LUCREZIA - The story of Respighi’s last opera
Lucrezia was Respighi’s last opera, this article charts
the progress of its composition and Respighi’s last illness through to his
untimely death on April 18th 1936. He was not yet 57.
The material below is a slight abridgement of writings in the
final chapters of Elsa Respighi’s Ottorino Respighi - His Life-Story,
published by Ricordi.
The support of Elsa Respighi
My quotations begin when Elsa’s book reaches the chapter
dealing with the years 1934-35.
On page 149 is quoted material from Claudio
Guastalla’s (one of Respighi’s librettists) Notebooks:-
All artists - I believe
- need the reassurance of a sincere opinion.
Respighi had the singular good
fortune to have a wife who was also a highly intelligent adviser, a woman of
rapid intuition who could be brutally frank.
Elsa was Respighi’s inspiration and champion, his comfort and
spur.
And Respighi often sorely needed the last two comfort because of his bouts
of acute depression - a spur, to rouse him from his occasional fits of
laziness.
Respighi was an excellent artist, but a simple good-natured man,
reflective and sometimes a little indolent...shy, easily discouraged and readily
influenced...
Working with a man like me could have been harmful to Respighi
because unfortunately I tend to be full of doubts, sceptical, often depressed
and sometimes depressing, naturally inclined more to reflection than action.
Without [Elsa’s] vigorous encouragement I would never have written the librettos
of La Fiamma and Lucrezia and Respighi would never have composed
the music.
The onset of the final illness
Just before 10th April (1935) we were off to
Budapest for the Hungarian premiere of La Fiamma.
During the journey from
Rome, Respighi complained of a very sore throat so, on arrival in Budapest,
I
asked that he should see a specialist.
The Maestro returned to the hotel with a
feverish temperature and could swallow nothing. The doctor who came soon after
told me that he had an oedema of the epiglottis and an urgent operation would
probably be necessary to prevent him from choking to death. For the time being,
he was given medicine and fortunately, despite a constantly high temperature,
the swelling abated thus averting an operation.
‘My anxiety seemed to be out of all proportion to his illness
but it was really a presentiment of impending tragedy. The throat infection for
some time curiously affected Respighi’s hearing.
I recall the day he came to the
theatre for the dress rehearsal. As soon as the orchestra began to play he leapt
to his feet as if to leave the box, exclaiming, "But can’t you hear that they
are all out of tune?" I looked at him dumbfounded - the orchestra was perfectly
in tune.
What was the matter with Respighi? The Maestro looked bewildered.
Suddenly he put the palm of his hand first over one ear and then over the other,
listening as he did so. "There’ s a difference of a semitone when I listen with
this ear," he said. For days life was sheer torture for him. I remember his
distress during a reception when all the noisy chatter prevented him from
hearing what people were saying to him. He returned home exhausted and terribly
downcast - he feared he was going deaf.
‘It is possible that the oedema was the beginning of the
trouble because from then on the Maestro had little capacity for work or any
other activity.
‘From 20th-30th May we were at Modena for performances of
Orfeo. Respighi conducted, but during rehearsals showed obvious signs of
fatigue and repeatedly complained of headaches.’
The beginning of work on Lucrezia (May to July
1935)
From May to July, Guastalla wrote the
libretto of Lucrezia (after months of discussion) and from July to 20th
August Respighi cancelling his trip to Los Angeles where he had been booked to
give some concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, stayed at ‘The Pines’ and almost
completed the composition of the opera.
He had frequent headaches and tired
easily so before beginning the full score, he decided to take a rest.’
Fatal Dentistry (?)
One night in September Ottorino was seized by
a violent fit of shivering which alarmed me very much.
He reassured me that it
was sometimes brought on by sudden contact with cold sheets and soon passed
[they were away from home visiting].
In Rome again, the Maestro went for
treatment to a dentist.
One day, I had taken him to the surgery and was waiting
in the car when he came out rather upset and said, "A peculiar thing happened -
the doctor had given me an injection before taking out the tooth and all at once
I felt a mad impulse to escape. I actually got out of the chair but the dentist
warned me that the tooth would have to come out, otherwise it would ache even
more after the injection. It was just as well that I stayed because at the base
of the root there were little sacs of pus that might have caused infection." Who
knows? If he had obeyed the urge to run away perhaps the microbe would not have
invaded the circulation, for in all probability the infection was due to the
extraction of that tooth. And yet I am still inclined to believe the virus
entered the bloodstream as a direct result of the oedema on the epiglottis which
he had at Budapest.
