arranging performances of Un ballo in maschera honoring the fortieth anniversary of Verdi’s death. Alfano was also president of the Accademia Musiche Contemporanee and, on 22 January 1941, offered Wilhelm Furtwängler (as a “great friend of Italy”) honorary membership.33 Always interested in nurturing the talents of a younger generation, he now turned his attention to Guido Pannain, immediately scheduling his Maeterlinck-based opera Intrusa at the Teatro Massimo. He additionally wrote Giordani that Suvini Zerboni should consider publishing some of the composer/musicologist’s works, including Beatrice Cenci. Germany celebrated Alfano’s sixty-fifth birthday (one year late) on 8 March 1941, with an array of newspapers referring to him as one of Italy’s most respected composers. His name was now increasingly mentioned in connection with Turandot, initiating a malignant trend eventually growing grotesquely disproportionate. Some newspapers erroneously assumed Resurrezione had premiered in Germany only two years previously; this error was perhaps promulgated by the vernacular title Auferstehung, given the fact that Berlin had presented the opera in a new translation entitled Katjuscha. The press, when touting his talent, harped on his years spent in Leipzig, his meeting Grieg, and his familiarity with the works of Strauss and Max Reger. From Florence, Alfano again wrote Mussolini, drawing attention to the forthcoming Teatro Comunale premiere of Don Juan de Manara (alias L’ombra di Don Giovanni) forming part of the year’s Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. His main aim, however, was to complain of his cumbersome “administrative responsibilities” in Palermo, which he deemed “anti-artistic.”34 Worse, he felt, was taking up residence (“almost an exile”) to carry out his job.35 It was an important and genuinely intimate letter wherein, for the first and last time (in any of his correspondence), he mentions the death of his son Herbert in World War I, eloquently reasoning that his vita had already suffered an overabundance of sacrifice. Ricordi’s freshly published score of Don Juan de Manara accompanied these undiluted and elegiac expressions of grief. A response remained absent for a month, while the Duce’s secretary fretted over how to dispose of the parcel.36 The world premiere of Don Juan de Manara sported such splendid artists as Beniamino Gigli, Iva Pacetti, Fedora Barbieri, and Gino Bechi performing the still-excessively difficult score the composer now sought to make accessible. Gigli took pride in the opportunity to study the title role with Alfano, regardless if Don Juan de Manara remained one of his most strenuous assignments. A matter of immediate concern was the fiendishly high tessitura, a trademark Alfano called into being in the original version. “The initial difficulty,” the

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artist maintained, was in the recitatives. “A dialogue partially-sung, partiallyspoken, is, in a full-length opera, customarily held within the center of the voice. Instead, Alfano had written recitatives as if they were arias, full of [high] A and B flats. . . . I found it absurd and, since we were friends, took the liberty of telling him. He eventually consented to change all of my recitatives in Don Juan de Manara to the normal medium register.”37 Yet another misgiving for the divo remained the absence of his own aria, with Gigli now insisting Alfano refashion the soprano’s part in a portion of the act 2 Giovanni/Vannina duet to serve as a tenor air. However, considering that what evolved to become “Tu vedi in un bel ciel” was in fact new to the score and had not appeared in L’ombra di Don Giovanni, and considering that it bore no relation to the opera’s idiom, implies it to be an original creation aimed at demonstrating the unique caressing quality of Gigli’s instrument.38 Andrea Della Corte perceptively wrote that it resembled Des Grieux’s “En fermant les yeux” in act 2 of Manon: “pleasant, of certain success, and [yet] incoherent as the sole interruption, the only blemish, in the opera’s style.” Important for the tenor, though, was that the aria received the most applause. There was little Alfano failed to alter in Don Juan de Manara since its original conception as L’ombra di Don Giovanni. This unique opera, which defies categorization, now became an Azione drammatica, resulting in enormous concessions to make the score appear tamer and less avant-garde. The many alterations enabled a leaner, more coherent and subdued orchestration, however. It resulted in a less complex score, while the work’s revised title sought to avoid comparison to Mozart’s libertine. The masterful orchestral prelude (fortunately retained from L’ombra di Don Giovanni) leads to a freshly conceived introduction (Proemio) consisting of female voices and solo bass, informing the spectator—in a style reminiscent of Gregorian chant—of Don Giovanni Tenorio’s return to earth seeking expiation for his sins in the guise of Don Juan de Manara. Act 1 commences with the Leonello/Rinuccio scene, albeit void of Orsetta’s role. The score’s transposition is glaringly apparent upon Vannina’s entrance, where a high C now becomes an A natural. A significant portion of the text was also altered, which created a more readily comprehensible synopsis that seeks to avoid the mawkishness of Moschino’s original. The entire work has grown increasingly tonal and friendly to the voice. The act 1 finale concedes to greater brevity. A deletion of the entire (and rather lengthy) Giovanni/Orsetta duet in act 2 has greatly reduced the work’s overall length, with the composer transferring Giovanni’s words to Rinuccio. Also considerably shorn is the orchestral interlude depicting Giovanni’s “transformation” in the love duet. Largely misunderstood in L’ombra di Don Giovanni, the transformation, through Alfano’s textual alterations, is explained by the fact that we are dealing with a figment

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of Vannina’s imagination. A somewhat tasteless concession remarkably at odds with the work’s style remains Giovanni’s aforementioned saccharine “Tu vedi in un bel ciel,” which, incapable of taking root, seems culled from the work of a bygone era (Chopin’s Tristesse). Radically transformed has been act 3. Orsetta’s music now serves a chorus of sopranos, with complete deletions of the trumpeter Colombano and, mercifully, the melodramatic D’Annunzian bathos of fastening Vannina to a cross. Shortened has also been the adjoining interlude describing her flight to the Cinarca castle. Gigli, incredibly, received a second scena in act 3, scene 2, thanks to the newly composed “Dammi un cuore,” a nostalgic soliloquy expressly written to court success. Significant portions of the final duet have been reworked (new text and major vocal alterations) in addition to a chorus added at the work’s conclusion. Originally inspired by Francesca da Rimini and Salome, the opera now concludes sans the visibly bloody slaughter, thereby respecting Alfano’s customary quest for redemption. It remains a milestone in the composer’s artistic development, regardless if the tamer revision employs a retrogressive stance prefiguring the majority of his future endeavors that, in this particular case, perhaps robs the work of its initial raison d’être. History relates that the opera’s Florentine premiere on 28 May 1941 was, contrary to Gigli and the composer’s “triumph,” largely unsuccessful. The tenor later maintained that the opera failed following its removal from the refined and discerning audience constituting the Florence May Festival. He also felt that the scenario ultimately handicapped the work. “The misfortune,” the artist recalled, “is that we must accept [Giovanni’s] libertinism with closed eyes . . . he is redeemed from the first moment. There is no conflict, no contrasting situations, and no drama worth mentioning. . . . This Don Juan advances with firm steps upon a virtuous path.”39 Stagnancy, wherein almost all action is realized internally, also characterized a major portion of La leggenda di Sakùntala. Gigli remained the production’s major asset (with Alfano even mentioning the artist in a letter to Mussolini), serving a particularly fortuitous function when soothing critical opinion. Reviewers thus admired his act 1 narrative, the act 2 duet sporting the romanza “Io vedo [sic] in un bel ciel,” and the opera’s finale.40 The fascist paper La gazzetta del popolo agreed that interest in the opera centered on the psychological rather than the dramatic, in a work made up “of an extended duet between the two protagonists” commented on by the chorus.41 Moreover, Della Corte, while having the courage to deride Gigli’s aria, explained that the opera no longer was “about Don Giovanni Tenorio, but Don Giovanni Manara,” and therefore was “not a drama of erotic adventures and swordfights, but of hate, repentance, and redemption.”42

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Alfano wrote Mussolini from Rome on 21 October desperate for a solution to his Sicilian “exile.” He informed the dictator that “a musician has need of many things but, above all, to [be able to] breathe in a vast atmosphere, and to be able to feel oneself in an open world.”43 It is doubtful that Marthe (now suffering renal disorders) left San Remo to join him for longer periods in Palermo. The composer thus felt increasingly isolated by the location and, most especially, alienated in a bureaucratic world for which he had neither experience nor interest. Of a delicate and sensitive nature, he realized that a continued Sicilian sojourn might prove harmful, and it was perhaps with this in mind that he now begged the Duce to consider sending him elsewhere. Rome was suggested as an alternative. This request became reality; however, personal circumstances later necessitated an enforced curtailment.

NOTES 1. Alfano to Kalmus, 14 April 1935 (V). 2. Alfano to Kalmus, 14 April 1935 (V). 3. Quoted in Turnbull, Mary Garden, 182. 4. A phenomenon of longevity superseded only by Magda Olivero’s 1971 assumption of the role for a radio broadcast at age sixty-one. 5. Paul Le Flem, Comoedia, 13 April 1934, quoted in Turnbull, Mary Garden, 182–83. 6. Alfano to S.A.C.E.M., 19 May 1934 (B). 7. Alfano to Kalmus, 19 October 1934 (V). 8. Alfano to S.A.C.E.M., 18 March 1935 (B). 9. Quoted in Dryden, Zandonai, 361. 10. Alfano to Kalmus, 14 April 1935 (V). 11. Alfano to Suvini Zerboni, 29 June 1935, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 896. 12. Alfano to Kalmus, 2 December 1935 (V). 13. Giacinto Sallustio, Musica d’oggi, 1936, 53. 14. Riccardo Zandonai to Nicola D’Atri, 21 and 25 January 1936, quoted in Dryden, Zandonai, 368. 15. Zandonai to D’Atri, 27 January 1936 (BC). 16. Alberto Gasco, La prima del “Cyrano” di Franco Alfano al Teatro Reale dell’Opera, La tribuna, 24 January 1936. 17. Dryden, Zandonai, 373. 18. Della Corte lists Dosia, while Streicher’s chronology maintains Grandval. 19. Alfano to Cesare Paglia, 27 June 1936, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 865. 20. Alfano to Rossato, 28 June 1936, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 834. 21. Felicina Brezzi Cinelli to Mussolini, 25 March 1937 (ACS). 22. Alfano to Umberto Giordano, 8 November 1937, quoted in Vincenzo Quattrocchi, Magda Olivero: Una voce per tre generazioni (Turin: Italgrafica, 1984), 15.

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23. Ghedini eventually taught composition in Parma. 24. Alfano to Giordani, 29 December 1938, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 900. 25. Alfano to Magda Olivero, quoted in Quattrocchi, Magda Olivero, 22. 26. La Gazzetta del popolo, 19 May 1939. 27. Unidentified newspaper clipping, 3 December 1939, quoted in Quattrocchi, Magda Olivero, 24 28. Carlo Jachino to Sebastiani, 14 December 1939 (ACS). 29. Alfano to Mussolini, 17 December 1939 (ACS). 30. Alfano, years earlier (perhaps while in Bologna), had authored a study on instrumentation. Titled Appunti di istrumentazione, this invaluable reference sheds light on his own creative methods. Divided into ten parts, the manual denotes the usage and possibilities of the following instruments: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon (the longest part), double bassoon, trumpet, cornet, trombone, violin, and cello. The composer also provides numerous specific examples of employment overridingly illustrated from Wagnerian operas including Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Die Walküre, and Meistersinger. Apart from Mendelssohn, Richard Strauss also receives his due with reference made to Sinfonia Domestica, Ein Heldenleben, and Till Eulenspiegel. Berlioz, Debussy, Jacques Ibert, and Paul Dukas constitute the French in a study wherein Italian composers remain noticeably absent—save for examples from his own works, including L’ombra di Don Giovanni and the Suite romantica. 31. Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 164. 32. Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 18. 33. Alfano to Wilhelm Furtwängler, 22 January 1941 (B). 34. Alfano to Mussolini, 16 May 1941 (ACS). 35. Alfano to Mussolini, 16 May 1941 (ACS). 36. It eventually found its way to Rome’s Accademia di Santa Cecilia. 37. Beniamino Gigli, Memorie (Verona: Mondadori), 1957. 38. The tenor’s daughter, Rina Gigli, perhaps unaware of L’ombra di Don Giovanni, erroneously stated in the Italian magazine L’Opera (March 1990) that Don Juan de Manara was expressly (re-?) written for her father. 39. Andrea Della Corte, La stampa, 29 March 1941. 40. V. Bucchi in La nazione, 29 May 1941. Both Gigli and some reviewers refer to the tenor aria as “Io vedo [sic] in un bel ciel,” suggesting that Alfano may have in fact altered the text following the premiere. 41. Cipriano Giachetti in La gazzetta del popolo, 29 May 1941. 42. Andrea Della Corte, La stampa, 29 May 1941. 43. Alfano to Mussolini, 21 October 1941 (ACS).

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A lfano’s year began in Trieste, when the Teatro Comunale presented

Gianna Pederzini’s first staged Katiusha on 17 January 1942. The composer also attended a production of Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini sung by Franca Somigli, a soprano he much admired as Sakùntala. Fearing and loathing Somigli, Zandonai worried that the American-born soprano would ruin his opera, while simply referring to her as “la pazza” (the insane one). However, both Francesca da Rimini and its protagonist were sufficiently successful to merit numerous telegrams—including one from Alfano. Zandonai instantly “brushed the telegram aside, attributing its glowing praise to Alfano’s ‘exuberant’ and ‘hyperbolic personality.’” This caustic remark derived from his awareness of Alfano’s frequently being entertained as a guest at the Antonicellis (Somigli’s husband was the theatre’s director), finding it “logical that he should speak well of the mistress of the house.”1 In February, Cyrano de Bergerac finally enjoyed a much-belated German premiere at Leipzig’s Neues Theater in a vernacular version by Georg C. Winkler. A reprise followed in Erfurt. Alfano relinquished his position as sovrintendente in Palermo upon accepting the Chair for Opera at Rome’s Accademia di Santa Cecilia. His meeting with Mussolini had obviously been advantageous. The Italian capital evolved to be the same kettle of gossip as Milan and Turin, however. Unable to locate an apartment, Alfano took up temporary lodgings with Giordano. It was rumored Alfano would receive the Accademia d’Italia’s Mascagni award. Giordano, at Mascagni’s urging, nevertheless felt forced to place his vote in favor of Giuseppe Mulè (and his unbridled fascism) rather than in support of “his friend” Alfano. Giordano’s brittle allegiance understandably shocked the composer, prompting a personal visit to Mulè, Cilèa, and Ildebrando Pizzetti. Finally, on 19 March, Giordano redeemed himself by 146

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stating that he had in fact voted for Alfano. Mascagni persisted in supporting Mulè. The award went to the gifted painter Arturo Tosi, after supposedly receiving the majority of votes. This, Alfano was amazed to admit, occurred among a group of people deemed to be “wise, educated, and honest.”2 Meanwhile, Rossato lay dying. Incapable of writing, he dictated,“The bronchial-pulmonary problems have improved, but I now have acute polyneuritis (that is what the doctors call it) which leaves me no peace and which makes my nights sheer desperation. Tomorrow I shall consult a neurologist (the head physician at the Maggiore Hospital) and we shall see what comes of it.”3 His daughter Laura added the postscript: “The situation has unfortunately grown worse. . . . We have consulted prestigious physicians and professors like Cesabianchi, but they have all come to the same conclusion that we are dealing with a case sufficiently complex to make an immediate diagnosis difficult. . . .”4 Rossato passed away on 9 March. Alfano’s letters to Marthe from Rome (some of the few in existence) exude an air of profound nostalgia for the “spiritual tranquility” of San Remo forbidden him in the capital. Rome was not his only cause for concern. So much of his time still dealt with exhaustive attempts at placing his operas. Some of the fruits of these endeavors included Resurrezione in Genoa and Cagliari. Alfano realized that none of his later operas superseded what was by now an almost forty-year-old work. He also scheduled his ballet Eliana (an adaptation of the Suite romantica) at Rome’s Teatro Reale to coincide with his official “retirement” as director of Palermo’s Teatro Massimo on 30 June.5 Thereupon followed a series of telephone calls from Pederzini. She hoped to sing Katiusha at La Scala, although it was rumored that the scheduled opera was to be Cyrano de Bergerac. Accustomed to Resurrezione’s customary success and tempted by the mezzo-soprano’s sudden interest, Alfano even preferred to “renounce Cyrano in favor of Resurrezione.”6 La Scala, however, once again chose to ignore him resolutely. The fact that they were performing works by Alfredo Casella and Ghedini merely served to infuriate him further. To these pressures were added Giordani’s incessant demands for Il dottor Antonio and Vesuvius. Ceding Universal Edition the rights to Madonna Imperia and L’ultimo Lord for next to nothing, and supplying the payment for Cyrano de Bergerac sorely depleted his finances. Added to this was Italy’s spiraling inflation. He now warily considered undertaking a European tour for the “congruous pay” it offered.7 Mention was also made of a cinematic project involving the composer Giuseppe Savagnone. A weary Alfano thus progressed assiduously with lessons (including piano) at Santa Cecilia while determined to see performances of Cyrano de Bergerac and Resurrezione at La Scala. Another source of anxiety was Marthe who, suffering from nephritis, was of major concern. Given the circumstances,

