Wednesday 16, July - 20h - Opéra Berlioz / Le Corum

Fedra
Ildebrando Pizzetti

Opera in three acts (1909/12)
Libretto by Gabriele d’Annunzio
concert version - Premiere

HASMIK PAPIAN soprano, Fedra
GUSTAVO PORTA ténor, Ippolito
CHANG HAN LIM baryton,Teseo
CHRISTINE KNORREN contralto, Etra
MARTIN TZONEV basse, L’auriga Eurito d’Ilaco, Il Messo
MIHAELA BINDER-UNGUREANU mezzo-soprano, La Nutrice Gorgo
URAN URTNASAN-COZZOLI soprano, La schiava Tebana
TOMISLAV LUCIC basse, Il Mercante Fenicio

ORCHESTRE NATIONAL DE MONTPELLIER LANGUEDOC-ROUSSILLON
CHÅ’UR DE LA RADIO LETTONE
CHŒUR D’ENFANTS OPERA JUNIOR

Enrique Mazzola, conductor

With the support of the Caisse d'Epargne Languedoc-Roussillon

Professor of composition at the Parma Conservatory, Pizzetti moved to Florence in 1908, living there until 1924 when he became director of the Milan Conservatory. In Florence, where he taught harmony and counterpoint before running the Istituto Musicale (the future Regio Conservatorio), he became an eminent personality of the Italian avant-garde. It was then that his friendship with D’Annunzio who had asked him to compose incidental music for La Nave a few years earlier, took a definitive turn, culminating in their collaboration on Fedra. D’Annunzio wrote the libretto based on his own drama, inspired by Euripides.
Phaedra, married to Theseus, falls in love with her husband’s son, Hippolytus. Rejected by the young man, she commits suicide, accusing Hippolytus of having dishonoured her.
Fedra reveals a Pizzetti fascinated by ancient Classicism and the Hellenic world, attracted by the musicality of D’Annunzio’s verses and uniquely preoccupied by the characters and their excited natures. His heroine leads the drama with her instinctive impulses, irrational gestures, a fascination with death that brings her the illusion of victory, and her rebellion against the gods.
The musical treatment of Fedra represents Pizzetti’s ambition of creating a new Italian drama outside the Germanic or verismo prejudices and excesses, preferring to remember the lesson of sobriety from the Florentine academies of the Renaissance.

The singing remains syllabic and declaimed in the voices’ middle register, based on the rhythm of the poet’s verses. The orchestra supports the drama, while the composer has endowed it with sober, harsh, reserved music. The use of ancient modality induces a sound archaism that eliminates garish colours. The symphonic density, stemming from a closely woven melodic fabric, intentionally turns a deaf ear to the siren song of the Impressionists. On the contrary, this compact web, which, however, is placed in the continuity of the music of the words, escapes the drama’s actuality, rooting it in the past or inscribing it in the future. As for the chorus, it plays an integral part in the drama, embodying groups of characters. As in ancient tragedy, when it becomes foreign to the action, it comments on it.
This particularly eloquent, poignant work gives rise to considerable emotion even though it ends in peace to accompany Phaedra in death.

 

Catherine Michaud