Work continues on Lucrezia
Respighi toiled on painfully at the composition of
Lucrezia, simultaneously preparing the full score.
It seemed a brave
struggle against fatigue and I begged him in vain to rest for a few days.
I
want to finish it,’ he replied. ‘I want to finish it.’
Respighi had chosen the tragic
story of Lucrezia after Shakespeare’s poem.
The Rape of Lucrezia
and another dramatic poem that it inspired by a modern French writer whose name
I cannot recall.
Although the original idea for Lucrezia had come from
Shakespeare, I preferred to disregard his poem and faithfully follow Livy’s
account which I found so powerful and dramatic that at times one had to be
careful not to spoil it in translation.
Maria Egiziaca was more successful on the stage than in
a concert hall, so we thought to give her a sister and complete the evening with
a ballet (The Birds, for example, which soared to greater popularity than
we had originally hoped).
As we were aiming at an architectural scheme, the two
one-act operas had to be respectively architectural and pictorial un conception,
of approximately the same duration with the same number of characters, the same
voices, so that we could use the same artists in both...
I derived great
satisfaction from the two characters, equally diverse and exemplary - the one
for her faith [Maria Egiziaca], the other for her austere chastity
[Lucrezia].
I took longer to write the libretto than Respighi did over
the music.
In July or August I delivered, scene by scene and by the autumn the
opera was completed.
He strove for the utmost simplicity, stripping his music of
all inessentials, reducing the orchestra to a minimum and showing what could be
achieved with the strictest economy of means.
I know that accomplished musicians
like Marinuzzi and Serafin, when they came to conduct the posthumous
Lucrezia, were dubious of the effectiveness in performance of certain
lightly-scored passages but eventually accepted the situation.
Marinuzzi,
believing that a section had been orchestrated by Elsa and not by Respighi,
remarked sharply, "This must be reinforced a little, otherwise it won’t be
heard."
To which Elsa retorted "The scoring is the Maestro’s and cannot be
touched".
It is well known that although Lucrezia had been completed,
probably in its definitive form, 29 pages remained to be orchestrated when
Respighi fell ill.
The opera written, Respighi began to orchestrate it with
customary speed.
The work was nearing completion but he felt dissatisfied with
Lucrezia’s closing music ‘Non son piu quella di ieri’ and decided to
rewrite it.
He set it aside for the moment and continued with the orchestration.
He then rewrote Lucrezia’s final pages but his illness prevented him from
finishing the scoring.
In the end he left the opera completely orchestrated
apart from a few bars of the finale and the passage he set in two versions - the
one he rejected, the other presumably definitive.
No one knows whether he was
indeed satisfied with the second attempt but he certainly told me during the
first month of his fever,
"Another two days’ work and I could have sent the full
score to Ricordi."
At that moment he undoubtedly thought of the opera as
completed.’
Respighi’s Final Months (January - April 1936), and Elsa’s
completion of Lucrezia
Elsa wrote that Respighi took to bed with a slight temperature
in the New Year but she had a presentiment that the end was drawing closer.
She
pleaded with the doctors to carry out blood tests.
‘They gave the cruel verdict
in these words: ‘It’s a slow viridans endocarditis. Unfortunately we know of no
cure for this condition."
For weeks Elsa bravely kept up a pretence of
cheerfulness, an act she also imposed on any visitors. Ottorino was given blood
transfusions. Elsa writes, ‘From the beginning he ate reluctantly and in the
last weeks had a complete aversion to food. One day when he was delirious he
said to me, "I really cannot eat this French quartet." In his sick mind the
feeling of revulsion to food became confused with an obsession for music which
affected him terribly during the early stages of his illness. "If only this
endless jumble of music in my brain would stop", he would exclaim in
desperation.
The disease grew relentlessly worse.
Every day, in the early
afternoon he had violent shivering fits which could last as long as an hour, and
then came wildly fluctuating temperatures and each crisis left the Maestro in a
state of extreme prostration. He began to feel the cold hand of death.