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he suddenly wrestled with rather erratic changes of mood vacillating between periods of sullen lethargy to effusive self-pity. He reproached himself for having written nothing of consequence since La leggenda di Sakùntala. This, he felt, was due to his inability to secure a subject igniting his imagination. Early June signified a temporary release from Santa Cecilia. Alfano chose to remain a few extra days for lessons (lest someone accuse him of sluggishness) before returning to Marthe’s side. Santa Cecilia prided itself in having the composer on its faculty—a rather feeble compensation for his pitiable financial condition. Marthe’s illness also made a prolonged Roman sojourn prohibitive. The future in the midst of a world war seemed bleak indeed, and the futility of seeking to begin anew in the capital somewhat pointless. He necessitated payment for both a Roman domicile and the house in San Remo. He not only supported Marthe, but also a young woman named Caterina Guglielmi,8 whom the Alfanos had initially met during their annual Bordighera summers when Nina—as the couple affectionately called her—was still a child. Daughter of a gardener, she perhaps replaced the void left by Herbert (and Marthe’s childlessness) in the composer’s life. Fortunately, Alfano’s health—apart from a weak heart and diabetes—was relatively stable. He nevertheless continued to battle his weight, which, at the time, wavered between eighty-eight and ninety-eight kilos. He tried, as best he could, to remain in contact with those important to his career. This involved attending numerous functions and accepting invitations; these fatiguing social obligations were gratefully absent in San Remo. Time spent at the Riviera, however, was only intermittent and, in July 1942, he supervised a recording in Turin of his Second Symphony for Cetra conducted by Fernando Previtali, the first time one of his major works was awarded the honor. He never lived to see any of his operas given a complete recording, although Pederzini sang Resurrezione’s “Dio Pietoso” (in a lowered version) for Cetra one year earlier. This complemented Mary Garden’s French rendition for the studios, in addition to René Maison’s two Dimitri arias (also in French) in 1932. Olivero’s “Dio Pietoso” for Cetra in 1953 signified the first important interpretation of the original Italian text sung in the proper key, although a certain Adelina Romano had succeeded in recording it somewhat earlier. Shortly thereafter, the composer was finally free to return to San Remo. Here he revised the piano piece Melodia for inclusion in an anthology of contemporary Italian music for students published by Suvini Zerboni. The opus evolved to became a nostalgic reminder of happier times. It consisted of “facile melody” approaching song, necessitating a pianist to master its interpretive style rather than its reasonably simple structure. Thus, Alfano, similar to Strauss in the autumn of his life, opted for a return to Melos. “A melody,”

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he informed Giordani, “is always ‘something’ respectable.”9 The effect was foreseeable when, a few days later, the composer received word that his contribution was simply “magnificent.”10 On 16 August, Alfano returned to Turin for a broadcast of La leggenda di Sakùntala with Somigli as protagonist (conducted by Armando La Rosa Parodi). The composer had temporarily recovered his spirits, regardless if Marthe’s ill health remained a constant concern necessitating Nina’s care. Following stints at Palermo and Santa Cecilia, he now felt “free as if I were flying,” declaring that the position of general director need only be allotted musicians void of artistic ambition. He began to feel a resurgence of his creative powers that, with his “innate optimism,” compensated the rather depressing grey veil hovering over San Remo,11 in addition to cancellations of his operas (including Resurrezione in Palermo) due to the war. Two performances that nevertheless remained scheduled that October were Madonna Imperia at La Fenice. Alfano suffered a tiring train journey to Venice, hoping to compensate the effort by way of his “indispensable” presence.12 Upon arrival, he grew irritable at the unreasonable and damaging alterations subjected upon both score and libretto. These problems, he noted, resulted in the absence of a “definitive edition.”13 He thus resolved to undertake all he could to ensure an authoritative production. From the lagoon city, Alfano also wrote Marthe with encouraging news of a physician capable of curing nephritis—the details of which he would relate upon returning to San Remo. His letter incorporated gossip concerning the eccentric composer Gian Francesco Malipiero who, upon seeing Alfano in Venice, had been his usual enigmatic and cordial self—“at least in appearance.”14 One of the last positive events prior to a series of harrowing misfortunes was the German premiere of Don Juan de Manara scheduled to open 14 November at Berlin’s Deutsches Opernhaus conducted by Arthur Rother. Ricordi promised to reimburse all expenses while concurrently reiterating that Alfano needed to arrive punctually in order to attend the dress rehearsal, at which time the director of Casa Ricordi’s Leipzig branch, Giorgio Pagano, would welcome him. Alfano was mistaken if he believed to have suffered the end of a sufficient share of recent hardships. In 1940, the composer, upon relinquishing his post at the conservatory, had placed the entire contents of his Turin apartment in storage supplied by Gondrand, a moving and logistics firm based in the city.15 This included “antique furniture, carpets, tapestries, paintings—and an important library of music and literature . . . collected during 40 years of work.”16 In the midst of World War II, industrial Turin became a target of incessant bombings and, “in one night (20–21 November), the Gondrand warehouses were struck by a myriad of incendiary bombs” destroying the entire contents,

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which, according to the composer’s later estimate, amounted to 107,000 lire in damages.17 The loss signified a momentous and inconceivable misfortune for someone already in dire financial straits. Even more disturbing, however, was the complete destruction of a past that, regardless if Gondrand promised to offer a degree of compensation in the very distant future, defied replacement. A grieving Alfano returned to San Remo and an ailing Marthe for the holidays wondering what else lay in store. He had little choice other than to carry on, and that is precisely what he did. He journeyed to Rome for the Italian premiere of his ballet Eliana at the Teatro dell’Opera on 11 February 1943,18 conducted by De Fabritiis with Nives Poli’s choreography. On 14 February 1943, he drafted Mussolini a letter providing a detailed description of his recent plight, accompanied by a desperate plea for the Duce’s financial assistance as a victim “of the latest enemy air-raid on Turin.”19 The Duce reacted promptly and, within ten days, sent word that Alfano would receive the sum of fifty thousand lire. The amount provided replaced just under half the losses quoted, with Mussolini doubtlessly assuming Gondrand would eventually supply the remainder.20 Somewhat assuaged, the composer returned to San Remo and an increasingly feeble Marthe from where, on 26 February, he sent Mussolini a short note of thanks. Given the precarious situation of Italy’s wartime theatres, he was in no hurry to unveil Il dottor Antonio. This prompted a temporary embrace of “minor compositions” such as art songs.21 Still battling the government (De Cesare) over the receipt of his fifty thousand lire, Alfano returned to Rome on 25 March. Marthe, quite unexpectedly, died in San Remo the following day. Whether foreseeable or not, the bereavement plunged the composer into a perilous depression unalleviated by innumerous condolence letters. The extent of her illness may have given her passing a sense of release. However, the fact that Alfano seemed unprepared for her death—planning to remain for a longer period in Rome—strengthens the assumption of its suddenness. Prior to her death, Marthe insisted Alfano legally adopt Nina as his rightful heir. She hoped the now almost thirty-year-old woman might provide comfort during his remaining years (he had recently turned sixty-eight). He nevertheless acknowledged a terrible “void” succeeding a relationship spanning four decades. Intense sacrifice marked Marthe’s life at Alfano’s side and, with her passing, there remained an incessant reminder of the “unbroken spiritual collaboration” they once enjoyed.22 He felt fortunate in having completed Il dottor Antonio beforehand, doubting whether he would have been capable had her death intervened. It placed a final mournful seal on his artistic ambition (and inspiration), although he outlived her by another decade. This perhaps accounts for the reason why he never again composed another op-

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era—a tender display of affection for a wife who could hardly have wished a more fitting tribute. Months were required before Alfano felt capable of contemplating artistic matters and, in a letter to Giordani, he expressed his inability to write a note. Fortunately, the passage of time strengthened his resolve to “face life again.”23 Thus, in December, he was able to inform the publisher of the completion of Il dottor Antonio’s orchestral score. Unable to locate Ghisalberti’s whereabouts for over eighteen months when the librettist joined the armed forces, he now personally undertook any necessary changes. Tullio Serafin demonstrated interest in premiering the work at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera. Alfano preferred to wait for a more opportune moment. The holidays signified plowing through the “tiresome” process of creating the opera’s piano/vocal score, a task Alfano was unaccustomed to performing and yet, given the global circumstances, a necessity. It perhaps served to alleviate partially the anguish he felt in his first Christmas since Marthe’s death. Grotesquely superseding his losses in the Turin bombing was the severe damage suffered by Casa Ricordi in the course of a Milanese bombardment.24 A future visit to the Lombard capital became a necessity to ascertain precisely the destruction. Casa Ricordi’s inefficiency in this case would result in one of Alfano’s most trying (and lamentable) experiences. For the present, he chose to remain in San Remo toiling away at the vocal score reduction of Il dottor Antonio. It reached completion at the beginning of May 1944. He hoped Giordani and Ghisalberti would come to San Remo in order to hear the work. He had also rewritten Vesuvius in the interim. It was now the illness of Giordani’s wife, however, that made a meeting on the Riviera impossible. During the same month, the composer planned to accompany a recital of his songs in Turin. This would enable him to visit Milan and Casa Ricordi to view the loss. He remained aware of their inability to supply requests for the rental material of his compositions, which, in the long run, created havoc in threatening his income. He was essentially correct when assuming that “too much frivolity” had played an important role in the firm’s lackadaisical ways.25 However, even he remained wildly incredulous when informed of the complete destruction of La leggenda di Sakùntala’s original orchestral score (and related orchestral material). This implied, should the opera ever again be performed, a complete reconstruction of the entire partitura (assuming that all copies in his possession fell victim to the Turin raid). With little interest in the opus per se, Ricordi perhaps never imagined Alfano’s actually taking up the immensely difficult and strenuous task of rewriting—by memory and aided only by the piano/vocal score—his most complex work. They gravely underestimated the composer’s assiduous tenacity when, after recovering from the initial shock, he forged plans to proceed.

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In expressing the urgency of this undertaking in a letter to Benedetto Mazzacurati in October of that year, Alfano stated explicitly his desire to face dissolution rather than refrain from reconstructing an opera he considered his spiritual testament. Work on the project commenced in late July or early August amid bombardments from both the sea and sky. It forced Alfano, practically every evening, to seek refuge in one of the adjacent cellars. The freshly reconstructed pages of La leggenda di Sakùntala—now simply titled Sakùntala—were the sole items he brought with him to the shelter. Neither the war nor the anemia that plagued him diverted from the daily eight to ten hours he labored on the score. Sakùntala, incredibly, given the harrowing conditions that would have made the project prohibitive to a less resolute individual, took seven months to reconstruct. It was a remarkable effort, attributable to the composer’s formidable musicianship and prodigious technical skills. When informed of the work’s reconstruction, Casa Ricordi added insult to injury by refusing to share Alfano’s elation regarding the resurrection of his phoenix—their sole concern being the impossibility of a wartime publishing. Given the conditions under which he accomplished the thankless task, the composer, understandably, was incensed. He thus, on 20 April 1945, amid incessant bombings, wrote a rather poignant letter serving not only as a reprimand but also as an effort at enlightenment. He cautioned the firm that it was their duty to concern itself with Italy’s cultural patrimony rather than matters purely financial. The emotional injuries inflicted upon the composer at the time of Turandot were, with this act, vigorously complemented. Some sixty years later, in 2006, the Rome Opera, thanks to the efforts of conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti, decided to mount a production of the muchneglected Sakùntala. The Archivio Storico Ricordi had, at the time, recently relocated from Milan’s Via Salomone (after being dissolved into the German conglomerate BMG) to its new location in the Palazzo Braidense. Suddenly, due to the move, the original orchestral score of La leggenda di Sakùntala was relocated. It in fact never suffered annihilation—merely misplacement. Alfano’s “sacrifice” had essentially been in vain.26 The firm, upon receiving Alfano’s reconstruction, was relieved when ascertaining that the piano/vocal score necessitated hardly any alterations other than a few rather insignificant amendments to the opera’s conclusion as well as some choral parts. The score’s revision, like that of L’ombra di Don Giovanni, resulted in a less “audacious” orchestration. It nevertheless seems reasonable to suggest that, with the reemergence of La leggenda di Sakùntala, the original, in time, will replace the second (tamer) version. Marthe’s demise and the composer’s fruitless efforts at Casa Ricordi were not the period’s sole concerns. Alfano now also took account of Italy’s failed

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fascism, declaring it to have been an authoritarian regime led by a group of incompetents creating absurd standardizations with an eye to favoritism. He hoped the future would enable his works a reappraisal while barring those of untalented and opportunistic composers that he felt had little, if any, right to survive. He correctly surmised that a twenty-year dictatorship kept audiences from accepting a variety of avant-garde works and, seeking reassurance, recalled critics who once tormented Puccini and who now claimed him to be a composer without parallel. Similar to numerous artists who found themselves trapped in a war-ridden Europe, Alfano sought to remain relatively neutral when balancing life and art. His international background perhaps impeded his taking sides, and he outwardly refrained from sympathizing with any one country. His selecting the French Cyrano de Bergerac during the fascist era speaks for itself. None of his works praises Italy, and only Miranda, L’ombra di Don Giovanni, and Il dottor Antonio in fact take place there. There are no political messages interwoven in the subjects he chose. He failed to create a “national/patriotic opera” the way Leoncavallo had when transforming his first opera, Chatterton, into Mameli during World War I.27 He refused to share the aspirations that made the fascists support a Pizzetti or Mulè that might have guaranteed membership in the Accademia d’Italia. Choosing to remain in Italy, he had little choice other than to simulate conformity. Few artists wielded the power and authority of a Toscanini, enabling them the possibility to turn their backs and continue elsewhere. Fortunately, with the war in Europe officially concluded and most of his personal miseries behind him, Alfano, by mid-1945, could again perceive the future with his customary optimism. He was able, on 14 May, to inform Giordani that all phases of Il dottor Antonio were complete—save a few details regarding the libretto. Ghisalberti now became the “phantom librettist,”28 and, during August, Alfano made a final attempt to write him of the alterations undertaken mainly related to passages preceding Lucy’s aria in act 3. He also confided that some portions of the score had fallen victim to the Turin bombings. He fervently desired to meet the mercurial librettist. He was convinced the opera, with any additional procrastination and similar to Turandot, would premiere posthumously. Alfano attended Mascagni’s funeral that August before again venting his rage to Giordani regarding Ghisalberti. He was unable to comprehend his disinterest, properly assuming that a librettist needed to be at a composer’s disposal throughout the entire span of a work’s gestation and completion. He toyed with the notion of hiring a collaborator (Giordani suggested Turandot’s Renato Simoni at one point) and remained astonished when Ghisalberti welcomed the idea, granted that no additional name be printed alongside his

