Gian Francesco Malipiero
       I Capricci di Callot

* Martina Winter (Giacinta)
* Markus Mueller (Giglio)
* Gro Benie Kjellevold (La Vecchio Beatrice)
* Bernd Valentin (Il Principe Travestito da Ciarlatano)
* Burkhard Ulrich (Il Poeta)
* Joerg Sabrowski (Una Maschera)

Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra/Peter Marschik
cpo 999 830-2  TT: 93:12

Summary for the Busy Executive: Opera without words.

Possibly the most respected Italian composer between the death of Puccini
and the rise of Dallapiccola and Nono (both his pupils), Malipiero created
a huge output including thirty-five operas, over a dozen symphonies, and a
large cycle of string quartets, as well as various fugitive pieces, many
quite substantial.  Malipiero, like Poe, lived essentially for art and,
like Poe, believed that great art eliminated the vulgar -- a rather serious
misreading of the past.  "Popular art" struck Malipiero, unfortunately, as
a contradiction.  At any rate, I find a lot of his work too bloodless, too
damned refined, and too concerned with art for its own good.

I Capricci di Callot transcends some of these limitations.  Malipiero
writes in conscious reaction against verismo opera (read Puccini and
Leoncavallo).  Indeed, he considered the previous generation of opera
debased, compared to the good old days of Monteverdi, Peri, Cavalli (he
edited Monteverdi's complete work), and even Mozart.  The libretto, written
by the composer, comes from a story by E.  T.  A.  Hoffmann but, as its
title suggests, seems inspired by the 17th-century drawings of Italian
carnival figures by Callot.  The plot is a mess.  One searches vainly for
believable motivation in any of the characters.  I'm still trying to figure
out the charlatan (ciarlatano) and the poet (il poeta), both key to the
mechanics of the plot:  the libretto doesn't help.  It's sort of like a
Twilight Zone episode set to music, but without the verisimilitude.  It
strikes me in many ways as an "anti-opera." Malipiero eschews anything so
crude as an aria.  Almost all the really great moments (and there *are* a
few) come from extended, purely instrumental passages, mainly dances for
silent masquers.  I think especially of a gorgeous moment where, according
to the libretto, a nightingale's song is answered by "a thousand others."
In short, neither the characters nor the story have caught Malipiero's
attention.  The costumes, the element of strangeness, the carnival have.

Nevertheless, even without a drama, the music manages to be dramatic.
Malipiero writes a cross between a continuous and a "number" opera -- the
numbers all instrumental.  The opera proceeds mainly by scene, and the
music keeps the scenes moving, pretty much as it does in Wagner, but
without vocal set-pieces like Siegfried's Sword-Forging Song.  However,
although the music shuttles the listener along, it gives the listener
little reason to return.  Despite all these disadvantages, Malipiero
manages to create at least a sympathetic character in the seamstress
ingenue, Giacinta.  The part of the plot that works is the estrangement
between her and her actor boyfriend, Giglio, due to their impossible
longing for a noble station in life.  She wishes she were a princess; he
is convinced he is "really" a prince.  One doesn't care so much for Giglio,
but one feels Giacinta's anguish when Giglio leaves her to find a princess
worthy of him.  The carnival allows them to live out their dreams for a
moment, but finally they realize that their love for each other is superior
to their fantasies.

Curiously, much of the opera's musical idiom comes from Puccini, a composer
Malipiero tried to buck against, particularly the pentatonicism of works
like Gianni Schicchi, La Fanciulla del West, and, of course, Turandot.  The
only things missing are the killer aria and the sumptuousness of Puccini's
orchestration; Malipiero tends to score more astringently, as if massed
horns would kill him.  However, Malipiero's opera works, to the extent that
it does work, pretty much the same way Puccini's operas do.  Contrary to
the composer's intentions, it doesn't stand as an exemplar of a radically
new approach to musical drama.

The cast is quite good, if not internationally stellar.  Winter and
Kjellevold stand out as singers who can act with their voice.  As with
many opera recordings these days, this is apparently a live performance,
and it's a good one.  It makes a case for Malipiero.  The sound is good, if
not great, for a live job, with only a couple of misbalances, nevertheless
quickly corrected.  However, we listen to a real pit orchestra, rather than
a symphony orchestra on an extracurricular gig.  There aren't quite as many
strings as one would hear in, say, the Berlin Phil.  Nevertheless, cpo has
been lucky in the Kiel Opera.  I'd also recommend Seibel's accounts of
Delius's Village Romeo and Juliet (sung in German) and of Schelling's Mona
Lisa, for those of you who like to wallow in the sounds of the late
19th-century orchestra.

Steve Schwartz