However, as Elsa relates, ‘during the early days of his illness
he often talked about Lucrezia and how he wanted it produced, then, all
at once, he stopped mentioning it and when I tried to raise the subject he
became annoyed.
Another time he turned his old alarm clock which he had had for
years towards the wall and refused to look at it. Day by day he seemed more
detached from everything and everybody. He was silent and infinitely sad.
Guastalla takes up the story (from Notebooks), ‘At dawn on 18th
April Respighi breathed his last. . . l am at a loss to know where Elsa found
the strength to nurse day and night a patient as difficult as a child who would
never allow her from his side. How much was she to be admired for the way she
pretended always to be calm and optimistic in order to hide her profound grief.
When Elsa went downstairs on some errand or other, she could relax in despair
but on the way up again she had to rouge her face, hum a tune and smile.
Elsa decided to complete the 29 pages of score herself, a task
she accomplished with loving care. But what would have been a couple of days’
work for Respighi took Elsa two harassed months. Of course her orchestration was
not what Respighi’s would have been, for he was always changing and refining his
style. But in those pages there is not a bar that is not essentially true to
Respighi. Every chord has its justification in the Maestro’s previous
compositions, always bearing in mind that his art was constantly moving towards
a simple perfection. Elsa’s dedicated efforts were rewarded by the admission on
the part of highly expert judges like De Sabata that it was impossible to
distinguish the few pages of imitative scoring from the rest of the work."’
Lucrezia - The production and plot
The following description is taken from Adriano’s notes for the
1994 Marco Polo recording of Lucrezia (8.223717).
In the summer of 1935, while dealing with operatic projects on
King Lear and Macbeth, Respighi read Shakespeare’s poem The
Rape of Lucrezia.
After consulting Livy's "Histories", the original source of
this edifying Roman legend, he tumed to Andre Obey s play Le viol de Lucrece
(1931), which made a particular impression on him, since it makes use of two
Recitants who comment on the action, in the manner of a Greek chorus.
In
Respighi s own operatic version these parts would be united into one La Voce, a
dramatic mezzo-soprano, and sung from the orchestra pit.
With this idea in mind,
the composer approached his librettist.
Once again Claudio Guastalla, who had previously prepared the
libretti of Respighi s operas Belfagor, La campana sommersa, La
fiamma and Maria Egiziaca, and of his ballet Belkis, regina di
Saba, embarked on the collaboration, not without moments of disagreement.
Both parties had strong ideas and the fact that a Roman legend had to be set to
music, while avoiding some dangerous pseudo-archaisms in the text and the
extravert nature of the orchestral writing displayed in the earlier trilogy of
Roman tone-poems, caused many discussions.
Obey’s play had been written for a Paris actors group of
fifteen, called ‘La Compagnie des Quinze’ now a full play of four acts had to be
transformed into a sixty minute one-act opera and the concern of both composer
and librettist was not only to reduce a great deal of secondary dialogue, of
soldiers, servants and townspeople, but also to tighten the part of the two
Recitants, who seem to us today to be unduly prolix.
Guastalla’s adaptation is
very intelligent and has, obviously, more Latin flavour in its text.
The short score of Lucrezia was
completed within two
months.
In the autumn of 1935 Respighi began the orchestration, while at the
same time working on an arrangement of Francesco Cavalli’s Medea.
Negotiations with the Teatro alla Scala led to the scheduling of Lucrezia
and Medea in a double-bill production for the 1936-37 season.
The first performance of the work was at the
Teatro all Scala on
24th February 1937,
under the baton of Gino Marinuzzi and with
Maria Caniglia as
Lucrezia and
Ebe Stignani as La Voce.
Shortly afterwards, the same production was mounted at the Maggio
Musicale Fiorentino under the same conductor, and at the Roman Teatro Reale
dell’Opera under Tullio Serafin.
Caniglia was to sing Lucrezia again, and
for the last time, in a Turin broadcast of 1938.
In the 1960s it was Anna de
Cavalieri who revived this part on stage and on the radio in unforgettable
dramatic renderings.
As for the part of La Voce, this was to be displayed with
all its difficult and varied characteristics by great mezzos such as Fedora
Barbieri, Miriam Pirazzini and Oralia Dominguez.