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own. This demonstration of “unspeakable egocentricity” further infuriated the composer who, pained, now placed the entire problem in Giordani’s hands.29 Gone, he reminisced, were the days when a librettist such as Illica reworked act 1 of Tosca some “seven times.”30 Giordani’s appeal resulted in Ghisalberti’s agreeing to see Alfano— provided the composer came to him. He thus, on 23 October and again swallowing his pride, departed for Milan hoping Giordani might provide him with a piano of reasonably good quality on which to introduce Il dottor Antonio. The much-anticipated meeting finally took place and, by 9 November, Ghisalberti actually managed to send Giordani the opera’s “definitive text.”31 This enabled Alfano to resume work on a quintet in A-flat he had begun for piano and strings. He also completed (to the lyrics of Alberto Colantuoni) the two Neapolitan songs “Nenella” and “Assunta” for voice and orchestral accompaniment.32 Alfano maintained illusions of a premier of Il dottor Antonio in England where the subject, according to the composer, was as popular as Manzoni’s I promessi sposi in Italy. The idea stemmed from Beppe Porcheddu, a painter from Bordighera entrusted with creating the opera’s sets who spoke of “good friends” in London.33 The entire project, however, came to an abrupt standstill when, on 21 December, Giordani’s wife died. A short while earlier, the Sette liriche (a cycle of seven songs for piano and voice inspired by Tagore and Rainer Maria Rilke) premiered at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia as part of an international music festival.34 Giordani received the Il dottor Antonio piano/vocal score and the final version of the opera’s libretto on 12 February 1946. Alfano hoped the publisher would allow for a stopover in San Remo following a trip to Paris, which, alas, he did not. It seems discussions were still ongoing regarding a possible production on the Riviera. The composer, hearing of Giuseppe Di Stefano’s Venetian success as Nadir in Bizet’s Pearl Fishers, hoped the tenor might sing the Italian premiere of his opera. He replaced these thoughts with those of the Quintet, planning to perform the opus himself that April in Turin accompanied by the Quartetto Poltronieri. He thus coached the aforementioned ensemble at his home on 30 March and, following some four or five additional rehearsals, unveiled the piece to great enthusiasm. He implored Giordani to promote the work, anxious that it enter the concert repertory at the earliest occasion. Its musical idiom heralded back to earlier days, serving as a distinct reaction to the country’s modern musical tendencies exemplified by such composers as Luigi Dallapiccola. Alfano expressed himself vehemently against atonal and dodecaphonic music, which, to his chagrin, harvested praise among

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a variety of critics. Once avant garde, he now, with age (and not atypical of his older colleagues), modified his modernity. Suvini Zerboni immediately set about publishing the work in addition to his two Neapolitan songs that contained numerous textual errors. Alfano, however, correctly assumed that only a native Neapolitan would be capable of distinguishing the inconsistencies. The same year included a performance of the Second Symphony conducted by Arturo Basile at Rome’s Basilica di Massenzio on 13 September. December then found the composer in Rome to witness Willy Ferrero’s interpretation of the Due intermezzi at the Teatro Argentina. His next labors, in January 1947, were devoted to the correction of two acts of Sakùntala’s orchestral score after finally convincing Ricordi into a publication. He then planned to accompany Fernanda Cadoni in the first performance of the Tre liriche (to texts by Miranda Bona)35 at Rome’s Teatro Argentina. However, hearing that the Teatro dell’Opera was presenting Resurrezione with Pederzini convinced him to concentrate on directing the opera before another regisseur opted to change any of the work’s traditional dramaturgy. The production opened 30 January for two performances (one of which was broadcast) before Alfano could finally proceed with the unveiling of the Quattro liriche for voice and orchestral accompaniment at the Teatro Argentina on 23 February conducted by Francesco Molinari-Pradelli.36 Remaining time was devoted to correcting the final drafts of Il dottor Antonio before publication that May. Alfano also lent his experience to a production of Madonna Imperia (including Boris Christoff) at Cagliari’s Teatro Massimo in April. He then returned to San Remo to supervise Resurrezione at the town’s Teatro del Casinó with Oltrabella, before Turin presented the work with Maria Carbone (Giacinto Prandelli sang Dimitri in both productions). In the summer he orchestrated the Tre liriche in San Remo, hoping that someone like Giulietta Simionato would favor an interpretation. He also turned his attention to the United States—a country he had never visited— taking up contact with the American publisher Lou Levy, who promised to be his “ambassador” in that country. Levy happened to be acquainted with Giordani, who reminded Alfano that although the American was both energetic and successful, his main interest centered on lighter music. Rome again appeared on Alfano’s agenda when RAI (formerly EIAR) radio broadcast Cyrano de Bergerac with a cast finding little favor from the composer.37 Giordani, it seems, also hoped to meet him in the capital to discuss the future of Vesuvius. Of utmost importance, however, was Alfano’s interest in assuming the directorship of Pesaro’s Liceo Musicale. The position enabled his remaining years to be lived tranquilly.

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NOTES 1. Riccardo Zandonai to Casa Ricordi, 16 January 1942, quoted in Dryden, Riccardo Zandonai, 429. 2. Alfano to Nina Alfano, 28 February 1942 (AASR). Alfano was (or had been) a member of the following institutions: Accademia di Musica Antica (Venice), Accademia dell’Istituto Cherubini (Florence), Accademia Filarmonica (Bologna), Accademia Fisico-Chimica (Palermo), Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Accademia Filologica (Rome), Consiglio di Patronato della Sezione di Torino dell’Istituto di Studi Romani (Turin), and a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium. He held temporary membership in the Consiglio Nazionale delle Corporazioni-Musicisti and the Consiglio Superiore di Belle Arti. He served as “Segretario Interprovinciale del Sindicato Musicisti” for the Piedmont and was recipient of the following awards: Cavaliere dei SS Maurizio e Lazzaro, Grand’Ufficiale della Corona d’Italia, and the Legion d’honneur. 3. Arturo Rossato to Nicola D’Atri, undated (March 1942), quoted in Dryden, Zandonai, 431. 4. Dryden, Zandonai, 431. 5. Filippo Ernesto Raccuglia replaced Alfano in Palermo. Eliana consisted of four brief scenes lasting some twenty-six minutes originally premiering at Antwerp’s Théâtre Française. 6. Alfano to Marthe Alfano, 20 May 1942 (AASR). 7. Alfano to Marthe Alfano, 20 May 1942 (AASR). 8. Caterina Guglielmi (Nina Alfano) was born in 1913 (Bordighera) and died in San Remo in 1994. She later married a certain Bojolo whose name she then added to hers. 9. Alfano to Giordani, 11 July 1942, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 902. 10. Giordani to Alfano, 15 July 1942, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 902. 11. Alfano to Giuseppe Savagnone, quoted in Bruno Cagnoli, Giuseppe Savagnone: La vita e l’opera (Palermo: Flaccovio, 1987), 83. 12. Alfano to Marthe Alfano, 8 October 1942 (AASR). 13. Alfano to Marthe Alfano, 8 October 1942 (AASR). 14. Alfano to Marthe Alfano, 8 October 1942 (AASR). 15. Founded in 1886, the company currently remains in operation. 16. Alfano to Mussolini, 14 February 1943 (ACS). 17. Alfano to Mussolini, 14 February 1943 (ACS). It is likely that Vesuvius and the original and only extant manuscripts of his operas Miranda and La fonte d’Enscir suffered destruction at this point. 18. Eliana’s world premiere had taken place at Antwerp’s Théâtre Française. 19. Alfano to Mussolini, 14 February 1943 (ACS). 20. Alfano was certainly not a wealthy man considering that Gigli, at the time, received some twenty thousand lire per performance while Mascagni, courtesy of the government, was a recipient of a ten-thousand-lire monthly stipend. 21. Alfano to Giordani, 15 March 1943, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 903.

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22. Alfano to Giordani, 24 April 1943, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 904. 23. Alfano to Giordani, 3 December 1943, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 905. 24. The attack also destroyed Giordani’s house. 25. Alfano to Giordani, 22 May 1944, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 908. 26. Rediscovered in the move was also Ottorino Respighi’s Marie Victoire. It is duly unfortunate that the archive has learned relatively nothing from the damages inflicted by World War II. Reproductions remain prohibited. 27. Only Il dottor Antonio’s plot unfolds parallel to political happenings and this, similar to Andrea Chenier, Tosca, and other works of the period, merely serves as a backdrop for the innermost problems and conflicts of its protagonists. 28. Alfano to Giordani, 14 May 1945, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 908. 29. Alfano to Giordani, 13 September 1945, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 911. 30. Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 912. 31. Giordani to Alfano, 9 November 1945, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 915. 32. “Assunta” may originally have been destined for inclusion in the aborted Assunta Spina. 33. Alfano to Giordani, 13 November 1945, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 915. 34. The cycle comprised the following art songs: “In grembo alla notte,” “Scendesti dal tuo trono,” “S’addensano le nubi,” “Non so da che tempi lontano,” “Venne e mi sedette accanto,” “Non hai udito,” and “Se taci.” 35. “Lungo la via del mare,” “I miei piedi sono stanchi,” and “Scrivimi, amor mio.” 36. “Perché il giorno è finito,” “Cento e cento,” “Tu camminavi,” and “Luce.” 37. The artists included Jolanda Magnoni and Renzo Pigni.

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Final Years (1948–1954)

A lfano’s desire to distance himself from academia remained a futile aspira-

tion. His official acceptance as director of Pesaro’s Liceo Musicale in October 1947 made him again take on a position necessitating concentration on nonartistic matters. Fortuitous however—especially in view of his advancing age (seventy-two)—was that Pesaro enabled him relative freedom and, above all, financial stability. Photographs attest to a resurgence of strength that revealed the charismatic joviality and benevolence that had always been an integral aspect of his persona. Tucked away behind the façade’s corpulence and double chin remained a sensitive, paternal, and magnanimous spirit. The extraordinary eyes had, with age, grown somewhat muted, although they retained their charismatic and nigh clairvoyant quality. The composer’s beloved bow ties succeeded in adding an element of the bon vivant, which, cultivated throughout his life, relayed the refined seigneurial charm of a bygone era. The year began well. In January 1948, Beniamino Gigli recorded Giovanni’s “Tu vedi in un bel ciel” from Don Juan de Manara for London’s HMV. The aria had also become a staple of his concerts, particularly those held in the British capital. The tenor’s honeyed tones caressed the berceuse-like melody with an ingratiating falsetto that, oddly, forbade clue what the remainder of the opera was like. It must have been difficult for Alfano to acknowledge that only this newly composed portion granted the work a rather limited lease on life since the opera, even following revision, remained largely shunned. Maria Carbone, an immensely energetic artist possessing a steadfast technique governing a rather steely voice marked by a prominent vibrato, now became the composer’s chosen interpreter. She added an array of his operas to her repertoire, including Cyrano de Bergerac, Madonna Imperia, Sakùntala, and 158

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Resurrezione. She reasoned that the “delightful” Alfano felt she added “another dimension” to his “feminine characters,” making her “the right person to support him in his effort to keep the Italian singing tradition going.”1 It was for this particular reason that he soon asked her to teach classes during his Pesaro tenure. She was able to demonstrate her formidable acting abilities when performing Resurrezione during February at Naples in a production directed by the composer and conducted by Molinari-Pradelli. Like many, she considered Alfano to have been Italy’s last significant operatic composer.2 Misfortune reappeared temporarily with Paolo Giordani’s death. It terminated yet another chapter in the composer’s publishing vita. Ladislao Sugar, his successor, failed to appreciate the aesthetic side of the business in the manner originally binding him to Hertzka and, with reservations, to Giordani himself. Alfano’s distress upon hearing the news was somewhat compensated by La Scala’s decision to produce Resurrezione, although he would have preferred Cyrano de Bergerac. Suvini Zerboni finally published Il dottor Antonio at the end of May. The firm took it upon themselves to send Mario Labroca a copy at La Scala, thereby infuriating the composer who, after demanding they retrieve the score, warned that none of his works be made available until after the signing of a contract. This was Sugar’s first faux pas. Alfano, it seems, had “promised the opera” to Antonio Ghiringhelli, although he maintained that it was clearly too early to allow his score to undergo the “not always sincere” verdicts of curious colleagues and the like.3 Instead, Alfano now tried placing his last opera in Rome. This time he merely sent the libretto and, when asked for the score, professed that the author of Resurrezione, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Sakùntala shouldn’t have to do so. It seems that the sheer magnitude of his influence enabled Il dottor Antonio to be scheduled the following year. It left him to ponder whether La Scala’s Ghiringhelli had in fact ever expressed interest. The capital was also the location for a Sakùntala broadcast on 30 September, which heralded the premiere performance of the reconstructed score. Magda Laszló sang the nymph and Fernando Previtali conducted.4 Another revised (and largely reconstructed) work planned for presentation at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia was Vesuvius. André Cluytens was enamored of the short piece and hoped to perform it in Paris. Alfano was of course delighted to concede, heralding the maestro to be one of the leading conductors of his generation. Pleased that Suvini Zerboni had finally taken the initiative of placing the work, the composer nevertheless remained occupied with last-minute revisions that not only impeded the premiere but eventually Cluytens’s involvement as well.5 In November, Alfano received a foretaste of Sugar’s indifference, reflected in his adamant refusal to confer with the Rome Opera’s management

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regarding Il dottor Antonio. Accustomed to taking up matters customarily reserved for publishers, the composer spent three days in Rome carefully planning for the work’s premiere with Gianni Poggi (Antonio), Onelia Fineschi (Lucy),6 and an enthused Gabriele Santini scheduled to conduct. He then presumably attended a memorial service in the Milan Duomo honoring the recently deceased Giordano. In January 1949, the composer remained occupied with creating a piano adaptation of Vesuvius. He then attended a production of Cyrano de Bergerac in Como with Carbone and an exemplary Antonio Annaloro as the purloined poet. The effort involved nevertheless exiled him to bed for some sixteen days to face a tenacious bout of bronchitis. It did not permit him to disregard his duties in Pesaro where he remained for most of the spring, however. A memorial concert held at Milan’s Teatro Olimpia on 29 March commemorating Paolo Giordani also required his presence. Performed were his Due liriche dedicated to the publisher arranged for piano, voice, and cello. These two songs, the Tagore based Luce, the Quartet in G and Una danza for orchestra would duly signify the end of his creative production. Illness made attending Il dottor Antonio’s rehearsals difficult. Poggi’s schedule delayed the premiere. This ensured that the lackluster artist be replaced by Giacinto Prandelli, who possessed the necessary physique du rôle to do the part justice. The postponement allowed for additional time benefiting Alfano’s recovery when the opera finally opened on 30 April. Santini expressed his admiration for the work in a letter sent the composer before the performance and, proud to lead the world premiere, gladly renounced a conflicting engagement at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Reviewers largely laid claim that the opera, with its expansive melodic structure, appeared written as an example of post-romanticism; a purposeful striving to create a work based on a verismo foundation that some believed too emphatically expressed. Alfano, the former enfant terrible, was, at the end of his career, writing for the enjoyment of a more “general” public.7 The critic Cesare Paglia felt the work contained elements of immense “poetry” that should make Italy exult in having such a superb musician-poet in their midst.8 The allure of Giovanni Domenico Ruffini’s (1807–1881) vita nearly threatens to eclipse his work. A native of Genoa, he passed his law exams before developing a burning interest in the political Italy of the Risorgimento. It prompted him to seek refuge in such countries as France, Switzerland, and England (where he remained for a period of six years). During autumn of 1842, he collaborated with Donizetti on the libretto to Don Pasquale. In 1849, he became Sardinian minister in Paris. He returned to England following the Battle of Novara where, under the pseudonym Lorenzo Benoni (or simply John Ruffini), he wrote an autobiography and Doctor Antonio.

