RICCITELLI: I Compagnacci.(Review)

RICCITELLI: I Compagnacci

[] Laudi, Melac; Frusoni, Ariostini, Maurini, Tornincasa, De Angelis; Bellini Chorus, Riccitelli Orchestra of Teramo, Pirolli. Libretto and translation. Bongiovanni GB-2273 (Qualiton, dist.)

Primo Riccitelli (1875-1941) didn't make it into The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, but he did reach Annals of the Metropolitan Opera, which reports three performances of his best-known work, I Compagnacci, in the 1923-24 season, with Rethberg, Gigli and Schutzendorf, on a double bill with Raoul Laparra's La Habanera. (Laparra did make Grove.) For the record, Riccitelli, born in the Abruzzo region, became a pupil and protege of Pietro Mascagni, who introduced him to his publisher and helped him get performances in Italy. Though he enjoyed several successes, his career never took off on a sure footing, and like Alfredo Catalani before him, he died neglected, impoverished and embittered.

Riccitelli's tale was that of the decline of the verismo movement, and of Italian opera generally, after Puccini's death. I Compagnacci, first performed in April 1923 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome under Gabriele Santini, has a libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, who wrote the texts for Puccini's Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. Based on a yarn of Florentine life in 1498, I Compagnacci is a one-act romp along the lines of Gianni Schicchi, also suggesting Richard Strauss's Feuersnot and a number of Wolf-Ferrari's comedies. Amid riots related to the teachings of the puritanical monk Savonarola, a young couple, Anna Maria and Baldo, ...