Although scored for an ensemble of normal symphonic
dimensions
(piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English
horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four
horns,
three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings)
the
Respighis considered Lucrezia as a work for "chamber orchestra",
not
only because it appears to be on a smaller scale,
orchestrally, than Feste
Romane ( 1928), La fiamma (1933) and Belkis, regina di Saba
(1934) but also because its musical language is more simple and
straightforward.
With Lucrezia the composer has conceived music reduced
to a minimum of effects and sounding throughout as an almost unitary
accompaniment.
A few leitmotifs are to be found in
the score, a short "Roman"
fanfare,
a "riding" motif, Tarquinio’s ‘erotic" theme
and the "household" theme
in the central
episode.
In the three short but very intense
orchestral
interludes (opening the
soldiers’ scene, and concluding both
the rape and
Lucrezia’s suicide)’
although they sound heavier, through many doublings
of instruments, the musical material is still relatively sober, realisable
through perusal of the vocal score.’
Adriano goes on to discuss the complexity
of from a
stylistic point of view. Lucrezia appears to be mainly a
homage to the
earlier influences in Respighi’s
career and Monteverdi in particularly is cited.
Yet the influence of Richard Strauss is present too particularly in that part of
the opera associated with the eroticism of Tarquinio, ‘reaching a brutal climax
in the interlude suggesting the rape’.
Adriano also points out influences of
Verdi and Puccini; and music ‘not without a certain Russian flavour (for music
of the second ‘women’s tableau’), a trait of many of Respighi’s youthful
symphonic works, while the three women are singing together, but [the music]
turns to a baroque mood of great beauty when Lucrezia subsequently
remains alone.’
There is enough musical impact to reach even symphonic dimensions and there is no moment where the tension begins to flag.
In this very interesting and original short opera we can but approve Respighi’s definite return to a neo-classical form of music drama in which the singing parts become predominant and melody, whether recitativo, psalmody, arioso, or simple song, is supported by discreet and transparent accompaniment.
Even though, in some of her fiery outbursts, the hieratic
character of a Greek chorus is surpassed, La Voce emotionally experiences each
situation in the play, from the first scene of the nocturnal ride to her cries
of "Vile!" at the climax, the rape and "A Roma!" at the very end.
Occasionally
she returns to moments of restrained fear and silent warning.
To emphasise her
passionate involvement, Respighi inserted her strongly felt cries at the most
critical moments of the drama, even interrupting or taking over the
protagonist’s vocal line.
The part of La Voce is one requiring particularly
dramatic
and varied vocal colouring.
The composer’s apparent homage to
Monteverdi should not always be taken as reliable, particularly at the moment of
Tarquinio’s arrival, where La Voce too is infatuated by the erotic aura of the
prince and succumbs to Straussian lyricism.
In comparison Lucrezia and the other leading characters
of the opera appear more static and stylistically more "contemporary", which
means that they are the offspring of a few more centuries of Italian bel canto
tradition.
It may be asked why Lucrezia’s husband Collatino has a smaller
singing part than Bruto, who himself is allowed an arietta and
a very effective
declamatory recitative
in the finale (and also shows a stronger development of
character).
---
Tarquinio, on the other hand, seems not to
need an aria as well,
since a tremendous
duet with Lucrezia awaits him, giving
him splendid
opportunity to follow in the
steps of Scarpia, not excluding also the lyric
aspects of this role.
Lucrezia who sings about half of the music of the
opera, has a part that makes great technical demands, especially at the end,
where many lirico-spinto sopranos would find it almost impossible.
Respighi
conceived the role for the soprano Maria Caniglia, after admiring her in a
successful interpretation of Maria Egiziaca in 1932.
Ronald Duncan was to provide the plot of Benjamin Britten’s
chamber opera The Rape of Lucrezia in which the parts of the Recitants
remained shared between two singers, a soprano and a tenor.
As Livy tells us it
was the violent death of Lucrezia that led the people to rise against the
tyranny of the Tarquins and banish them from Rome, after the body of the martyr
to chastity had been carried through the streets of the City.
These events
transformed Rome’s Etruscan monarchy into
a republic.
In the Italy of 1935,
however, the final unison cry of "a Roma!" in Respighi’s opera was to be shortly
followed by a decidedly regressive political change, if compared to that of 505
BC.