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Doctor Antonio is a sprawling historical (and semi-autobiographical) narrative recounting the story of an idealist. Containing little action, three quarters are devoted to the heroine’s (Lucy) convalescence at a Bordighera inn under the adoring supervision of the handsome physician. His influence breathes into the neurasthenic and consumptive aristocrat a renascent sense of human values, coupled with an appreciation of nature, literature, and art removed significantly from her passive London lifestyle. Ruffini’s work is essentially a novel of ideas, with exceptional attention paid the beauties of the Riviera and San Remo in particular. Reminiscent of Forster’s A Passage to India, the novel depicts confrontation between the prejudices of Victorian England (Lucy) and the carefree optimism and (Mediterranean) sensuality of a “foreign” country embodied in the person of the swarthy Antonio, while concurrently expressing a second (and more important) message of humanity (Antonio) versus materialism (Lucy). The novel relates the “simplicity and force that breathed in the man,”9 which soon turns into a “magnetic current” between the twenty-year-old girl and the thirty-year-old doctor.10 Lucy is an impressionable young woman (and diehard romantic) drawn to Antonio, although Ruffini declares him “not handsome as heroes of novels generally are.”11 His altruism not only conquers Lucy but her father Lord Davenne as well, especially when the latter reaches Italy with a “spider’s web of prejudice spread over his intellect.”12 Comparable to Chekov, Ruffini is less interested in any “plot” per se as he is in portraying the delicate psychological delineations of his characters. Doctor Antonio is a philosophic work presented as a novel of silence wherein the unexpressed drives a current of nonverbalized thought when not serving Ruffini’s aim of drawing international attention to the political turmoil in his native country. He furthermore forbids a foray into sentimentality: Not even a kiss remains exchanged between Lucy and her doctor. Antonio fails to express his love until near the book’s conclusion and then only to serve his cause: “But my country has claims on me prior to yours. These claims I vowed more solemnly than ever to respect on that day when prejudice, armed with pedigree, stood between you and me.”13 Perfectly mirroring Alfano’s vision of humanity, the chronicle of this Adam and Eve moralizes that “the sympathies of the strong and powerful are seldom with the weak and oppressed.”14 The novel includes a multitude of finely wrought Rousseauian passages that undoubtedly appealed to the composer, such as, “[If] country life be healthful to the body, it is no less so to the mind. Few have sought to become intimate with Nature, interesting themselves in her wonderful proceedings, without bearing witness to the enlargement of ideas, and the awakening of wholesome sympathies consequent upon such communion.”15 Added to this was Ruffini’s recurrent use of metaphor when portraying the lives of his

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protagonists. It is easy to envisage the enchantment of La leggenda di Sakùntala’s composer upon devouring Lucy’s “Did you not tell me once of sensitive plants which foretold storms? Well, I am one of them.”16 It is left to Lucy’s “cruel” and “stern” brother, Aubrey, to exchange paradise for the battlefield. Only Antonio, fighting for a “liberal cause,”17 remains not completely devastated at the work’s conclusion. Alfano had long yearned for an Italian subject, and the choice of Doctor Antonio—following Assunta Spina’s demise—required little deliberation. Oddly, Ruffini’s work resembles the composer’s initial opera, Miranda, in which a consumptive heroine also recovers from a delicate and neurasthenic condition while pining from what will, in both cases, remain unrequited love—ingredients constituting La leggenda di Sakùntala and, to an even greater extent, Cyrano de Bergerac. Ghisalberti’s adaptation is certainly a marked improvement to any of the earlier Rossato collaborations. Some of the book’s subplots (the story of Speranza’s husband Battista) have been deleted. Others, including the role of Caraffa, have been enlarged. Spanning eleven years, Doctor Antonio’s static narrative (over-compensated by action at its conclusion) made Alfano’s task exceptionally difficult. There was also the risk of allowing the adaptation to become either too melodramatic or overtly sentimental. Crafted with Alfano’s customary expertise, Il dottor Antonio combines pleasing lyricism while retaining a relatively modern style approaching Cyrano. An ode to Naples, the score includes authentic touches such as the song “Palummella,” perhaps once destined for Assunta Spina. Act 1 contains Antonio’s aria “Laggiù, laggiù, tra la collina e il mare,” which also introduces the opera’s major motif when referring to his mother (“Madre, o madre”). The act concludes with a reprise of the motif following a short duet for Lucy/Antonio, which Alfano failed to expand. Act 2, scene 2, is given to an overabundance of plot exposition predominantly explained by Lucy, a flaw also marking portions of act 1. An interlude depicting her flight to Antonio (similar to that of Charlotte to Werther in act 4 of Massenet’s opera) curiously commences with a series of chords reminiscent of Cavalleria rusticana’s conclusion. One of the composer’s longest and most impassioned love duets (“Ah! Voi! Voi!”) constitutes a major portion of act 2. The opera terminates shortly after Lucy’s scena “Nave, nave nera,” seemingly modeled on Sakùntala’s moving “O nuvola . . . nuvola leggera” of act 2. In February 1950, Maria Carbone performed Cyrano de Bergerac’s Roxane in Parma. This inaugurated Alfano’s musical year before venturing on to Paris where he managed to distance himself from his Pesaro duties. Naples’ San Carlo also expected that he undertake provisionary changes to Il dottor Antonio’s orchestral score. Although scheduled for 18 March, An-

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tonio opened on the 21st with the composer in attendance. Carla Gavazzi, Alfano’s preferred soprano during his remaining years, sang Lucy. Her emotional yet curiously commonplace voice combined an aristocratic bearing capable of supplying the necessary charm to do the role justice. The entire cast—save Cluytens—had changed since Rome, with Francesco Albanese now essaying Antonio. The composer hoped the opera would enter the repertory of provincial theatres, the only guarantee, he felt, of a durable success. Sugar’s absence served as a reminder that none of his publishers (excepting Tito) ever made an effort of attending. Alfano thus informed him on 28 March of the opera’s “hearty welcome” being both “warm and spontaneous.”18 The conductor, Hermann Scherchen, expressed interest in a German production. The opera’s success inspired him to grant Vesuvius a third lease on life, when RAI expressed interest in broadcasting a “lyrical sketch” sporting the same title.19 This led him to cull all orchestral pieces from the original Vesuvius to which he now added fresh vocal parts (to the lyrics of Vittorio Viviani) for baritone, soprano, and chorus. It evolved into a short cantata that he hoped redeemed the work (making it more advantageous for Sugar or another publisher).20 Gavazzi sang the premiere slated for 13 November, after Alfano, aged seventy-five, relinquished his Pesaro post.21 He was now finally able to enjoy the fulfilling serenity of San Remo, while looking forward to innumerous performances of Resurrezione planned for 1951. The first of these, in Reggio Emilia, saw him doubling as stage director to Maria Carbone’s Katiusha when the opera opened on 13 January conducted by Francesco Molinari-Pradelli. Additional revivals were set for Piacenza, Mantova, and San Remo. Gavazzi then partook in a Neapolitan concert of Alfano’s works honoring his seventy-fifth birthday, regardless if the actual anniversary passed unobserved the previous year. In May, the San Carlo presented an additional orchestral concert including an array of his compositions. He then, on 19 June, lent his presence to a ceremony honoring Mascagni, whose remains found their final resting place in a massive mausoleum-like tomb in his native Livorno. Reburials of Italy’s important personages were the order of the day, a fate that would also fail to elude Alfano who, surviving most of his major colleagues, remained alone when carrying the torch of former times. His agenda, regardless of age, was crammed with appointments. It exemplified a still-intact vibrancy, complemented by regular correspondence and unbroken interest in a younger generation of composers and their works (including Richard Addinsell’s recent Warsaw Concerto). Meanwhile, Bologna’s Teatro Comunale witnessed Resurrezione in October with Gavazzi’s first Katiusha. Sakùntala received a Roman revival in Janu-

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ary 1952. Thereupon followed a triptych of Resurrezione performances—all with Gavazzi—in Venice, at Milan’s RAI, and in Catania. There was little doubt that the opera was destined to become his legacy. He spent time trying to place other works such as Il dottor Antonio, which, like so much of his output, fell into oblivion when his own death robbed the opera of its most compelling spokesman. Alfano refrained from commencing new works, fearing to leave them incomplete (a lesson learned from Turandot). Instead, he endeavored to revise previous compositions (Vesuvius being the most recent example) that, in May, included the First Symphony, regardless of earlier alterations prescribed by Gino Marinuzzi. Shorn of unnecessary elements, the score emerged donning a lighter orchestration in what was now essentially its third modification. The rather significant new title Sinfonia Classica reminded that it was yet another (perhaps misguided) attempt at the retrogression marking his later period. In March 1953, Cyrano de Bergerac received performances in Palermo with Gavazzi and Annaloro conducted by Molinari-Pradelli. The soprano then recorded nine Alfano songs for RAI accompanied by the composer, proving that his pianistic abilities had not diminished with age. Alfano’s final months bore witness to his operas’ receiving a revival, thereby enabling him the advantage of bidding them farewell in a somewhat eerie procession. The first of these, Madonna Imperia, opened at Turin’s Teatro Nuovo with Alfano directing Mercedes Fortunati in a production conducted by Argeo Quadri. Massimo Mila lauded the work if not Rossato’s libretto, while the majority of critics agreed that the opera obscured Balzac’s daring “obscenity” in favor of the simply “amorous.”22 Reviewers irked Alfano in their inability to distinguish between opera and literature, a battle futilely fought plaguing most of his operas. Il dottor Antonio followed (with Gavazzi and Prandelli) for Milan’s RAI on 8 November. Alfano’s beloved Sakùntala then took its leave— unfortunately in a dreary production—at Naples’ San Carlo on 22 January 1954. The month of May provided nostalgic memories of Mary Garden, when the Opéra-Comique mounted Resurrezione for Patricia Neway who, with her very personable talent, focused on works necessitating a highly accomplished singing actress. George Sebastian led a cast that also included the impressive Raoul Jobin in a production that, according to the composer, merited “un gros success” regardless of his absence.23 La Scala, the theatre causing Alfano such an inordinate amount of anguish, remained a thorn in need of removal. Calling attention to his age and the fact that they would presumably honor him with a posthumous performance of one of his works, he urged them to “do it now” while he

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was “still alive,” thereby permitting him to “enjoy the occasion.”24 Cyrano de Bergerac was the opera he wished to see performed. A visibly debilitated composer was thus able to witness the transcendent death of his beloved hero at La Scala on 16 May. The stellar cast boasted Ramón Vinay and Anna De Cavalieri. A series of photographs document the composer’s gratitude and euphoria in what was a fitting close to a prolific life. He remained the sensitive artist of old, relieved that the run had found favor with an audience known to be excessively critical if not cruel. This reception vastly differed from the one greeting the premier of L’ombra di Don Giovanni, which still haunted him four decades later. In June, Alfano undertook an extended journey to Norway for a conference held by the International Confederation of the Society of Authors and Composers. The country evoked memories of Grieg, and his visit was, in this manner, yet another leave-taking. At ten minutes past seven the evening of 27 October 1954, “Francesco” Alfano died at his San Remo home (presumably of heart failure).25 Death appears to have encountered him suddenly and with little forewarning. The New York Times obituary indelibly stamped Alfano with an unfortunate (and rapidly spreading) legacy when stating, “Franco Alfano, the Italian composer who completed Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot after Puccini’s death in 1924, died here tonight at the age of 79.” His most popular work, Resurrezione, was cited “thanks largely to Miss Garden’s powerful performance of the feminine leading role.”26 Written off somewhat condescendingly owing to its poor Metropolitan Opera reception in 1928 was Madonna Imperia. Not a word was lost on either Cyrano de Bergerac or Sakùntala (both relatively unknown in the United States). Turandot enabled a ready and superficial evaluation—an execrable example of incomprehension and a lethal assessment that, universally embraced, cast an unmerited (and inestimable) shadow over Italy’s last verismo composer. Emergence, even a half-century later, has been exceedingly difficult. Letters and telegrams of condolence soon began arriving at Via Solaro. Unlike the unceasing rain that plagued Puccini’s Milanese funeral, the warm San Remo sun greeted the large hearse that carried the composer’s remains through palm-lined streets overflowing with wreaths and other floral tributes. One year later, Alfano and Marthe found their final resting place at the Poggioreale Cemetery in Naples. On the eve of his death and in a final summation of his artistic creed, Alfano reflected that he was unable to admire any form of music that failed to be a tonal expression of “authentic beauty.”27 Sorely mistreated during his lifetime, this gentle and enlightened man produced a valuable artistic corpus that, without a doubt, contributed significantly to “an inexhaustible wealth” of creativity “able to discover unlimited horizons.”28

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NOTES 1. Lanfranco Rasponi, The Last Prima Donnas, 353. 2. Author’s interview with Maria Carbone, 11 September 1983. 3. Alfano to Ladislao Sugar, 1 June 1948, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 927. 4. According to Streicher’s detailed chronology in Ultimi splendori, this performance of La leggenda di Sakùntala, because of its destruction, could not have been possible. Instead, he quotes the premiere as taking place 5 January 1952. There also seems to be some dissension in the Rome Opera’s 2006 program for the opera, wherein is stated that the theatre presented the first staged version of Sakùntala with Olivero during 1950. This is certainly an error, considering that the artist had temporarily retired. 5. Cluytens conducted Alfano’s Divertimento at Rome’s Teatro Argentina on 21 November instead. 6. Alfano requested that Sugar reimburse his Roman expenses, which, amounting to sixty to seventy thousand lire, exemplified Italy’s severe rate of inflation. 7. Alfano to Sugar, 15 September 1949, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 937. 8. Cesare Paglia to Alfano, 1 May 1949 (AASR). 9. Giovanni Ruffini, Doctor Antonio (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1890), 19. 10. Ruffini, Doctor Antonio, 21. 11. Ruffini, Doctor Antonio, 53. 12. Ruffini, Doctor Antonio, 46. 13. Ruffini, Doctor Antonio, 373. 14. Ruffini, Doctor Antonio, 197. 15. Ruffini, Doctor Antonio, 294. 16. Ruffini, Doctor Antonio, 302. 17. Ruffini, Doctor Antonio, 357. 18. Alfano to Sugar, 28 March 1950, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 940. 19. Alfano to Sugar, 20 May 1950, Streicher, Ultimi splendori, 941. 20. The work received the “Premio Italia” award. 21. Antonio Veretti replaced him. 22. Alfano to Rino Maione, 7 June 1953, quoted in Roberto Zanetti, “Madonna Imperia, la cortigiana redenta dall’amore” in Maione, Franco Alfano, 141. 23. Alfano to Amedeo Teolato, 13 June 1954, Maione, Franco Alfano, 443. 24. Renzo Rossellini, Pagine di un musicista (Rocca San Casciano, Italy: Cappelli, 1964), 133. 25. Stato Civile, San Remo, 5 November 2007. 26. New York Times, 28 October 1954. 27. Alfano to Walter Grandi, 26 October 1954, quoted in Rossellini, Pagine, 68. 28. Rossellini, Pagine, 68.

Appendix A Opera Plots

Note: Question marks following character names indicate that the information is unknown or uncertain.

MIRANDA Characters Miranda, soprano (?)

Enrico, tenor (?)

Setting Italy (nineteenth century) Scene 1 Miranda, a young girl, falls in love with the poet, Enrico. Scene 2 The ambitious Enrico soon abandons Miranda who, because of her melancholy, becomes ill and seeks medical help at a sanatorium. Scene 3 Enrico realizes he loves Miranda. Frail due to her long illness, she dies from the emotional strain of the much-awaited reunion. 167

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LA FONTE D’ENSCIR (THE SPRING OF HENSHIR) Characters Hedmà, soprano (?) Jezid, tenor (?) Prince Kaddour, baritone (?) Leyla, mezzo-soprano (?)

Abdallah (?) The sheik (?) Tholba (?)

