Oh, the woe of being a one-act opera. Too short to be of much use to an opera company, no matter how great the music, they are simply the odd duckling of the opera house and all too often left out of the mainstream repertoire.
That’s why this week’s double-bill presentation on Saturday Afternoon at the Opera is such a treat. It features two operas: Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy, and Gianni Schicchi, the third of Puccini’s trilogy of one-act operas.
The Canadian Opera Company production links the two operas, using the common theme that they are both set in Florence. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. The Zemlinsky is a dark opera, richly orchestrated and showing tonality in its last gasp. The Puccini is a comedy, full of laughter and glorious, romantic melodies, none more famous than Lauretta's aria, O mio babbino caro.
This really must be one of the most celebrated operatic melodies out there. When I searched for it in YouTube it brought up some 10,300 videos, including this little gem:
Here’s the COC descriptions for both operas:
In A Florentine Tragedy, based on Oscar Wilde’s play, a merchant discovers his wife is having an affair with the Prince of Florence. A cat-and-mouse game ensues, ending in a brutal kill with a stunning twist, all set to Zemlinsky’s ravishing score. This rarely seen late-Romantic opera is followed by Puccini’s beloved tour-de-force comedy, Gianni Schicchi, in which family members frantically scheme to benefit their own greed. Puccini shows a masterful comic touch with this swiftly paced opera, featuring the beloved soprano aria, O mio babbino caro. Both of these 1917 one-act opera gems are ingeniously set in the same Italian villa, decades apart.
You can find a complete synopsis for A Florentine Tragedy on Wikipedia. And a complete synopsis for Gianni Schicchi over on the Metropolitain Opera's website.
Cast for A Florentine Tragedy:
Simone: Alan Held
Bianca: Gun-Brit Barkmin
Guido Bardi: Michael Konig
Cast for Gianni Schicchi:
Zita: Barbara Dever
Simone: Donata Di Stefano
Rinuccio: Rene Barbera
Marco: Peter McGillivray
La Ciesca: Rihab Chaieb
Gherardo: Adam Luther
Nella: Gun-Brit Barkmin
Betto di Signa: Craig Irvin
Gherardino: Gabriel Gough
Gianni Schicchi: Alan Held
Lauretta: Simone Osborne
Masestro Spinelloccio: Doug MacNaughton
Ser Amantio di Nicolao: Philippe Sly
Pinellino: Neil Craighead
Guccio: Valerian Ruminski
The Canadian Opera Company Orchestra is led by Sir Andrew Davis.
n.b.: We make the double bill, a triple bill with the addition of another one-act opera. We'll play the seldom heard opera Aleko by Sergei Rachmaninov. This recording, from Deutsche Grammophon, features the Gothenburg Symphony conducted by Neeme Järvi, with soloists Sergei Aalexashkin, Vladimir Chernov, Ian Caley and Sergei Larin. It's a broadcast premiere for us; Aleko has never been heard on Saturday Afternoon at the Opera.
You can find more details about Aleko on wikipedia.
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