The Plot of Lucrezia (Opera in one act and three
moments)
The First Moment of the opera opens in the Praetorian tent of
Sesto Tarquinio.
The meal is over.
The young princes linger and drink.
Tarquinio drinks to war and women.
Collatino looks forward to returning home to
their faithful wives.
They make fun of the quieter, deeper-thinking Bruto who
casts doubt on the faithfulness of the soldiers’ women.
They debate feminine
virtue and then cast bets about the constancy of their own women.
Then they
resolve to dash back to Rome to see for themselves what their women are doing.
They set off at the gallop.
The Voice comments on their ride, "Unwise game, seed
of so much evil! For a desire is kindled in the heart of Tarquinio. .."
The Second Moment is located in the home of Collatino.
Lucrezia and her handmaidens are seated in a circle spinning wool.
Lucrezia is telling her women a story about an unfaithful treacherous
husband.
One of the maidens sings, "Oh, without love she couldn’t live" to which
Lucrezia retorts, "No: without honour! The suffering is even greater."
The distaff becomes entangled as if to foretell the discord that follows.
Tarquinio arrives.
The Voice seems to suggest Tarquinio’s thoughts and lust.
The
girls retire but not before they exchange impressions of Tarquinio; "Handsome
eyes did you see them?" - "Yes, but how they stare!" - "Evil, they make you
shudder..."
Lucrezia goes to bed.
The Voice tells us that Lucrezia
retires with thoughts of love for her husband.
But the Voice then goes on to
relate that she is rudely awakened by Tarquinio who takes her, after her
protestations, by force.
The Third Moment opens with The Voice commenting on the deep
grief of the despoiled Lucrezia and of how she sends a message to her
father and to Collatino to come at once.
Lucrezia sings of the horrors
she has endured and of her deep shame.
There is no fountain that can wash
me.
Collatino arrives to find her in deep distress.
She tells him of
Tarquinio’s foul treachery.
The imprint of a strange man is on your bed...on
ours.
Unable to live with the memory of her rape Lucrezia is
resolved to die.
After making her husband and father swear that she will be
avenged, she stabs herself.
The Voice laments her death.
Now the erstwhile fool,
Bruto, is galvanised into action.
He leads the revolt to revenge
Lucrezia and free Rome.
another recording of Lucrezia:-
RESPIGHI Lucrezia (Opera in one Act and Three Moments) Jone Jon, Elizabeth Byrne Mary Anne Whitesides, Susan Anthony, Andreas Jaggil Giuseppi Morino, Daniel Washington, Rudolf Ruch, Rado Hanak, Junge Philarmonie der A.M.O.R. Direttore: Ettore Gracis (rec.1981) BONGIOVANNI - BOLOGNA GB2013-2 AmazonUS
This live performance was first released on LP around 1982 and
though it has the text with an English translation, annoyingly the track numbers
are not printed with it, just listed at the beginning.
Inevitably one will
compare it with the 1995 recording on Marco Polo with Adriano in charge.
Whereas
his production is gripping from the first moment, Gracis allows the opening to
be very sluggish - men behaving badly and taking their time over it.
It is not
an easy task for singers to open a performance without an orchestral
introduction or accompaniment.
Tarquinio (Daniel Washington), Collatino (Andreas
Iaggi), Aruns (Rado Hanak) and Brutus (Giuseppe Morino) are not particularly
convincing.
Stage noises are distracting and the first entrance of the orchestra
sounds boxed in with dubious tuning.
Even ‘the rattling gallop drums in the
night shadow’ lacks urgency.
The Voice, (Jone Jon) as the narrator is called,
sings with the necessary drama but lacks variety of tone colour.
Lucrezia, (Elizabeth Byrne), is more successful in conveying her changing
moods as the story unfolds.
Respighi always wrote movingly for tormented
females, using the orchestra’s colours to enhance the particular situation.
One
can trace this line beginning with his arrangement of Ariadne’s lament to this
last heroine, Lucrezia.
The orchestral colours are not clear enough in this
recording; compare the opening of the Third Moment, Track 10 with Adriano’s
recording, Track 16 for just one example.
If you do not already have a recording and fancy the idea of an
imaginary visit to the theatre then this is adequate. But if you want an
interpretation that realises every detail of Respighi’s imaginative score, then
search out the later recording on Marco Polo, Opera Classics, 8.223717
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