Setting (H)Enshir Tell, Tunisia (legendary times) Part 1 (The published libretto specifies “parts” rather than “acts.”) Jezid, a young Arab, bids farewell to his beloved, Hedmà, prior to joining a team of merchants. Both pledge their love at the Henshir spring. The hermit Leyla appears. She warns that she once bade farewell to her lover at the very same location only to lose him in death. An intermezzo depicts Jezid’s journey that, faithful to the prophecy, culminates in his death in a sandstorm. Part 2 Prince Kaddour asks the Caliph for Hedmà’s hand in marriage as a sign of truce between tribes. Interrupted are the wedding festivities, owing to the news of Jezid’s death, however. Hedmà hears Leyla singing a song of love and death at the fountain. A vision of Jezid materializes enticing Hedmà to join him. She leaps into the fatal spring seeking reunion with her lover.

RESURREZIONE (RISURREZIONE/RESURRECTION ) Characters Caterina Mikaïlovna (Katiusha), soprano Il Principe Dimitri Ivanovitch Neklyudoff, tenor Simonson, baritone

Una donna, soprano Kritzloff, bass Un capo guardiano, bass Un impiegato della stazione, baritone

Opera Plots

Sofia Ivanovna, mezzo-soprano Matrena Pavlovna, soprano Anna, contralto Vera, mezzo-soprano La Korablewa, contralto Fenitchka, soprano La gobba, contralto La rossa, mezzo-soprano

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Un guardiano, baritone Un ufficiale, tenor Un mujich, baritone Io contadino, bass IIo contadino, bass L’Orsa, mute Fedia, mute

Setting Russia (1870/1880) Act 1 It is Easter Vigil at the country villa of Sofia Ivanovna in Russia. Sofia lives with Katiusha, a young girl who, raised as an orphan, now serves as her attendant companion. Sofia’s nephew, Prince Dimitri Nekhlyudov, arrives to spend the night on his way to war against the Turks. Having met years earlier, Dimitri seduces Katiusha in the moonlit night before leaving to join his regiment the following morning. Act 2 A snow-laden railway station in provincial Russia several months later. Katiusha, pregnant with Dimitri’s child and turned out of Sofia’s house, awaits his presence together with her friend, Anna. Her despair is suddenly heightened upon witnessing Dimitri accompanied by another woman. Barred by an official refusing her access, she remains behind vowing to see her former lover. Act 3 A women’s prison in Saint Petersburg ten years later. Following the death of her child, Katiusha, although innocent, has become involved in a crime. She is condemned for murder and sentenced to Siberia. A remorseful Dimitri on jury duty recognizes the woman he seduced, asks forgiveness, and offers marriage. Katiusha, refusing his aid, relates the death of their child. He leaves her with a photo taken at Sofia’s villa long ago, promising to return the following day. Katiusha, engulfed in memories upon seeing the image, succumbs to the oblivion of sleep as the photo slips from her hands.

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Act 4 Easter at a Siberian encampment for political exiles. One of these, Simonson, asks to marry Katiusha and requests Dimitri’s consent. The latter again offers marriage, while handing her an official pardon he has secured. She refuses, intent on leaving for Siberia (and a life of atonement). She does finally admit her love, however. A Dimitri redeemed by his love and the quest for a new meaning in life bids Katiusha farewell.

IL PRINCIPE ZILAH (PRINCE ZILAH) Characters Prince Andras Zilah, tenor Sandor Zilah, bass Yansky Varhély, baritone Ladislas Zahary Menko, baritone Mikali Menko, baritone Laszló, baritone

Olaf, bass Il ferito, tenor Marsa Laszló, soprano Una vecchia tzigana, contralto Una tzigana, soprano

Setting Bakony and Paris (1849/1877) Prologue The Bakony Forest (Hungary) in August 1849. Depicted is a sentinel post in a mountainous region with gypsy tents and wounded soldiers during the final days of the Battle of Independence against Austria. The Austrian forces, upon asking the Russian Czar for aid, have received both Russian and Croat soldiers to help them fight the Hungarians. A wounded Sandor Zilah, shot in the head by the Croats, appears on a stretcher. Andras Zilah, his sixteen-year-old son, awaits him. A beautiful gypsy woman accompanied by her young child, Marsa, offers Sandor water. Her partner, the gypsy Laszló, is soon heard baiting the Austrians (in the guise of a song) to take a different course. This succeeds in putting them off track at the loss of his life. Sandor’s friend, Yansky Varhély, explains that the situation is hopeless. Sandor begs Yansky to watch over his son and dies. Andras removes a jewel-encrusted clasp worn by his father and presents it to Marsa as a symbol of respect for the deaths of both their fathers in battle. He solemnly swears an oath that, upon presentation of the clasp, he will offer help.

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Act 1 Paris, 1877. A hall in the Tchereteff Palace. Marsa, now Princess Tchereteff, dictates her memoirs to an aged Yansky Varhély who acts as her secretary. Therein we learn that the Russians, while capturing both Marsa and her mother in the Battle of Independence, accused her of espionage. The Russian officer Prince Tchereteff, upon his deathbed, married her mother asking forgiveness for his actions and, attempting reconciliation, endowed both his fortune and title to Marsa. Meanwhile, Marsa, through the intervention of Baroness Dinati, is introduced to Andras Zilah living in exile in Paris, who, without recognizing her to be the girl to whom he once gave his father’s clasp, proposes marriage. They express their love, planning to wed in Hungary. Andras begs Yansky to begin with the invitations and not to forget Mikali Menko, the son of his father’s friend, Ladislas Zahary Menko. Andras leaves escorted by Varhély without noticing his fiancée’s predicament: She had once had an affair with Menko only to discover that he was married. She decides to relate her secret following the wedding ceremony. Menko soon enters declaring his love to a furious Marsa. He departs threatening to disclose to Andras their love letters should she fail to satisfy his passion that evening. Marsa, before retiring for the night, informs her servant, Olaf, to unleash the dogs in the park should anyone “try to steal flowers.” Varhély, overhearing Marsa, instructs the gardener to keep the dogs locked away. He then opens a drawer containing dueling swords and, closing the doors to Marsa’s quarters and extinguishing the lights, remains awaiting Menko in complete darkness. He assaults Menko on his way to Marsa’s quarters, demanding the letters or his life. The din attracts Marsa who witnesses Varhély injuring the “flower thief” and searching for letters, which, however, cannot be found. Act 2 The Tchereteff villa in Hungary. On her wedding day, Marsa again contemplates the jewel-encrusted clasp she received as a girl, regardless if Andras remains unaware of her identity. She senses an ominous foreboding when it accidentally falls. Varhély enters wearing national Hungarian dress for the festivities and informs Marsa that there has been no further news concerning Menko. Joyful celebrations are underway accompanied by a czardas and a short love duet for Marsa and Andras. Menko, aware of the wedding, interrupts the festivities and, warning Andras not to marry Marsa, throws the letters at his feet. He runs off as Marsa attempts to console Andras. The Prince, believing his love irreparably soiled, bids Marsa farewell.

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Act 3 The Bakony Forest in Hungary. Marsa, now living among gypsies, asks that poisonous flowers be gathered to create a lethal potion intended for an enemy. She hides in the forest when her former servant, Olaf, relates that Andras is approaching. Varhély, who now leads him to his father’s grave, accompanies Andras. Marsa entrusts an old gypsy to present Andras with the clasp. It instantly recalls his one-time oath. Marsa then appears, explaining that it was indeed her father, Laszló, who fought at his own father’s side in 1849. It is only now that Andras finally recognizes her as the child to whom he once presented the coveted clasp. He forgives her as the lethal poison—gathered for herself—takes effect in eradicating her past.

L’OMBRA DI DON GIOVANNI (DON JUAN’S SHADOW) Characters Rinuccio Da Corbara, baritone Orsetta, soprano Leonello, tenor Vannina D’Alando, soprano

Dariola, mezzo-soprano/contralto Count Cinarca/Don Giovanni (Don Juan de Manara), tenor Colombano, bass

Setting Corsica (1650) Act 1 The courtyard of Don Juan de Manara’s castle. Orsetta tells the guard Rinuccio that an unknown assassin has murdered Orlanduccio, a son of the Alando family. Cries for revenge become audible in the distance headed by Vannina, sister of the slain. Before they are able to reach the castle, however, a cloaked Count Cinarca enters. He informs Rinuccio of his past as an infamous demonic libertine (thus the name Don Juan) who now seeks redemption. Vannina, her mother Dariola, and a furious group of avengers, enter searching for the count. Upon hearing their demands for the count’s death, Rinuccio throws open the oratory doors revealing him in prayer. They depart tranquilly, unwilling to assault the count in the hallowed place.

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Act 2 A room in the castle. The count, filled with remorse and comforted by Orsetta, is afraid of dying damned. Vannina enters to hurl insults at the count who suddenly vanishes. A glowing light appears in the darkness revealing the count clothed as the infamous libertine Don Juan. He then, in the vision, seduces her. Act 3, Scene 1 A deserted clearing in the mountains showing Orlanduccio’s grave and a large cross with the Cinarca castle in the background. Vannina, Dariola, and Orsetta stand before the grave. Dariola’s wailing convinces a gathered crowd to surround the castle and kill the count. Vannina, in an ecstatic state, reveals that she has seen the count and that he cannot be the murderer. The assembled accuse her of witchcraft, and, before leaving for the castle, fasten her to the cross. Orsetta, informing her of a secret underground passage leading to the count’s castle, sets her free. An interlude depicts Vannina’s flight to the castle interspersed with vengeful cries in the distance. Act 3, Scene 2 Vannina reaches the castle oratory to find the count in prayer. She begs him to flee the approaching avengers whom he now eagerly awaits as his executioners. The passion of their love leads to a much longed for embrace, providing oblivion to the blazing flames engulfing the ramparts as both their lives end at the hands of the livid crowd.

LA LEGGENDA DI SAKÙNTALA (THE LEGEND OF SAKÙNTALA) Characters Sakùntala, soprano Priyàmvada, mezzo-soprano Anùsuya, soprano The King, tenor Kanva, bass Durvàsas, bass

Lo scudiero, baritone Harìta, bass Il giovane eremita, tenor Un pescatore, tenor Un uomo della guardia, bass

174

Appendix A

Setting India (legendary times) Act 1 A hermitage in a forest. The king, hunting in the sacred forest, is cautioned by the ascetics to refrain from shooting a gazelle. He obliges and, welcomed into the hermitage, is immediately attracted to the young and beautiful Sakùntala, supposed daughter of their leader Kanva and the temple’s divine protectress. Sakùntala, in the presence of her handmaidens, Priyàmvada and Anùsuya, takes note of a blooming liana symbolizing her future marriage. The king approaches and, without disclosing his identity, offers aid against a bee. Sakùntala gathers flowers as the handmaidens inform the king that she is in fact the offspring of a union between King Kaussika and a nymph. Abandoned, she was raised in the temple by Kanva. An equerry enters and involuntarily discloses the sovereign’s identity. The latter commands the hunt to cease and his men to return to the royal palace where he plans to join them. Anùsuya and Priyàmvada withdraw, leaving Sakùntala alone with the king who speaks of his love. Disconcerted, the girl seeks shelter in the forest. However, she soon returns searching for a bracelet made of lotus blossoms retrieved by the king who, refastening it, also presents her with a ring as a token of his love. Sakùntala succumbs to the king’s romantic entreaties. Act 2 A courtyard in the hermitage. Anùsuya and Priyàmvada, while creating floral garlands, comment on Sakùntala’s despondence following the King’s departure a few months earlier. Durvàsas, an old priest, demands Sakùntala grant him entrance to the hermitage. He then, when she fails to hear him, utters a curse condemning her lover to forget her. Frightened, Priyàmvada and Anùsuya open the gates themselves, thereby breaking a sacred law solely entrusted to Sakùntala. Durvàsas, however, refuses to enter. Slightly placated, he warns that the curse may be circumvented should Sakùntala present the king with the ring once given her. Sakùntala enters, mournfully recalling happier days. Kanva informs her that she will give birth to the ruler of the world. Sakùntala leaves for the royal palace accompanied by Harìta and an eremite. Act 3 The Royal Palace. Neither song nor dance can raise the king’s spirits. A veiled Sakùntala enters. The king fails to recognize her. In an effort to revive

Opera Plots

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his memory, she seeks to display the ring he once gave her, which, suddenly, appears to be lost. She hurries out in desperation. Led in is an angler accused of having stolen the king’s ring (recently retrieved on the riverbank). The king, his memory regained upon viewing the precious object, calls out for Sakùntala. His equerries relate that, upon trying to find the girl, she vanished in a cloud of fire. Sakùntala’s voice is heard offering the king forgiveness. He genuflects in an apotheosis of light and trumpet calls heralding the appearance of his son and heir.

MADONNA IMPERIA Characters Madonna Imperia, soprano Balda, mezzo-soprano Fiorella, soprano Filippo Mala, tenor Il cancelliere di Ragusa, bass

Il principe di Còira, baritone Il conte dell’Ambasceria, baritone Un fante, bass Un famiglio, tenor Messere di Bordò, tenor

Setting Constance during the Council of the Roman Catholic Church (1414–1418) Synopsis Filippo Mala, a young, delicate, and handsome cleric sent to Constance in the entourage of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, wishes to savor some of the dissolute life experienced by other members of the clergy during a Swiss sojourn. He selects, one evening, driven by passion, the most luxurious dwelling in Constance and, evading its guards (who mistake him for an important personage), gains entrance. Within, he sees the shadow of the beautiful and half-nude courtesan Madonna Imperia, whose domicile it is. Imperia’s servants, Fiorella and Balda, soon appear searching for their mistress’s veil, leading them to discover the lovesick young man. Imperia, still dressing, appears. Preparing for an important dinner, she asks the intruder Filippo to leave at once. He now, having yearned to enter the house for many a night (and after telling the Archbishop that he wishes to present Imperia with a commissioned motet), declares his love. Filippo, upon the arrival of Imperia’s “admirers,” seeks refuge in the dining room alcove. The guests include the Chancellor of Ragusa, the Prince of Coira, and a count working at the embassy. Imperia introduces Filippo

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upon discovery as a nephew who has come to Constance seeking fortune as a singer. The assembled guests oblige him to perform. A servant enters (paid by the chancellor wishing to be alone with Imperia) informing the count that he must depart immediately as his wife is in a rage. Imperia, realizing what has happened, asks the chancellor to leave before going into an adjoining room. The prince, completely inebriated, is also escorted out. The chancellor then promises Filippo an abbey, land, and money, granted that he consent to abscond. Filippo pockets a written promise and, although pretending to leave, takes renewed refuge in the dark alcove, which, thanks to Imperia’s return, goes unnoticed. The chancellor thereupon informs her that Filippo has accepted his offer rather than await her favors. Imperia, immensely saddened by the cleric’s departure, bids the chancellor to return the following day. The servants extinguish the candles as it begins to snow, leaving Imperia alone in a state of abject despair. Filippo emerges from his hiding and, after excusing himself, resumes his advances. Imperia reciprocates, believing to have found an ideal partner in the young cleric. They leave the room in a tender embrace as the Bishop of Bordeaux enters searching for Filippo. He is curtly informed that the latter is practicing his motet and, upon discerning their passionate lovemaking from the adjoining room, invokes God’s forgiveness.

