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A homage to Giacomo Leopardi Roma
Teatro dell’Opera
12/08/2024 -
Franz Schubert: Rosamunde, D. 797: Entr’acte No. 3
Gustav Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E‑flat major, op. 55
Markus Werba (baritone)
Orchestra del Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Michele Mariotti (conductor)
M. Werba, M. Mariotti (© Fabrizio Sansoni/Teatro dell’Opera di Roma)
Since the end of WWII, Rome’s Teatro all’Opera has been an afterthought in Italy’s musical life. Oddly, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, Venice’s La Fenice, Naples’ San Carlo, Florence’s Maggio Musicale and Bologna’s Teatro Comunale have all eclipsed that of Italy’s capital. This was the case in opera and even more so for orchestral music. However, I’m pleased to report this has changed in the past few years.
Michele Mariotti (b.1979) is the instigator of this amelioration. Rome’s opera house and its orchestra are indeed fortunate that he is their principal conductor and artistic director. Already a decade ago, this young conductor had triumphed at Pesaro’s ROF in Guillaume Tell, at New York’s Metropolitan in La donna del lago and at Paris’ Opéra Bastille for I puritani. This past season, I was impressed by his Ermione at Pesaro’s ROF, Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at Parma’s Verdi Festival and Mefistofele in Rome.
Mariotti’s expertise is not limited to opera; he is an equally masterful conductor of orchestral music, including the great Austro‑German repertoire. His direction is attentive as well as delicate. His reading of this evening’s works was both balanced and nuanced. I have regularly attended operas and a few concerts at Teatro dell’Opera over the past four decades and its orchestra today is now vastly superior.
Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1835) is the greatest Italian poet since Dante. He was tormented by a strict upbringing, ruinous health that from his childhood conditioned his darkly pervasive pessimism. Born into a noble, conservative family, Leopardi – who spent his youth in his father’s large library, immersed in culture, idealizing the Greek and Roman classics – was also one of the most radical thinkers of the early nineteenth century, and highly regarded by the likes of Schopenhauer for his philosophical poetry.
In fact, Leopardi was not only a poet but also a philosopher and philologist, one of the most read throughout Europe in the nineteenth century. His poetic works are a kind of public diary, where he reveals his profound melancholy with a gloomy outlook. His poems, such as L’infinito, Il sabato del villaggio and Il passero solitario, are high peaks of poetry. Early Romanticism and nature’s inspiration are the links to Schubert and Beethoven. A sense of the tragic connects him with Schubert and Mahler, especially the latter’s Kindertotenlieder.
Michele Mariotti hails from Le Marche, the same region of Italy as Leopardi, in the East of Italy, on the Adriatic. The evening started with a projection of long excerpts from the television series Leopardi, il poeta dell’infinito (2024), directed by actor and director Sergio Rubini, who read selections from Leopardi, preceding each of the three musical selections. Leonardo Maltese, the young actor who interpreted the tragic poet Leopardi in the film, was present in the audience, and hard to miss at intermission.
Schubert’s incidental music for Rosamunde was composed in 1823 for a play by Helmina von Chézy (1783‑1856) about a Cypriot princess, now mercifully forgotten. As was the case with Schubert’s operas, this stage work did not have much success. However, its main theme was used in the Impromptu in B‑flat, Op. 142 (D. 935) and in the eponymous String Quartet in A minor (D. 804). The Entr’acte No. 3, chosen to open the concert, was less somber than one expects of Schubert, and it was more evocative of nature, an element of Romanticism dear to Leopardi. It was an appropriate choice to start this concert dedicated to the Italian poet.
Austrian baritone Markus Werba is a magnificent singer of both opera and lieder. Recently admired in the title role of Damiano Michieletto’s production of Don Giovanni at Venice’s La Fenice, Werba’s timbre is beautiful and his performances always poised. However, he is at his best in lieder, which requires more interpretative skills than vocal power.
German poet Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) wrote over four hundred Kindertotenlieder, of which Mahler chose five. These poems deal with the death of one’s children, a subject Mahler was no stranger to as he had lost eight of his siblings during childhood. Mahler did eventually lose a child of his own, but he composed three of the five songs in 1901 following his own near‑death experience. The other two were written in 1904, following the death of his child. All five lieder deal with the subject of light, and some believe that Kindertotenlieder is a battle between light and darkness. The hinting to light in such a profoundly sad context parallels Leopordi’s cynical shades of hope in the face of a pervasively tragic human condition.
Markus Werba made the most of Rückert’s rich text. The first lied, “Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n” (“Now the sun is about to rise as brightly”), is an expression of resigned acceptance. Werba truly conveyed a touching naïveté in the phrase “Als sei kein Unglück die Nacht geschehen!” (“As if no misfortunate has occurred in the night!”)
In the second lied, “Nun seh’ ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen” (“Now I can see why such dark flames”), the darkness in the sparkle of the child’s eyes insinuate that he is no longer of this world. The emphasis in the phrase “Doch ist uns das vom Schicksal abgeschlagen” (“But this our destiny denies us”) conveyed an angry remorse.
The third lied, “Wenn dein Mütterlein” (“When thy dear mother”) recounts that the father’s gaze is not on his listless wife but on the place where the child would have been. Werba’s expressiveness in the phrase “Ist es mir, als immer kämst du mit herein” (“I always think You are coming too”) was truly touching.
The fourth lied, “Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen” (“I often think they have only gone out”) expresses the oft felt denial of loss. The typical Mahlerian evocation of nature at the opening of the song gives a false sense of serenity reflected in Werba’s masterful initially distant expression.
The fifth lied, “In diesem Wetter!” (“In this weather!”) is a shattering lamentation in a reaction to a storm that makes the grief‑stricken father reflect that he would not have let his child out in such bad weather. However, it is more an internal psychological storm. The songs ends poignantly with the phrase “Von keinem Sturm erschrecket, Von Gottes Hand bedecket; Sie ruh’n, sie ruh’n, wie in der Mutter Haus, wie in der Mutter Haus” (Frightened by no storm, covered by God’s hand, They rest as in their mother’s house”).
Beethoven’s Eroica was a wise choice, to end the evening in a less sombre mood. The masterful Third Symphony was preceded by a reading of “La scommessa di Prometeo” (“The Bet of Prometheus”), from Leopardi’s Operette morali, a cynical account of man’s condition involving a bet made by Prometheus. This choice was not fortuitous, despite its cynicism; it maintains hope in mankind, who is championed by the most heroic Prometheus. The tempo adopted in the second movement Marcia funebre was appropriately more resigned than funereal. In the last two movements, Mariotti adopted brisk yet steady tempi, stressing the work’s inherent grace. He avoided the oft flawed choice of adopting a hectic pace, thus rendering the finale truly triumphant.
With the projected excerpts at the opening of the concert and the readings by Sergio Rubini, the evening was a decidedly long one. Though music lovers are often fond of literature, this is not always the case, as manifested by members of the public checking their watches and looking at the program. Nonetheless, this was an intense and highly enjoyable concert, as attested by the public’s enthusiastic applause. Often, one expects jubilation for an inaugural concert, but perhaps a more reflective one is more appropriate, given the present state of the world.
Ossama el Naggar
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