On August 8 and 11 this year (in a few day’s time) Jonas Kaufmann returns to the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall to relive the success he made of Giordano’s Andrea Chenier. This performance is a concert version. He sang the role to great acclaim both at Covent Garden and the Bayerische Staatsoper. The OA production also features singers Eva-Maria Westbroek as Maddalena, Ludovic Tezier as Gerrard and conducted by Pinchas Steinberg. The concert version will also be performed at the Hamer Hall in Melbourne on August 13.
Here is a brief look at the Italian composer Umberto Giordano and how he came to compose his ‘one-hit wonder’, Andrea Chenier.
Giordano was born on August 27 1867 and died 81 years later in 1948His life as a composer was punctuated with a lot of failed operas. His first opera Marina brought him to the attention of the publisher Sonzogno who commissioned him to compose another opera but the resultant 1892 production of Mala Vita turned out to be more attractive for its macabre values than its musical qualities. In 1894 Regina Diaz proved another failure in Naples but two years later in 1896, Milan’s La Scala showcased his greatest success.
That success was, of course, Andrea Chenier, based on a libretto by Italian Luigi Illica. But even at this stage it still had to overcome several hurdles before it was staged. The musical advisor at the publisher, Amintore Galli, pronounced it ‘unperformable’ and eventually changed his mind persuaded perhaps by composer Pietro Mascagni (he had already tasted success with Cavelleria Rusticana) who intervened on Giordano’s behalf. To add to his troubles, during the rehearsal period the tenor chosen to sing the title role, Alfonso Garulli, decided to have second thoughts and was replaced by Giuseppe Borgati (he went on to sing the Wagnerian tenor roles at La Scala). Chenier was an immediate success and Borgati had to repeat the opening tenor aria the ‘Improviso’.
Immediately, Girodano’s opera was labelled as a ‘verisimo’ opera and likened to Cavelleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci. Giacomo Puccini’s operas can also be likened to this form of realism although he had more in common with Wagner’s use of declamatory recitative separated only by a few well-crafted arias!
Andrea Chenier was based on the life of a real French poet in the French Revolution who was sentenced to death for his anti-revolutionary sentiments. A substantial amount of the arias are based on his poems although his love interest, Maddalena is fictional as is the final supreme act by Maddalena replacing a condemned woman to face the guillotine hand in hand with her beloved.
Giordano, unfortunately, also has something else in common with his verisimo colleagues. All their operas are, to one extent or another, ‘one hit wonders’. Mascagni’s follow-up operas L’Amico Fritz, Iris and Lodoletta didn’t quite make the grade in popularity; Leocavallo’s La Boheme suffered from coming up against Puccini’s opera of the same name and also, perhaps, because Rodolfo was sung by a baritone while Giordano’s Fedora is occasionally staged in his country but the only thing that really survives is the aria for tenor ‘Amor ti vieta’ which because of its brevity (1’42”) is often used as an encore at recitals.
Giordano went on to write endless operas but none of them achieved the success of Andrea Chenier. Perhaps he could have taken some encouragement in an opera he composed in 1915 Madame Sans-Gene whose main character was sung by Geraldine Farrar in its opening New York performance. But even such illustrious company couldn’t salvage Giordano’s career. His last opera was Il re which was staged at La Scala in 1929. By then he was well-off, having married a wife with money, and could afford to live the rest of his life in a certain degree of comfort.
Groves, the musician’s encyclopaedia, explains Giordano’s music thus: “He had an exuberant if undistinguished gift of melody and a strong feeling for dramatic effect, but his scores lacked solidity, and in his music the usual theatrical tricks for extorting applause too often take the place of a sincere expression of emotion.”
And yet many illustrious opera singers have participated in Andrea Chenier….singers like Pavarotti, Tebaldi, Corelli, Milnes, Becchi, Gigli, Bjorling, Freni, Merrill and, of course, the master of all baritones – Tito Gobbi. In fact, Gobbi has an interesting story to tell about his attempts to sing the role of the prosecutor, Charles Gerard in wartime Sorrento. He initially refused to go because he’d heard that the Sorrento theatre had been destroyed. But he was assured that was not the case.
To reach his destination he had to first catch a train from Rome to Naples and then to Sorrento. After a great struggle Gobbi found his way to the station only to discover that, as usual during wartime, everybody and his dog had decided to travel on the same train. It took eight hours of dis-comfort to reach Naples and when they arrived it was in the middle of a ferocious air raid. Eventually when he reached Sorrento it was only to find that there was indeed no theatre left and no performance. He hadn’t drunk or eaten since leaving Rome. So, when he reached the station for the reverse journey, he bought a packet of five cigarettes which he chewed but all it gave him was a raging thirst and terrible hiccups!
Dates for you: Sydney Opera House Concert Hall – August 8 and 11, 2019. Hamer Hall, Melbourne – August 13, 2019.