L’ULTIMO LORD (THE LAST LORD) Characters Il Duca di Kilmarnock, bass/baritone Freddie, soprano Gray, baritone La Principessa, mezzo-soprano Il Principe Cristiano, tenor

Arturo, bass/baritone Alice, mezzo-soprano James, bass Un’amica, soprano/mezzo-soprano

Setting London and Scotland (“The Present,” 1930) Act 1 A London doll shop. It is Christmas Eve and Freddie—a young girl with a pageboy haircut—is busy decorating a tree for sale adorned with handmade dolls from her mother’s shop. Her task is momentarily interrupted by the passage of the handsome Prince of Denmark on his way to a meeting with the

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king, making Freddie yearn to one day find her own Prince Charming. Freddie’s father, Arturo, son of the last Duke of Kilmarnock, has long been disinherited after marrying Freddie’s mother, Alice, a beautiful woman of modest means. Gray, an older man in the Duke’s service, enters the shop explaining that Freddie, unbeknownst to his parents, sent his grandfather—whom he has never seen—a photo of himself. The old duke, believing the girl a boy greatly resembling the Kilmarnock line, has asked Gray to invite his “grandson” to his castle in Scotland. Viewing this as a long-awaited opportunity to restore peace in her parents’ life through the acceptance of her mother by the craggy old duke, Freddie dresses as a boy and sets off for Scotland. Act 2 The Kilmarnock Castle, Scotland. Freddie, playing her role as a young man to perfection, has successfully charmed the old duke in winning both his affection and esteem. A missive from the king escaping the duke’s attention announcing the arrival of the Prince of Denmark and his mother creates turmoil and embarrassment when a convoy of automobiles enters the castle grounds containing the prestigious—and unexpected—guests. The duke, vexed that there has been insufficient time to locate a suitably aristocratic hostess, is shocked to see Freddie donning women’s clothes prepared to represent. A grossly overweight princess soon enters with her handsome son. She complains that official visits have robbed her of precious time usually reserved for crossword puzzles. Freddie, introduced as the duke’s “granddaughter,” immediately proceeds to charm the bumptious woman who soon retires to her quarters. The duke returns to scold Freddie for the travesty and orders her to her room. Alone, Freddie realizes she must endure the farce to rehabilitate her mother. Unable to reciprocate Prince Cristiano’s love, she sadly rejects his advances. Act 3 The castle library. The duke and Gray are searching for the missing word to complete the princess’s crossword puzzle. Gray, suffering under the strain of watching Freddie enact her role as an obedient “grandson” in “women’s clothes,” is nevertheless strengthened by the girl’s continued determination to proceed with the parody. Cristiano finds Freddie seated before the fire and speaks of his love. She relates the story of her mother’s failing to find acceptance, reminding her lofty suitor that her role, in marriage, would be a similar one. She nevertheless speaks of her infatuation since first seeing him pass her store at Christmas. The duke returns to inquire whether Freddie has found the missing word. Cristiano asks for her hand in marriage, leaving an

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astonished old man overwhelmed to discover that his “grandson” is indeed a granddaughter. An enraged duke commands Freddie to leave the premises. This she promises to do after disclosing her mother’s longtime suffering on his account. The duke finally relents, especially when Freddie convinces him that one of her future offspring will become Duke of Kilmarnock. All rejoice in general forgiveness as the princess finally discovers the crossword’s missing word: marriage.

CYRANO DE BERGERAC Characters Roxane, soprano La Gouvernante, mezzo-soprano Lisa, soprano Suor Marta, mezzo-soprano Una Suora, soprano Cyrano, tenor De Guiche, baritone Carbon, bass

Christian, tenor Rageneau, baritone Le Bret, baritone De Valvert, baritone L’ufficiale spagnolo, baritone Il cuoco, baritone Lignière, bass Il Moschettiere, bass

Setting France (1640/1655) Act 1 The hall of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, Paris. A play is about to be performed when Christian, a handsome cadet in the Guards and enamored of Roxane, discloses that he lacks sufficient courage to approach her. Cyrano, a young nobleman from Gascony with an enormous nose, sees the actor Montfleury, whom he chases from the stage. The Vicomte de Valvert is furious by this insult to a nobleman’s protégé and, therefore, purposefully draws attention to Cyrano’s nose. This leads to an inevitable duel during which Cyrano composes a ballad that succeeds in ensnaring his opponent at its final phrase. Cyrano then confides in his friend Le Bret of being passionately in love with his cousin, Roxane. He nevertheless realizes that his physical blemishes will forever forbid her affection. However, hope flourishes when Roxane’s duenna requests a meeting for her mistress the following day. Cyrano’s friend, Lignière, arrives to say that De Guiche has challenged him to fight against one hundred men. They rush off to battle.

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Act 2, Scene 1 Rageneau’s Shop (“The Cookshop of Poets”). Cyrano, hero of the fight, awaits Roxane. She thanks him for defying the vicomte whom (the married) De Guiche, himself in love with her, has tried to impose as a husband. Christian has recently joined Cyrano’s regiment and Roxane, before leaving, implores him to protect the young man from danger. Christian enters and speaks of his love for Roxane—a passion destined, due to his complete lack of eloquence, to remain illusory. Cyrano promises to double as muse, which, combined with Christian’s “handsome face,” will guarantee success. Act 2, Scene 2 Paris. A small square in the Marais showing Roxane’s house. De Guiche, commander of the regiment in which Cyrano serves, takes leave of Roxane as he departs for the siege of Arras. She prompts him, when he reveals the battle plan of the cadets and Christian, to delay their departure and hasten his own. Cyrano enters and Roxane remarks that she would like to test Christian’s eloquence. Christian, beneath her balcony, declares his love in such a rudimentary manner that Roxane reenters the house. Cyrano, hidden in the shadows, then imitates Christian’s voice and, essentially speaking his own words of love, triumphantly woos the young girl who, unaware of the deceit, returns to embrace Christian. Act 3 Arras. The post of Carbon de Castel-Jaloux. The demoralized Guards have been sent to besiege the town of Arras. Le Bret and Carbon maintain a sentinel as the soldiers sleep. De Guiche has, in the interim, succeeded in separating Christian and Roxane at their moment of marriage, leaving Cyrano to write Roxane numerous letters in Christian’s name. Cyrano attempts to rouse the soldiers’ spirits by singing a Gascon song. Roxane arrives through the enemy lines to confess that she would love Christian even if he were ugly. The latter, realizing that her love rests on Cyrano’s eloquence, insists that his friend reveal the truth. Christian’s sudden death nevertheless foils the attempt. Act 4 Paris. Fifteen years later. The courtyard of the Convent of the Sisters of the Cross. Roxane, unable to forget her past, has sought solace at the convent Cyrano still regularly visits. He soon arrives, concealing a mortal head wound inflicted by an assassin’s club. He asks, after trivial chatter and aware of his

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impending death, to see Christian’s final letter. This he “reads” in the dark and by memory enabling Roxane, finally, to realize him as the creator of letters to whom her spirit has always felt drawn. Cyrano, growing faint, completes the day’s news by reporting his own death as he collapses, taking with him, “forever unspoiled and spotless,” the “white plume” of his honor.

DON JUAN DE MANARA (REVISION OF L’OMBRA DI DON GIOVANNI) Characters Una voce, bass Don Giovanni, tenor Vannina D’Alando, soprano Dariola, mezzo-soprano/contralto

Rinuccio da Corbara, baritone Leonello, tenor Colombano, bass

Setting Corsica (1650) Synopsis Apart from minor variances (dealt with in the monograph), Don Juan de Manara is identical to L’ombra di Don Giovanni.

IL DOTTOR ANTONIO (DOCTOR ANTONIO) Characters Miss Lucy Davenne, soprano Il dottor Antonio, tenor Speranza, soprano La madre di Speranza, mezzo-soprano Sir John Davenne, baritone Il re di Napoli, baritone Caraffa Dei Duchi D’Andria, tenor Aubrey Davenne, bass Don Salvatore, bass Il capo della Polizia, bass

Orlando Pistacchini, tenor Iervolino, tenor Il Barone Mitraglia, tenor Il direttore del Carcere di Ischia, baritone Il capo della Guarnigione, baritone Il capitano, bass Il custode, bass Il giudice, mute Navarro, mute

Opera Plots

Rosalinda Pistacchini, soprano Warrack, tenor

181

Poerio, mute Settembrini, mute

Setting Bordighera (1840), Naples (1848), and Ischia (1851) Act 1 Bordighera 1840. Terrace of the Inn “Casa del Mattone.” Lucy Davenne is an attractive and consumptive twenty-year-old English aristocrat. Daughter of the wealthy Sir John Davenne, she remains convalescing at the inn following a carriage accident on the Riviera leaving her unable to walk. Dr. Antonio, a dashing and patriotic Sicilian physician, who, at the time, happened to come to her aid, attends to her. Lucy’s enforced sojourn with the inn’s proprietors, Speranza and her mother, has taught the neurasthenic much about life far removed from her customary world of London society. She remains unwilling to return home after experiencing her romantic doctor amid sensuous Mediterranean surroundings. Antonio, interrupting her painting, suggests that she finally try to walk. Sir John, followed by the two actors Orlando and his wife Rosalinda, enters. They invite him to witness one of their performances in a manner that only serves to enervate the extremely reserved and slightly snobbish lord who, having swallowed his pride in Bordighera, has softened his prejudices against both Italy and the doctor. His aggressive and condescending son, Aubrey, following time spent in India, has returned to remind his father that Lucy is to be engaged to Lord Cleverton and must therefore return to England before her attachment to Antonio is allowed to grow any stronger. They enter the inn, leaving the moon to cast its first opaque rays. Lucy, disheartened by the proceedings, reappears on the terrace. She then, in Antonio’s company, inquires whether he would be willing to join her in England. He regretfully declines, bound to his allegiance to fight for Italy’s unification. He then bids the heartbroken but physically restored girl farewell. Act 2, Scene 1 Bordighera, March 1848. A room on the ground floor of the “Casa del Mattone.” Speranza and her mother are discussing recent political events—including the liberation of Milan—when a knock at the door announces a distraught Lucy (now Lord Cleverton’s widow) who, following eight years, returns in the hope of finding Antonio, the only person she believes capable of restoring her debilitated health. Speranza relates that the physician returned

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to his native Sicily at the time of Lucy’s departure and, wounded during the February revolution, left for Palermo. She promises to accompany Lucy there the following day. Act 2, Scene 2 14 May 1848. The Royal Palace, Naples. Antonio, accompanied by his friend, Duke Caraffa d’Andria, attends a formal reception held by the king in honor of the new parliament. The sovereign, speaking of Sicily, derides Antonio’s “undiplomatic” political skills. The king is then informed that all necessary precautions regarding a planned coup d’etat (set to take place during the evening’s fireworks) have been successfully undertaken. Lucy, partaking in the gala through the intervention of Lord Palmerston and believing Antonio to be in Sicily, asks the king for a safe conduct. Realizing her mission, the king diverts from the request by offering his arm to attend a play. Speranza chances to see Antonio, calling attention to Lucy’s presence. The couple pledge their love. However, shots accompanied by cries of “Death to the King!” interrupt the tryst. Lucy manages to flee the revolutionary happenings, with Antonio opting to remain to care for one of the victims. Act 3, Scene 1 Ischia. A prison for political dissidents. Antonio is aiding prisoners and a mortally ill Caraffa (who realizes that he will die before seeing Italy liberated) at the prison infirmary. Lucy, having forged plans to save Antonio, informs him by way of the priest Don Salvatore that, at midnight, she will await him aboard her yacht. Act 3, Scene 2 Lucy and Speranza anxiously await Antonio aboard the ship. Her worst misgivings become reality when, rather than Antonio, Don Salvatore appears, presenting her with a letter in which her lover describes his inability to flee if it suggests leaving his compatriots behind. Her plans dissolve when spotting an approaching ship (bearing Antonio and other prisoners) on its way to a secret location making escape impossible. Lucy, hearing Antonio intone a song with the other men from within the ship, cries out in desperation before collapsing in a mortal faint.

Appendix B The Alfano Opus

OPERAS Miranda Libretto by Franco Alfano, based on the verse romance by Antonio Fogazzaro Never performed Never published La fonte d’Enscir Libretto by Luigi Illica, based on Gli amanti felici First performance at the Stadttheater, Breslau (Wroclaw, Poland), 8 November 1898 Leopold Weintraub, conductor Hedmà: Henny Borchers Prince Kaddaour: Adolf Wallnöfer Abdallah: Hans Geißler I cavalieri e la bella (fragment) Libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Tomaso Monicelli Never published Never performed

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AppendixBB Appendix

Resurrezione Libretto by Cesare Hanau, based on the novel Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy First performance at Teatro Vittorio Emanuele, Turin, 30 November 1904 Tullio Serafin, conductor Katiusha: Elvira Magliulo Dimitri: Oreste Mieli Simonson: Angelo Scandiani Il Principe Zilah Libretto by Luigi Illica, based on the novel and play Le Prince Zilah by Jules Claretie First performance at Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa, 3 February 1909 Ettore Panizza, conductor Marsa Laszló: Margot Kaftal Principe Andras Zilah: Ignazio Dygas Mikali Menko: José Segura Tallien Yansky Varhély: Benedetto Challis L’ombra di Don Giovanni Libretto by Ettore Moschino, based on his novel Il demone First performance at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 2 April 1914 Tullio Serafin, conductor Vannina d’Alando: Tina Poli Randaccio Dariola: Giuseppina Bertazzoli Don Giovanni di Manara: Edward Johnson Rinuccio da Corbara: Amleto Barbieri La leggenda di Sakùntala Libretto based on the play by Kalidasa First performance at Teatro Comunale, Bologna, 10 December 1921 Tullio Serafin, conductor Sakùntala: Augusta Concato Priyàmvada: Anna Menarini Anùsuya: Gina Pedroni Il Re: Nino Piccaluga Kanva: Bruno Carmassi Durvàsas: Filipo Spada

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Madonna Imperia Libretto by Arturo Rossato, based on the story “La Belle Imperia” by Honoré de Balzac First performance at Teatro di Torino, Turin, 5 May 1927 Vittorio Gui, conductor Imperia: Florica Cristoforeanu Filippo Mala: Antonio Bagnatiol Il principe di Coira: Carlo Scattola Il cancelliere di Ragusa: Vincenzo Bettoni L’ultimo Lord Libretto by Ugo Falena and Arturo Rossato based on Falena’s play L’ultimo Lord adapted from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy First performance at Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 19 April 1930 Franco Capuana, conductor Freddie: Mafalda Favero La principessa: Enrica Carabelli Principe Cristiano: Aureliano Pertile Duca di Kilmarnock: Riccardo Stracciari Gray: Leone Paci Cyrano de Bergerac Libretto by Henri Cain, based on the play by Edmond Rostand First performance at Teatro Reale dell’Opera, Rome, 22 January 1936 Tullio Serafin, conductor Roxane: Maria Caniglia Cyrano: José Luccioni Cristiano: Alessio de Paolis De Guiche: Giuseppe Manacchini Rageneau: Emilio Ghirardini Carbon: Giacomo Vaghi Don Juan de Manara (Revision of L’ombra di Don Giovanni) Libretto by Ettore Moschino First performance at Teatro Comunale, Florence, 28 May 1941 Tullio Serafin, conductor Vannina d’Alando: Iva Pacetti Dariola: Fedora Barbieri

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Don Giovanni: Beniamino Gigli Rinuccio da Corbara: Gino Bechi Il dottor Antonio Libretto by Mario Ghisalberti, based on the novel Doctor Antonio by Giovanni Ruffini First performance at Teatro dell’Opera, Rome, 30 April 1949 Gabriele Santini, conductor Lucy: Onelia Fineschi Speranza: Rosetta Noli Antonio: Giacinto Prandelli John Davenne: Afro Poli Il re di Napoli: Giulio Tomei Turandot (completion of final duet and final scene) First performance at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 27 April 1926 Sakùntala (Reconstruction of La leggenda di Sakùntala) First performance at Teatro dell’Opera, Rome, 5 January 1952 Gianandrea Gavazzeni, conductor Sakùntala: Vera Pura Aguero Il Re: Roberto Turrini SONGS “Al chiarore della mattina . . .” (De Lupis), 1919 “Amor mio, alza i tuoi occhi” (Tagore) “Assunta” (Colantuoni), 1944 “C’è un augello tutto solo” (Cavalieri) “Cogli, prendi questo fiorellino” (Tagore), 1948 “Colsi il tuo fiore, o mondo!” (Tagore), 1948 “Corro come il cervo muschiato” (Tagore), 1936 “Dormiveglia” (Lipparini) “È giunto il nostro ultimo autunno” (Bona), 1943 “Egli mormorò: “Amor mio, alza i tuoi occhi . . .” (Tagore), 1919 “Envoi” (Hugo), 1896

