Est 1923

Malipiero L'orfeide

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Gian Francesco Malipiero

Genre:

Opera

Label: Tahra

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 106

Mastering:

ADD

Catalogue Number: TAH190/1

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
(L') Orfeide Gian Francesco Malipiero, Composer
Alberto Rinaldi, Ballad-singer, Baritone
Alberto Rinaldi, Nerone, Baritone
Alvinio Misciano, Orfeo, Tenor
Antonietta Daviso, Agrippina, Soprano
Claudio Giombi, Pantalon, Baritone
Dino Formichini, Lover, Tenor
Enzo Guagni, Tartaglia, Tenor
Florence Maggio Musicale Chorus
Florence Maggio Musicale Orchestra
Gian Francesco Malipiero, Composer
Gino Orlandini, Bell-ringer, Baritone
Giorgio Giorgetti, Brighella, Baritone
Hermann Scherchen, Conductor
Magda Olivero, Old Mother, Soprano
Manlio Micheli, Lamp-lighter, Singer
Mario Carlin, Arlecchino, Tenor
Mario Ferrara, Pulcinella, Tenor
Ottavio Taddei, Knight, Tenor
Paolo Pedani, Captain Spaventa, Bass
Renato Capecchi, Drunken Man, Baritone
Renato Capecchi, Doctor Balanzon, Baritone
Renato Capecchi, Drunken Man, Baritone
Renato Capecchi, Doctor Balanzon, Baritone
Renato Capecchi, Doctor Balanzon, Baritone
Renato Capecchi, Drunken Man, Baritone
Valiano Natali, Drinks-seller, Tenor
L’Orfeide is one of the strangest operas of the century, though I suspect that some listeners will have difficulty in accepting Malipiero’s assurance that it is an opera at all. Its central act (entitled “Seven Songs”) is a sort of dramatic song-cycle, its seven independent scenes linked only by the fact that each contains an element of bizarre or ironic contradiction: a mad old woman grieving over her lost son does not recognize him when he returns; a bell-ringer sings a cheerful song while his bells peal, apparently oblivious of the fact that the town is burning down, and so on. All the characters who appear in this act are introduced, in dumb-show, towards the end of its predecessor, in which the characters of the ancient commedia dell’arte step forward one by one, only to be rejected by Orpheus, who announces “The Death of the Masks” (the title of this act) and their replacement by characters drawn from real life. Act 3, finally (entitled “Orpheus” but also “Epilogue: The Eighth Song”) is set in a theatre within a theatre. We see not only a marionette show representing the cruelty of Nero but the reactions to this of three separate audiences: a King and his aristocratic court (unmoved and immobile), old fogeys (outraged) and children (gleefully applauding all the carnage). At the end Orpheus appears as a clown, lyrically praises the aristocratic audience for their impassivity and leaves with the Queen on his arm.
The action is still further dislocated by a curious and deliberate mismatch between text and action. For example, although each of the ‘seven songs’ has a contemporary setting, the texts are all chosen from early Renaissance poetry: the mad mother’s lament is from a poem by Jacopone da Todi (author of the Stabat mater) describing the Virgin Mary contemplating the dead Christ; the bell-ringer sings a learnedly classicizing but disgusting catalogue of the deformities of old age by Angelo Poliziano. The music, too, in underlining these scenes, veers oddly but effectively from pungent neo-classicism via lyrical expressiveness to a style that somehow suggests archaic folk theatre. It is a tribute to the queer strength of Malipiero’s eclecticism that the great verista Magda Olivero, in the very brief role of the Mother, seems perfectly at home at the centre of this Pirandellian extravaganza.
The outer wings of the triptych are more perplexing, especially the ‘epilogue’. But somehow Malipiero was right: yes, these three disparate miniature dramas are a trilogy, chapters from an essay on the nature of musical drama. Other chapters would include Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat, all the operas of Busoni and (perhaps especially: there are distinct similarities of idiom) Falla’s El retablo de Maese Pedro. The ‘seven songs’ are at times moving, always impressive, but L’Orfeide as a whole is compulsively fascinating even when its illogicalities seem most irritating.
The performance is a fine one, the chamber orchestra lucidly directed by Scherchen, the singing of pretty well uniformly high standard. The recording is close and a shade harsh, with stage noises and the prompter quite prominent. But as an introduction to Malipiero’s huge, uneven but absorbing output for the stage (he wrote 46 operas, some of them, like L’Orfeide, trilogies of one-acters) this is invaluable. As the last performance Hermann Scherchen ever gave (he collapsed during it and died a few days later) it is also a moving tribute to him. The recording is supplemented by interviews with Olivero and the stage director of these performances, Gianfranco de Bosio (both in Italian, but translated in the accompanying booklet).'

Malipiero L'orfeide

(L') Orfeide

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