December 7 was Mascagni's birthday

Friday, December 7 was Mascagni's birthday: he would have been 144 years old. To celebrate, I am listening to a live performance of Zanetto, a real favorite of mine. This minature opera is a real gold mine of beautiful melodies, and close to musical perfection. One of my favorite parts: Silvia sending Zanetto "Dunque, di là, dove splende l'aurora !" and the sheer melancholy of the musical comment which follows.

Upcoming release of Zanetto on Elysium records

I just got notice that Elysium Records will release a new CD of Zanetto. Here is the press release:

October 3, 2007

Elysium Records is proud to announce its upcoming release of Mascagni’s Zanetto.

Peter Tiboris leads the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmony, with acclaimed soloists Jennifer Larmore as Zanetto and Eilana Lappalainen as Sylvia.

Last June at Carnegie Hall, Maestro Tiboris conducted the first New York performance of Zanetto since 1902. And this past summer, he presented the opera’s Greek premiere on the island of Syros as part of the Festival of the Aegean.

Zanetto will be released in Spring 2008 and also includes intermezzi from L’amico Fritz and Cavalleria rusticana.

Elysium Records is distributed worldwide by Qualiton Imports, Inc.

Zanetto is a wonderful little opera, which premiered on March 2, 1896, while Mascagni was the head of the Liceo Musicale G. Rossini in Pesaro. With only two female singers and an opening chorus (which is even omitted in the recent DVD with Denia Mazzola), it is quite easy to stage and perform.

The Italian libretto is an almost direct translation from a French text by François Coppée entitled Le passant. The piece is a conversation between Zanetto, a young troubadour in search of love, and Silvia, an experienced courtisane, taking place during a peaceful evening outside renaissance Florence. Zanetto is unaware of Silvia's complex life, but manages to trouble her enough that she considers keeping him around. She finally realizes that she would only make him unhappy and sends him back on his way to Florence. While there is absolutely no action taking place, just psychological development, the opera develops a fascinating musical atmosphere and has been a favorite of mine for a long time. Zanetto deserves to be performed more often.

There are at least five recorded versions of Zanetto which have been (more or less) available over the years, with various levels of sound and artistic quality. A definitive edition of this wonderful little opera has yet to appear, and I do hope that this version will be a welcome addition to the discography.

Upcoming release of Zanetto on Elysium records

I got notice that Elysium Records will soon release a CD of Zanetto. Here is the official press release:

October 3, 2007

Elysium Records is proud to announce its upcoming release of Mascagni’s Zanetto.

Peter Tiboris leads the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmony, with acclaimed soloists Jennifer Larmore as Zanetto and Eilana Lappalainen as Sylvia.

Last June at Carnegie Hall, Maestro Tiboris conducted the first New York performance of Zanetto since 1902. And this past summer, he presented the opera’s Greek premiere on the island of Syros as part of the Festival of the Aegean.

Zanetto will be released in Spring, 2008 and also includes Intermezzi from L’Amico Fritz and Cavalleria rusticana.

Elysium Records is distributed worldwide by Qualiton Imports, Inc.

Opening of the Teatro Goldoni season

The Teatro Goldoni of Livorno (Mascagni's hometown) is opening its 2007/2008 season on Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 8:30 PM with an event in the series "Around Mascagni - Towards the Mascagni Festival", an evening entitled "Mascagni's operas and the female character".

The evening will propose great scenes from operas by Pietro Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana, I Rantzau, Guglielmo Ratcliff, Silvano, Iris, Le Maschere, Isabeau, Sì, Lodoletta, and Nerone.

The conductor will be Matteo Beltrami. Mise en scène, sets and costumes are by Alessio Pizzech. The performance is a new production of the Teatro Goldoni Foundation of Livorno.

Tickets: call 0586 204290
Information: call 0586 204211 - fax 0586 899920
Web site: http://www.goldoniteatro.it/

Reference: Saimicadove.it

A new blog for Mascagni.org

Lately I have realized that I had many updates queued for Mascagni.org but little time to update the site. One reason for this is that Mascagni.org doesn't yet have a built-in blog engine, even though I have been wanting to install one for a very long time.

Spare time being what it is (scarce), I have decided to cut it short and to simply use Blogger as a blog engine. Mascagni.org will simply syndicate the blog entries created with Blogger.

This solution I hope will have the benefit of increasing the number of news that make it to Mascagni.org, and add the ability to leave comments (this is 2007 after all). The main drawback is that this blog is hosted under http://pietromascagni.blogspot.com/ (the prefix "mascagni" was already taken) and not http://mascagni.org/, but I hope that this will be a minor inconvenience.