The Alfano Opus

“Felicità” (Francesco Pastonchi), 1914 “Finisci l’ultimo canto . . .” (Tagore), 1928 “Giorno per giorno . . .” (Tagore), 1928 “I miei piedi son stanchi . . .” (Bona), 1943 “I tuoi occhi . . .” (De Lupis), 1919 “Il giorno non è più” (Tagore), 1949 “Il mio cuore, uccel del deserto” (Tagore), 1948 “La notte e l’anima” (Rilke), 1947 “Letzter Gedanke” (Kugel), 1964 posth. “Luce” (Tagore) “Lungo la via del mare . . .” (Bona), 1943 “Malinconia” (Lipparini), 1920 “Mamma, il giovane principe . . .” (Tagore), 1919 “Melodia” (Meano), 1943 “Messaggio” (De Paoli), 1932 “Nennella” (Colantuoni), 1944 “Ninna-nanna di mezzanotte” (Meano), 1943 “Non hai udito i suoi passi” (Tagore), 1947 “Non nascondere il secreto del tuo cuore” (Tagore), 1936 “Non partire, amor mio” (Tagore), 1922 “Non so” (Tagore) “Parlami, amor mio . . .” (Tagore), 1919 “Perché allo spuntar del giorno . . .” (Tagore), 1929 “Perché piangi?” (De Lupis), 1919 “Perché siedi là” (Tagore), 1936 “Pourquoi! “ (Lamartine), 1896 “Preghiera alla Madonna” (Orsini), 1943 “Preludio primaverile” (Cevidalli-Cavalieri), 1949 “Quando le due sorelle” (Tagore) “Rondeau” (De Musset), 1896 “Scendesti dal tuo trono” (Tagore), 1947 “Scrivimi, amor mio . . .” (Bona), 1943 “Se taci” (Tagore), 1947 “Si addensano le nubi” (Tagore), 1947 “Sì, lo so” (Tagore), 1948 “Sonnet” (De Musset), 1896 “T’amo, diletto mio” (Tagore) “Tu sei in cielo” (Tagore), 1948 “Vecchia ninna-nanna partenopea,” 1935 “Venne e mi sedette accanto” (Tagore) 1947

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Appendix B

ORCHESTRAL WORKS Concerto (piano, violin, and cello), 1931 Divertimento, 1935 First Quartet (two violins, viola, and cello), 1918 Giorno per giorno (piano and cello) Hic est illa Neapolis (also performed as ballet entitled Vesuvius) Neapolis (adaptation of vocalise for piano and cello) Quintet in A flat (piano and string quartet), 1947 Second String quartet, 1927 Sinfonia classica (Revision of Symphony in E), 1953 Sonata (piano and cello), 1925 Sonata (violin and piano), 1923 (Revised 1933) Suite romantica, 1909 Symphony in C, 1931/2 Symphony in E, 1910 Third Quartet in G, 1949 Two intermezzi (adaptation of themes from first and second quartet), 1931 Una danza, 1950

PIANO COMPOSITIONS À la Mazurka, 1900 Amour . . . Amour, 1901 Arlequin, 1900 Au ruisseau, ca. 1898 Aveau et danse du premier modèle, 1902 Aveau intime, ca. 1898 Bagatelle, ca. 1898 Boite à Musique Canon, 1899 Canzonetta, unknown Causerie, 1897 Chant sans paroles, 1900 Danse ancienne, 1902 Désir, ca. 1898 Elégie, 1899 Entrée et danse des modèles, 1902 Fable, 1897

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Feuille d’Album Four Neapolitan Dances (Chanson populaire, Sérénade à la bien aimée, Sérénade qui passe, Guitare), 1899 Four Rumanian Dances, 1899 Mazurka, 1897 Mazurka, 1902 Melodia dei miei vent’anni Nocturne, 1899 Nostalgie, 1919 Pas des èventails, 1902 Pax, 1929 Petite mazurka, unknown Petite valse, 1899 Romance, 1899 Romanzetta, 1897 Scherzino, 1899 Scherzo, 1900 Sérénade exotique, 1900 Sonata per pianoforte e violoncello, 1926 Taquinerie, 1900 Three preludes and fugues for piano, 1896 Valse coquette, 1900 Valse, 1899 Vieille fable, 1899 HYMN Himno al libertador Simon Bolivar, 1930 VOCALISE Vocalizzi nello stile moderno, 1933 BALLETS Eliana Adaptation of Suite romantica, 1923

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Lorenza First performance at Folies Bergère, Paris, 4 November 1901 Napoli First performance at Folies Bergère, Paris, 26 January 1901 Vesuvius Adaptation of Hic est illa Neapolis. First performance at Casino, San Remo, 21 February 1923

AS AUTHOR Appunti di istrumentazione

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Mintzer, Charles. Rosa Raisa. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2001. Modugno, Maurizio. “Là tra i fior . . . La leggenda di Sakùntala, opera floreale di Franco Alfano.” Rome: Teatro dell’Opera, 2006. Program notes for La leggenda di Sakùntala. Möller, Heinrich. “Alfanos L’ombra di Don Giovanni,” Allgemeine Musikzeitung XLI/17 (24 April 1914). Moore, Edward C. Forty Years of Opera in Chicago. New York: Arno Press, 1977. Morini, Mario, ed. Pietro Mascagni: epistolario. Lucca, Italy: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1996. ———. Umberto Giordano. Milan: Casa Musicale Sonzogno, 1968. Nardi, Piero. Vita di Arrigo Boito. Verona: Mondadori, 1944. Nicolodi, Fiamma. Musica e musicisti nel ventennio fascista. Fiesole, Italy: Discanto, 1984. Parise, Stefano. Giorgio Federico Ghedini. San Giuliano Milanese, Italy: Ricordi, 2003. Philipps-Matz, Mary Jane. Puccini: A Biography. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000. ———. Verdi. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Quatrocchi, Vincenzo. Magda Olivero: Una voce per tre generazioni. Turin: Italgrafica, 1984. Rasponi, Lanfranco. The Last Prima Donnas. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982. Rossellini, Renzo. Pagine di un musicista. Rocca San Casciano, Italy: Cappelli, 1964. ———. Polemica musicale. Milan: Ricordi, 1962. Roussel, Raymond. “Completion of Turandot: An Interview with Franco Alfano.” The Musical Leader, 22 October 1925. Ruffini, Giovanni. Doctor Antonio. Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1890. Sachs, Harvey. Music in Fascist Italy. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986. ———. Toscanini. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. Sallustio, Giacinto. Musica d’oggi, 1936. Sanborn, Pitts. Telegram, 29 February 1928. Schwerké, Irving. Jazz et David. Paris: Les presses modernes, 1927. Sciannameo, Franco. “Aspects of Alfano: Turandot, Mussolini, and the Second String Quartet.” Musical Times 143, no. 1881, Winter 2002. Seltsam, William H. Metropolitan Opera Annals. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1947. Streicher, Johannes, ed. Ultimi splendori: Cilèa, Giordano, Alfano. Rome: Ismez, 2000. Tagore, Rabindranath. Gitanjali. Lachen am Zürichsee, Switzerland: Coron Verlag, 1994. ———. The Gardener. London: Macmillan, 1920. ———. S´akuntala: Its Inner Meaning” (Introduction). In The Recognition of S´akuntala, by Kalidasa. Translated by Jadunath Sarkar. London: Macmillan, 1920. Tolstoy, Leo. Resurrection. Middlesex, UK: Penguin, 1966. Reprint, 1977. Tolstoy, Sonya. Die Tagebücher 1898–1910. Königstein, Germany: Athenäum, 1983. Tuggle, Robert. The Golden Age of Opera. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983. Turnbull, Michael T. R. B. Mary Garden. Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1997. Weaver, William, and Simonetta Puccini, eds. The Puccini Companion. New York: Norton, 1994.

Name Index

Adami, Giuseppe, 32, 49–50, 53, 61 Addinsell, Richard, 163 Albanese, Francesco, 163 Albéniz, Isaac, 136 Alfano, Alberto (grandson of brother Alberto), 6n2 Alfano, Alberto, 1 Alfano, Alfredo, 1 Alfano, Francesca (Fourcade), 1–2 Alfano, Giuseppe, 1 Alfano, Herbert, 5, 25, 42, 141, 148 Alfano, Maria, 1–2 Alfano, Mario, 1 Alfano, Marthe (Serafina Brosseau), vii, 15, 24–25, 28, 33, 35, 73, 80, 93, 136, 144, 147–52, 165 Alfano, Nina (Caterina Guglielmi), xiv–xv, 11n2, 148–50, 156n8 Alfano, Ugo, 1 Alfano, Vincenzo, 1–2, 11 Annaloro, Antonio, 160, 164 Antona Traversi, Camillo, 14 Antonicelli, Giuseppe, 136 Arrieu, Claude, 119 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 3–4 Badini, Ernesto, 136 Bady, Berthe, 14 Bagnatiol, Antonio, 73 Balakirev, Mily, 2

Ballin, Carlo, 28 Balzac, Honoré de, 26, 50, 56, 71, 74–75, 77, 84n9, 126, 164 Barbieri, Fedora, 141 Barrès, Maurice, 35 Bartok, Bela, 83, 109 Basile, Arturo, 155 Bataille, Henri, 14 Bavagnoli, Gaetano, 94, 119 Bechi, Gino, 138, 141 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 9, 136 Behné, Harriet, 10 Bellezza, Vincenzo, 136 Bellini, Vincenzo, 1 Benelli, Sem, 33 Benois, Nicola, 138, 140 Berg, Alban, 38, 83, 127 Berg, Helene, 54 Berlioz, Hector, 28, 126, 145n30 Bernard, Tristan, 112 Bernhardt, Sarah, 127 Bertini, Francesca, 89 Bizet, Georges, 2, 34, 76, 154 Bloch, Ernst, 124 Boito Arrigo, 32, 35, 43, 50, 54, 62, 126 Bolivar, Simon, 110 Bombaschek, Giuseppe, 87 Bona, Miranda, 155 Bonucci, Arturo, 83, 131

195

196

Name Index

Borchers, Henny, 10 Bori, Lucrezia, 87, 106 Borodin, Alexander, 2 Bottai, Giuseppe, 138 Botti, Cardenio, 141 Bovio, Libero, 103n3 Bracale, 110 Brahms, Johannes, 9, 33 Brard, Magda, 90 Brero, Vittorio, 138 Brezzi, Felicina, 136 Brezzi, Giuseppe, 136 Britten, Benjamin, 39 Brüggemann, Alfred, 28, 31n57, 57n4 Brusa, Filippo, 134 Budden, Julian, xvi, 57n1, 63 Burzio, Eugenia, 23 Busoni, Ferruccio, 54 Cadoni, Fernanda, 155 Cain, Henri, 64–65, 113–15, 122–26, 132, 135, 137 Calderón de la Barca, Pedro 34 Calusio, Ferruccio, 70–71 Caniglia, Maria, 133, 135 Capuana, Franco, 105 Carbone, Maria, 155, 158, 160, 162–63 Carmassi, Bruno, 44 Carner, Mosco, 54, 63, 69n21 Carreño, Teresa, 116n23 Casavola, Franco, 100 Casella, Alfredo, 73, 102, 109, 115, 131, 147 Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mario, 88, 112, 115 Catalani, Alfredo, viii, 8 Cervi-Caroli, Ersilia, 62, 85n59 Cesabianchi, 147 Cesari, Gaetano, 72, 74 Cesi, Beniamino, 2 Challis, Benedetto, 25 Chateaubriand, René de, 5 Chekov, Anton, 161 Chiavolini, Alessandro, 90 Chini, Galileo, 53

Chopin, Frédéric, 143 Christoff, Boris, 155 Cigna, Gina, 135 Cilèa, Francesco, 95, 132, 146 Civil, Paolo, 136 Claretie, Jules, 22, 26 Clausetti, Carlo, 44, 50, 53, 56, 71, 90, 96, 119 Cluytens, André, 159, 163 Cobelli, Giuseppina, 20, 77, 85n35, 122, 124, 135, 138, 140 Colacicchi, L., 123 Colantuoni, Alberto, 154 Colombo, Alfredo, 90, 96–97 Concato, Augusta, 44 Coppola, Piero, 119 Coquelin, Constant, 126 Cotrufo, 2 Coward, Noël, 121 Crespi, Daniele, 45 Cristoforeanu, Florica, 73, 94, 105, 119 Cui, César, 2 D’Albert, Eugen, 28 D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 19, 39, 132, 143 D’Atri, Nicola, 132, 134 Dahms, Walter, 107 Dalla Rizza, Gilda, 131, 137 Dallapiccola, Luigi, 154 Darzens, R., 14 De Bergerac, Savinien de Cyrano, 126 De Cavalieri, Anna, 165 De Cesari, Raoul Colonna, 35 De Fabritiis, Oliviero, 138, 150 De Mérode, Cléo, 14 De Musset, Alfred, 3 De Nardis, Camillo, 2 De Paoli, Domenico, 120 De Rensis, Raffaello, 87, 124 De Sabata, Victor, 73 De Ségur, Comtesse, 113 De Toma, Baroness, 113 Debussy, Claude, 28, 38, 43, 75, 145n30 Delibes, Léo, 47n2

Name Index

197

Falena, Ugo, 77–80, 82–83, 88, 90, 95–100, 105, 114–15 Farinacci, Roberto, 140 Farrar, Geraldine, 93 Fauré, Gabriel, 89 Favero, Mafalda, 20, 90, 99, 104–5, 107, 110 Ferraresi, Aldo, 113 Ferrero, Willy 155 Fineschi, Onelia, 160 Fitelberg, Gregor, 131 Flaubert, Gustave, 51, 86 Fleta, Miguel, 62 Fogazzaro, Antonio, 5–6, 7n24, 8 Formichi, Cesare 89 Fornaroli, Cia, 123, 129n22 Forster, E.M., 161 Fortunati, Mercedes, 164 Forzano, Giovacchino, 120 Franchetti, Alberto, 23 Freud, Sigmund, 19 Furtwängler, Wilhelm, 141

89, 92n20, 93–95, 99, 108, 112, 121, 125, 131–32, 140, 148, 164–65 Gasco, Alberto, 121, 134 Gatti, Guido M., 74, 81, Gatti-Casazza, Giulio, 72–73, 82, 87, 96, 102, 106 Gautier, Théophile, 126 Gavazzi, Carla, 163–64 Gedda, Giulio Cesare, 124 Geißler, Hans, 10 Gelmetti, Gianluigi, 152 Genoa, Isabella Duchess of, 16 Gershwin, George, 123 Ghedini, Giorgio Federico, 98, 101, 103n17, 136–37, 140, 145n23, 147 Ghiringhelli, Antonio, 159 Ghisalberti, Mario, 138–40, 151, 153–54, 162 Gigli, Beniamino, 87, 141–43, 145n40, 156n20, 158 Gigli, Rina, 145n38 Gilman, Lawrence, 87 Giordani, Paolo, 120, 123–25, 128, 137–39, 141, 147, 149, 151, 153–55, 157n24, 159–60 Giordano, Umberto, 8, 14, 22, 26, 33, 114, 120, 137, 146, 160 Gobbi, Tito, 136 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 5, 45, 126 Goldmark, Karl, 41 Gomes, Carlos 110 Gomez, General Vicente, 110 Gounod, Charles, 126 Gozzi, Carlo, 49 Granda, Alessandro, 138 Grandval, Lillie, 135, 144n18 Grieg, Edvard, 3–4, 6, 33, 43, 141, 165 Guarnieri, Antonio, 36, 42 Guerrini, Guido, 121 Guilford, Nannette, 87, 92n8 Gunsbourg, Raoul, 113, 115, 118

