Verismo – Preludi e Intermezzi
Works by Ponchielli, Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Wolf-Ferrari, Cilea
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Domingo Hindoyan
Onyx ONYX4242 69:06 mins
‘We are all sick of the Intermezzo, of course, but that is the organ-grinder’s fault, not the composer’s’. So wrote the critic RA Streatfeild in 1895 about the intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana, four years after Mascagni’s opera received its London premiere. The various intermezzos, balletic numbers, instrumental serenades, overtures and preludes found on this album – the non-vocal bits of what is loosely termed verismo opera – were the pop hits of their era, played in restaurants and on street corners. Mascagni’s theme remains hyper-familiar today, but there are numbers in this selection, from works such as the same composer’s Le maschere or Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna, that will be novelties even to the seasoned operagoer. Conductor Domingo Hindoyan takes that ubiquitous Mascagni intermezzo at a rather laboured pace, but elsewhere he and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic are on far more vigorous form. In the Witches’ Sabbath from Le Villi, taut strings, explosive brass and thundering crescendos make the listener feel as if they have been caught up in the eye of a storm, while Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours (La Gioconda) is played with the all the fun of the fairground. It is in the heavyweight emotional intermezzos that the performing forces really come into their own: L’Amico Fritz’s is overwrought, Manon Lescaut’s keening, Pagliacci’s expansive, I gioielli della Madonna’s highly spiced. An enjoyable introduction to a generation of opera composers who regarded the symphony as a vital source of inspiration, and gave it an added dash of passion. Alexandra Wilson
