on a twelve-note theme whose constant adaptations ‘turn the screw’ of the score in just the manner of Henry James’ title. As so often in Britten, the story concerns the corruption of innocence, but the (literally) haunting beauty of the highly embellished writing for the male ghost, Peter Quint, presents him as an ambiguously attractive character with whom the audience is clearly meant to feel some sympathy.
Highlights
Miles’ unsettlingly innocent solo in the Act I Lesson Scene, ‘Malo I would rather be’; the ghosts’ duet at the beginning of Act II, culminating in the line (borrowed from Yeats) ‘The ceremony of innocence is drowned’.
Recommended Recording
Peter Pears, Jennifer Vyvyan, David Hemmings, English Opera Group/Benjamin Britten. Decca 425 672-2. The original cast recording made in 1955 and never bettered.
(1854–93)
Dejanice (1882)
Loreley (1879)
La Wally ( 1891)
Born in Lucca, educated in Paris and settling finally in Milan, where he became professor of composition at the conservatoire, Catalani had the misfortune to be a slightly older contemporary of Puccini who outclassed and overshadowed him. A lifelong invalid, his early death at thirty-nine left him with just one opera which survives in (fairly) regular repertory, La Watty. Its Nordic theme is typical of the German Romantic interests that make the music of this Italian composer unusual for its place and time.
FORM: Opera in four acts; in Italian
COMPOSER: Alfredo Catalani (1854–93)
LIBRETTO: Luigi Illica; after W. von Hillem’s story
FIRST PERFORMANCE: Milan, 20 June 1892
Principal Characters
Wally
Stromminger, her father and a rich landowner
Hagenbach
Gellner
Afra, proprietress of the inn
Walter, a wandering player
Synopsis of the Plot
Setting: The Swiss Tyrol; 1800
ACT I Wally has fallen in love with Hagenbach, the son of her father’s old enemy, although her feelings are not reciprocated. Gellner, who wants to marry Wally, warns Stromminger of his daughter’s feelings towards Hagenbach, and Stromminger’s response is to order Wally to marry Gellner within the month or leave his house. Wally leaves to live on the mountain.
ACT II Some time has passed, during which Stromminger has died and Wally has inherited his fortune. She returns to the village for a festival and, believing that Afra is now engaged to her beloved Hagenbach, insults her. Hagenbach, hearing of this, decides to avenge Afra. He dances with Wally, kisses her and swears undying love, and she is enraptured – until the mocking laughter of the onlookers alerts her to the truth. Furious and humiliated, she promises to marry Gellner if he kills Hagenbach.
ACT III Wally goes home and, reflecting more calmly on the situation, realises that she must stop Gellner from harming Hagenbach. But before she can act he bursts in, telling her he has pushed Hagenbach into a ravine. Wally, spurred on by guilt and remorse, goes down a rope into the ravine and rescues Hagenbach. Wally gives him into Afra’s care and leaves.
ACT IV Living alone and isolated on the mountainside, Wally resigns herself to her fate. Suddenly Hagenbach, fully recovered, appears and says he has come to tell her he loves her. Wally confesses her part in his accident’ but he reassures her of his love. As they make their way down to the village the sound of an approaching avalanche is heard. Hagenbach is swept away by the snow and, distraught, Wally throws herself after him.
Music
Set in the Swiss Alps, La Wally is notable for its incursions into local colour, including Tyrolean dances in Act II. But at the end of the day this is Italian opera, looking forward to the kind of through-composed verismo writing of Puccini (whose Manon Lescaut appeared the following year) and quite well characterised. Its weakness is a story which, for all its momentous happenings, makes less than powerful theatre.
Highlight
Wally’s poignant farewell at the end of Act I, ‘Ebben? Ne andrò lontana’, is the most celebrated item in all Catalani’s output and a tune made still more famous by extensive use in the 1981 film Diva.
Did You Know?
Recommended Recording
Renata Tebaldi, Mario del Monaco, Monte Carlo Opera/Fausto Cleva. Decca 425 417-2. A finer cast than it probably deserves.
(1860–1956)
Louise (1900)
Not to be confused with the earlier Marc-Antoine Charpentier who wrote a famous Messe de Minuit and several less-famous pastoral operas in French Baroque taste, Gustave Charpentier was a student of Massenet at the late 19th-century Paris Conservatoire. He began work on the one and only score for which he is known, Louise, while still studying there. An urban low-life forerunner of La Bohème, Louise was an instant success and Charpentier rested on its laurels ever after, writing little in the last half-century of his life beyond a sequel, Julien, that reworked already-written music and never caught on.
FORM: Opera in four acts; in French
COMPOSER: Gustave Charpentier (1860–1956)
LIBRETTO: Gustave Charpentier (and, possibly, Saint-Pol-Roux)