Garden, Mary, xiii, 47, 48n21, 53, 56, 59–61, 65, 68, 76, 78, 80, 86–87,

Hanau, Cesare, 14–15, 18–19, 28 Hartleb, Hans, 138

Della Corte, Andrea, xv, 6n2, 35, 74, 101–2, 106, 123–24, 134, 142–43 Della Torre, Paola, 139 Di Giacomo, Salvatore, 89, 95–96, 101, 107 Di Stefano, Giuseppe, 154 Dickens, Charles, 29n7 Domingo, Plácido, xv Donizetti, Gaetano, 160 Dosia, 135, 144n18 Dostoevsky, Feodor, 16 Dreier, 3 Dukas, Paul, 145n30 Dumas, Alexandre, 126 Dygas, Ignazio, 25 Edmonds, Rosemary, 16 Emanuel, Maurice, 123

198

Name Index

Hartmann, Ludwig, 8 Heinsheimer, Hans, 108, 125, 138 Heldy, Fanny, 115 Henderson, William J., 87 Hertzka, Emil, 56, 59, 62–66, 69n29, 70–74, 76, 78–83, 86–90, 92n19, 94, 96–100, 104–8, 112–14, 119, 121–22, 129, 159 Hindemith, Paul, 109 Hodgson Burnett, Frances, 77 Hoffmann, R.S., 92n14 Honegger, Arthur, 65–66, 122 Hugo, Victor, 3 Ibert, Jacques, 145n30 Ibsen, Henrik, 19 Illica, Luigi, 8–10, 11n4, 20–23, 26, 28 Incagliati, Matteo, 68 Jachino, Carlo, 139 Jadassohn, Salomon, 3–4, 6–7n13 Jagel, Frederick, 87 Jánàc˘ek, Leos, 38, 46, 83 Jeritza, Maria, 82 Jobin, Raoul, 164 Johnson, Bice (Serafin), 24, 34–35 Johnson, Edward, xvi, 24–25, 29, 34, 37 Jolivet, André, 119 Jones, Sir William, 41 Jonson, Ben, 41 Kafka, Franz, 50 Kaftal, Margot, 25 Kalidasa, 34, 41–42, 45, 48n15 Kalmus, Alfred A., 89, 90, 102, 111, 113, 120–22, 125, 128–29, 132–33, 138 Kiepura, Jan, 82 Kindler, Hans, 63–64, 69n29, 81 Klarwein, Franz, 138 Klein, Walther, 70 Klimt, Gustav, 19 Kodaly, Zoltan, 83 Kolodin, Irving, 87 Korngold, Erich Wolfgang, 82

Korngold, Julius, 82, 88 Krasselt, Rudolf, 138 Kremer, 88 Krenek, Ernst, 82 La Rosa Parodi, Armando, 139, 149 Labia, Maria, 28 Labroca, Mario, 73, 159 Lamartine, Alphonse, 3 Landi, Bruno, 136 Laszló, Magda, 159 Lattuada, Felice, 69n40 Lauri-Volpi, Giacomo, 123–25 Lehár, Franz, 74 Lehmann, Lotte, 82 Leoncavallo, Ruggiero, 1, 7n23, 11, 27, 108, 153 Levy, Lou, 155 Liadov, Anatole, 2 Liszt, Franz, 3, 43 Litt, Hans, 4 Longo, Alessandro, 1, 5, 6n2 Lopez, Luis, 2 Löwe, Theodore, 10, 12n7 Lualdi, Adriano, 47n2, 109 Luccioni, José, 133–35 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 88 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 19, 34, 126, 141 Magliulo, Elvira, 15–16 Magnoni, Jolanda, 157n37 Maison, René, 76, 89, 131, 148 Malipiero, Gian Francesco, 62, 115, 135, 149 Manara, Miguel, 35 Marazzi, Antonio, 41 Marchand, 14 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso, 109, 116n17 Marinuzzi, Gino, 28, 32–33, 36–37, 40n2, 42–43, 71, 73–74, 77, 99, 101, 103, 105, 120, 136, 164 Martucci, Giuseppe, 24, 26, 42 Mascagni, Emy, 63

Name Index Mascagni, Pietro, xv, 3, 37, 39, 63, 101, 110, 112, 120, 134, 136, 146–47, 153, 156n20, 163 Massenet, Jules, 2–3, 5–6, 13, 23, 27–28, 46, 47n2, 80, 89, 128, 162 Massimo Mila, 164 Mataloni, Jenner, 135 Mazzacurati, Benedetto, 90, 113, 119, 152 Meano, Cesare, 134 Melandri, Antonio, 139–40 Mendelssohn, Felix, 3, 43, 145n30 Menerini, Anna, 44 Metastasio, 102 Miele, Oreste, 15–16 Milhaud, Darius, 109 Milliet, Paul, 13–14 Mirbeau, Octave, 22 Molière, 26, 66 Molinari, Bernardino, 123, 131 Molinari-Pradelli, Francesco, 155, 159, 163–64 Montemezzi, Italo, 32–33, 37, 40n20 Moore, Edward C., 59, 65 Moranzoni, Roberto, 76, 89 Moreau, Gustave, 19 Morfella, Raffaele, 1 Moschino, Ettore, 34–37, 142 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 25, 54, 142 Mucha, Alphonse, 19 Müller, Maria, 87 Mulè, Giuseppe, 100, 121, 136, 146–47, 153 Murger, Henri, 13 Mussolini, Arnaldo, 86 Mussolini, Benito, 5, 67, 72, 90, 94, 110, 118, 125, 133, 136, 139–41, 143–44, 146, 150 Mussorgsky, Modest, 9, 43, 128 Muzio, Claudia, 96 Napoli, Gennaro, 121 Nemeth, Maria, 82 Neway, Patricia, 164 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 123

199

Nikisch, Arthur, 3–4, 7n13 Novak, Joseph, 82, 87 Olivero, Magda, xiv, 125, 129n28, 136–40, 144n4, 148 Oltrabella, Augusta, 140 Orefice, Giacomo, 44 Orthmann, Erich, 138 Pacetti, Iva, 141 Paci, Leone, 105 Pagano, Giorgio, 149 Paglia, Cesare, 135, 160 Paisiello, Giovanni, 102 Panizza, Ettore, 25, 28, 32, 36 Pannain, Guido, 105, 141 Pantini, Romualdo, 68 Paradossi, Alessandro, 111 Paul, Professor, 7n21 Pederzini, Gianna, 140, 146–48, 155 Pedrini, Maria, 131 Pedroni, Gina, 44 Persico, Mario, 100 Pertile, Aureliano, 99, 101, 105 Peter I, the Great, Tsar, 120 Piccaluga, Nino, 44 Pick-Mangiagalli, Riccardo, 136–37 Pigni, Renzo, 157n37 Pinza, Ezio, 87 Piontelli, Luigi, 15 Pizzetti, Ildebrando, 39, 67, 92, 116n12, 121, 135–36, 146, 153 Pizzi, Umberto, 132 Poggi, Gianni, 160 Polacco, Giorgio, 26 Poli-Randaccio, Ernestina, 37 Poli, Nives, 150 Poltronieri, Alberto, 131 Porcheddu, Beppe, 154 Pozza, Giovanni, 34–35, 41–42 Prandelli, Giacinto, 155, 160, 164 Previtali, Fernando, 148, 159 Procida, Saverio, 101, 105 Prokofiev, Sergei, 87, 123 Puccini, Antonio, 51–53

200

Name Index

Puccini, Giacomo, xiii, xv–xvi, 8, 10–11, 19–21, 23, 27–28, 32, 35–36, 42, 46–47, 49–55, 58n29, 60–63, 73–75, 77, 80–81, 87, 91, 99–100, 120, 135, 153, 165 Quadri, Argeo, 164 Rabaud, Henri, 47n2 Raccuglia, Filippo Ernesto, 156n5 Rainieri, 78, 81 Raisa, Rosa, 62 Rasputin, Grigory, 59 Ravel, Maurice, 89, 109, 123 Reger, Max, 141 Reiner, Fritz, 44 Reinhard, 88 Respighi, Ottorino, 44, 51, 67, 92n8, 115, 121, 135, 157n26 Ricci, Ugo, 11 Ricordi, Giulio, 9–10, 13, 15, 22, 26, 28, 36, 54, 73 Ricordi, Tito, 15–16, 22–24, 27–28, 33–34, 36–38, 41, 43–44, 76, 95, 97, 114, 135 Riemann, Hugo, 4 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 154 Rimsky-Korsakov, Nicolai, 33 Robbiani, Iginio, 49, 100 Rocca, Ludovico, 140 Roller, Alfred, 87 Romano, Adelina, 148 Ropartz, J. Guy, 119 Rossato, Arturo, 50–51, 55, 61–62, 66, 68, 70–71, 74, 76–77, 84n5, 86–89, 94, 96–100, 104, 106, 113–15, 119, 124–25, 134–35, 147, 162, 164 Rossato, Laura, 147 Rossellini, Renzo, 109, 113 Rossini, Gioachino, 73, 136 Rostand, Edmond, 3, 56, 64, 66, 122, 124, 126–27, 130n36, 132, 134 Rostand, Maurice, 123 Rostand, Rosemonde, 64–65, 124–25 Rother, Arthur, 149

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 5, 106, 161 Ruffini, Giovanni Domenico, 138, 160–62 Saint-Saëns, Camille, 25 Sand, George, 26 Sani, Giuseppina, 136 Santini, Gabriele, 124, 160 Savagnone, Giuseppe, 147 Scandiani, Angelo, 15–16, 104, 109 Scarano, Oronzio, 2 Scarlatti, Alessandro, 1, 5 Schalk, Franz, 67, 70–71, 76, 83, 88, 135 Schenker-Angerer, Margit, 83, 88 Scherchen, Hermann, 163 Schiavazzi, Piero, 23, 26 Schipa, Tito, 99, 101 Schoenberg, Arnold, 38 Schreker, Franz, 83, 91 Schürgers, Theo, 138 Schumann, Robert, 9, 33, 126 Schwerké, Irving, 116n17 Scott, Sir Walter, 5 Scribe, Eugene, 113 Sebastian, George, 164 Sebastiani, Osvaldo, 136, 139–40 Segura, José, 25 Serafin, Tullio, 15–16, 37, 44, 72–74, 76, 78, 81–82, 106, 125, 133, 139, 151 Serrao, Paolo, 2–3 Sgambati, Giovanni, 26 Simionato, Giulietta, 155 Simoni, Renato, 32, 49, 153 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 16 Somigli, Franca, 125, 136, 146, 149 Sonzogno, Edoardo, 8 Spada, Filippo, 44 Sprague Coolidge, Elizabeth, 56, 58n35, 59, 63, 69n29, 81, 115 Stoll, Emmy, 138 Stracciari, Riccardo, 23, 101, 105 Strauss, Richard, 4, 36, 38, 93, 102, 141, 145n30, 148

Name Index Stravinsky, Igor, 38, 88, 102 Strindberg, August, 19 Stroppa, Piero, 45 Stutschewsky, Joachim, 83 Süssmayr, Franz Xavier, 54 Sugar, Ladislao, 159, 163, 166n6 Tagore, Rabindranath, xiii, 41, 45, 56, 89, 92n14, 95, 109, 154, 160 Tango, Egisto, 25, 27 Tolstoy, Leo, xiii, 9, 14, 16–19, 28, 128 Toni, Alceo, 121 Toscanini, Arturo, xiv, xvi,10, 40n8, 50, 52–54, 60–63, 67, 69n21, 71–72, 78, 81, 107, 109, 114, 135, 153 Tosi, Arturo, 147 Trentinaglia, Erardo, 114 Trojani, Gaetano, 2 Turgenev, Ivan, 8 Turnbull, Michael, 48n21, 63 Turner, Eva, 77 Valcarenghi, Renzo, 44, 53–54, 56, 60–61, 71, 78–79, 90, 96 Vera, Emilica, 137 Verdi, Giuseppe, xvi, 91 Veretti, Antonio, 100, 113, 166n21 Verga, Giovanni, 3 Vinay, Rámon, 165 Vitale, Edoardo, 136 Vitrix, Claudia, 95

201

Vittadini, Franco, 51, 100 Vivarelli, Mario, 73, 95, 102 Vivarelli, Nenné, 102 Viviani, Raffaele, 113 Viviani, Vittorio, 163 Voltaire, 126 Von Hofmannsthal, Hugo, 93 Von Pataky, Koloman, 88 Von Schillings, Max, 83 Wagner, Richard, xvi, 3, 10–11, 36, 38–39, 43, 46, 122, 145n30 Wallnöfer, Adolf, 10 Walton, William, 109 Webern, Anton, 83 Wedekind, Franz, 19 Weingärtner, Felix, 41 Weintraub, Leopold, 10 Wilde, Oscar, 19 Winkler, Georg C., 146 Wolf-Ferrari, Ermanno, 80, 120, 138 Wührer, Friedrich, 83 Youssoupoff, Prince Felix, 59 Zamboni, Maria, 62 Zandonai, Riccardo, xv, 29n7, 32, 34, 36–37, 39, 40n20, 50–52, 100, 109, 114, 121–25, 132, 134–36, 140, 146 Zola, Emile, 3 Zuffellato, Guido, 121

About the Author

Konrad Dryden is a frequent lecturer on verismo and has written articles for numerous international opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Rome Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, English National Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Wexford Festival Opera, Cologne Opera, Prague State Opera, and Deutsche Oper Berlin. His interviews, reviews, and essays have appeared in a variety of publications, including Das Opernglas, The Opera Quarterly, Die Musikforschung, and CPO Records. He is the author of the first fully documented biographies of the composers Riccardo Zandonai (Peter Lang Inc., 1999) and Ruggiero Leoncavallo (Scarecrow Press, 2007). Dr. Dryden is currently professor of music and German at the University of Maryland University College–Europe.

203

The Alfanos were silversmiths, sporting a family business founded in 1865.

Alfano’s diploma issued from Leipzig’s Royal Conservatory of Music by Salomon Jadassohn in 1895. Courtesy Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Leipzig.

Alfano and his brothers, ca. 1899.

Alfano’s study in Bologna during his years as director of the city’s Liceo Musicale, ca. 1918.

Alfano with his esteemed colleague and friend, Gino Marinuzzi, ca. 1900.

The composer in the company of (from l to r) Bice Serafin, Edward Johnson, and Marthe, Milan 1914. Courtesy Edward Johnson Collection, Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph Library.

Alfano and Marthe, Milan 1914. Courtesy Edward Johnson Collection, Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph Library.

Edward Johnson as Giovanni in the La Scala world premiere of L’ombra di Don Giovanni, Milan 1914. Courtesy Edward Johnson Collection, Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph Library.

The all-powerful Tito Ricordi (center) with Alfano to his immediate right photographed before La Scala prior to L’ombra di Don Giovanni’s premiere, Milan 1914.

Perhaps the most well known of Alfano’s studio portraits, Milan 1914.

The composer with Mary Garden at her villa in Beaulieu-sur-mer wearing glasses following work on Turandot’s completion, ca. 1928. Courtesy Royal College of Music, London.

An inordinately proud Alfano welcomes Mary Garden to view his newly built home in San Remo, ca. 1928. Courtesy Royal College of Music, London.

Studio portrait, ca. 1929.

Universal Edition’s official portrait of the composer, ca. 1930.

Program for Alfano performing his Sonata for Cello and Piano in Paris, 1932.

Page from the original autograph piano/vocal score of Madonna Imperia.

Relaxing in the sun wearing his customary white.

As director of Pesaro’s Liceo Musicale, ca. 1948.

With Carla Gavazzi following a performance of Il dottor Antonio, Naples 1950.

Taking part in a Roman convention during his final year (1954).

Congratulating Ramón Vinay following the La Scala premiere of Cyrano de Bergerac, May 1954.

The San Remo funeral, 1954.

The San Remo funeral, 1954.