Jump to content

La Ville morte

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from La ville morte)
La Ville morte
by Nadia Boulanger and Raoul Pugno
LanguageFrench
Based onGabriele D'Annunzio's play La città morta [it]
Premiere
2005

La Ville morte is an opera by Nadia Boulanger and Raoul Pugno to the text of Gabriele D'Annunzio's play La città morta [it]. It has been called Boulanger's "most significant achievement as a creative artist".[1]

History

[edit]

After hearing her examinations at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1904, Pugno became Boulanger's teacher, collaborator and promotor.[2] Some writers say that Pugno and Boulanger became lovers, while others do not.[3] In 1909 they wrote a song cycle, Les heures claires, together.[4] Work on the opera probably began in 1909 and was finished in 1912.[5] Pugno died on 3 January 1914, before the opera could have its premiere. Opéra-Comique had finished casting by July 1914, and choir rehearsals were scheduled to start on 17 August that same year when the outbreak of World War I disrupted all plans.[6] With many echoes of Pelléas et Mélisande, the story follows the lives and loves of an archeologist, Léonard, his sister Hebé, Alexandre, a colleague, and his wife Anne, amidst the ruins of Mycenae.[7]

A fully orchestrated version of the opera has not survived.[8] The opera was reconstructed from surviving scores by Mauro Bonifacio and had its world premiere at the 2005 Chigiana festival in Siena.[9] It was performed for the second time in a concert staging by Mia Nerenius, using screens and projections, in March 2020 at the Gothenburg Opera.[7][10]

A chamber version (with some scenes cut and without chorus) co-produced by Greek National Opera and Catapult Opera (the successor to Gotham Chamber Opera[11]) was presented in Athens in January 2024 and New York in April 2024, conducted by Neal Goren.[12] This is the first and only fully staged production of the piece.

Roles

[edit]
Roles, voice types, premiere casts
Role Voice type Premiere cast, 16 March 2005[13]
Conductor: Luca Pfaff
Gothenburg Opera cast, 8 March 2020[14]
Conductor: Anna-Maria Helsing
Greek National Opera cast, 19 January 2024[15]
Conductor: Neal Goren
Hebé soprano Michelle Canniccioni Katarina Karnéus Melissa Harvey
Anne mezzo-soprano Letitia Singleton Matilda Paulsson [sv] Laurie Rubin
Léonard tenor Lorenzo Carola Markus Pettersson Joshua Dennis
Alexandre baritone Randal Turner Anton Ljungqvist Jorell Williams

References

[edit]

Citations

[edit]
  1. ^ Potter 2006, p. 87.
  2. ^ Brooks 2013, p. 21.
  3. ^ Francis 2005, pp. 123–126.
  4. ^ Potter 2000, p. 397.
  5. ^ Francis 2005, pp. 54–78.
  6. ^ Potter 2006, p. 85.
  7. ^ a b Coughlan, Alexandra. Report from Gothenburg, Sweden. Opera, June 2020, vol. 71, no. 6, pp. 742–743.
  8. ^ See Potter 2006, p. 84 for a list of known manuscripts.
  9. ^ Potter 2006, pp. 85–86.
  10. ^ Dammann, Guy (28 February 2020). "Missa inte chansen att se glastaket krossas". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish).
  11. ^ Cooper, Michael (9 January 2019). "A New Company Rises from the Ashes of Gotham Chamber Opera". The New York Times.
  12. ^ Rockwell, John (July 2024). "Review of La Ville morte". Opera. p. 57. Retrieved 2024-05-28.
  13. ^ Toschi, David. "Siena – Chiesa di Sant'Agostino: La Ville morte". www.operaclick.com. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  14. ^ "La ville morte". opera.se. Göteborg Opera. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  15. ^ "La ville morte" (in Greek). Greek National Opera. Retrieved 2024-08-03.

Sources

[edit]
  • Brooks, Jeanice (2013). The Musical Work of Nadia Boulanger: Performing Past and Future between the Wars. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107328310.
  • Francis, Kimberly (2005). Nadia Boulanger and "La Ville Morte": En'gendering' a woman's role in the making of an opera (MA diss.). University of Ottawa. doi:10.20381/ruor-18554.
  • Potter, Caroline (2000). "Nadia Boulanger's and Raoul Pugno's La ville morte". The Opera Quarterly. 16 (3): 397–406. doi:10.1093/oq/16.3.397.
  • Potter, Caroline (2006). Nadia and Lili Boulanger. Ashgate. ISBN 978-0754604723.