La Forza del destino

The Metropolitan has mounted four productions of La Forza del destino and has presented the opera more than two hundred times, about as often as Fledermaus and Manon Lescaut. Late in entering the company’s repertoire, its 1918 premiere was notable for its stellar cast of Enrico Caruso, Giuseppe De Luca, José Mardones, and the debut, on any opera stage, of Rosa Ponselle. Rudolf Bing counted Forza among the notable Verdi revivals of his regime; opening night 1953 had Zinka Milanov, Richard Tucker, Leonard Warren, and Cesare Siepi. The remarkable décor designed by Eugene Berman was seen in fourteen out of thirty or so subsequent seasons. The 1996 edition of Verdi’s work, also decked out in traditional sets and costumes, fared much less well; it earned but one repetition more than a decade later.

 

It is doubtful if the 2024 Forza would be recognized by the artists who played Leonora, Alvaro, Carlo, and Padre Guardiano in the past. Mariusz Trelinski plants the narrative, based on a 19^th century Spanish melodrama, in a contemporary and post-Apocalyptic America, as he teases out the themes of Patriarchy and War.

This post recalls a few of the great singers who made Verdi’s brilliant, but sprawling and problematic La Forza del destino, such a frequent repertory item.

Leonora, the beleaguered heroine who seeks asylum and solitude after her beloved Alvaro accidentally kills her father, pleads for the help of the Virgin in her Act II aria “Madre, pietosa vergine.” Zinka Milanov, who holds the record for the most Leonoras at the Met, was at her peak for the 1953 revival. The depth, roundness, and power of her sound never prevents her from making a soft landing on the high notes. Her famous pianissimo is but one feature of this deeply felt rendition of the piece, drawn from a recital disk.

 

  Carlo Bengonzi, acknowledged as the consummate Verdi tenor of his generation, is heard here in a 1965 live performance. Bergonzi applies his warm timbre and scrupulous phrasing to the tragic Act III aria, “O, tu che in seno agli angeli.” Disconsolate, Alvaro evokes Leonora, whom he believes dead and among the angels.

The most familiar music in La Forza del destino is Leonora’s final aria, “Pace, pace, mio dio.” Alone in her hermitage, she declares her love for Alvaro, whom she, too, believes dead, and prays for peace. Her outburst in the final moments is a curse on those who dare invade her asylum. The clip is from a 1953 live performance of the opera from Florence, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos. Leonora is Renata Tebaldi who unstintingly deploys her lush voice in one of her favorite roles.

YouTube is a treasure trove of Forza excerpts; Rosa Ponselle, Beniamino Gigli, Eileen Farrell, Franco Corelli,  RichardTucker are highly recommended. Of particular interest are the Enrico Caruso/Giuseppe De Luca and Jussi Bjorling/Robert Merrill duets.

 

In Memoriam: Jessye Norman, 1945-2019

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Jessye Norman died on September 30, 2019. We should not expect to see her like again. Vocally, dramatically, and physically, she dominated world stages throughout a career that spanned four and a half decades and an astonishing diversity of styles: those of the Baroque, 20^th-century modernism, spirituals, jazz, the American songbook. Happily for us, the wide compass of her operatic repertoire of forty roles was captured on CD and DVD.

Norman was, of course, a dramatic soprano. Had she followed convention, she would have found a prominent place in the core offerings of premier opera companies. Her power and sumptuous timbre marked her as a worthy successor to, say, Zinka Milanov in the Italian canon or Kirsten Flagstad in the German. But she deviated from the prescribed path early in her career by eschewing Verdi (except for two rare operas she performed only in the recording studio) and avoiding the Wagnerian diva’s obligatory Isoldes and Brünnhildes. And she never engaged with the most popular opera composer of the 20^th century, Puccini. In the peak years of Norman’s international fame she embraced Purcell, Berlioz, Richard Strauss, Janáček, Bartók, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Poulenc, and in doing so, was instrumental in reshaping the taste of the public and the standard offerings of the major lyric theatres.

In 1969, at only twenty-four, Norman made her opera debut with the prestigious Deutsche Oper in Berlin as Elisabeth in Wagner’s Tannhäuser. The Thuringian princess became one of her favored roles. In her ecstatic entrance aria, “Dich teure Halle (O cherished hall),” Elisabeth invests the space with memories of her beloved minnesinger Tannhäuser and her joy at his return. In a 1985 London concert the audience gives an extended ovation to the singer’s stunning exhibition.

Another of Norman’s early Berlin roles was the Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. In the exquisite “Porgi, Amor (Love, grant me respite)” she entreats Amor to rekindle the affection of her philandering husband. Norman’s impeccable legato and clarity of attack limn the introspection of the Countess, her heroic voice hushed to the finely spun piano dynamics. We hear the soprano in the 1971 recording of the complete opera, conducted by Colin Davis.

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Ariadne in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos was, by far, the role Norman sang most frequently in her nearly one hundred appearances in over more than thirteen seasons at the Met. Both the comic Prima Donna of the Prologue and the tragic Ariadne of the opera seria suit the soprano’s temperament and her prodigious vocal resources. Norman negotiates the more than two-octave span of the aria, “Es gibt ein Reich (There is a kingdom),” from G sharp, well below the comfort zone of most sopranos, to high B flat, much of it forte, with remarkable evenness of timbre. Her crystalline diction conveys the despair of the Cretan princess, abandoned by her lover Theseus on the deserted isle of Naxos, as she begs for the deliverance of death. We hear Norman in a 1988 Leipzig recording led by Kurt Masur. A DVD of her Met Ariadne, made the same year, is available on Youtube.

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Post Script: Jessye Norman was the object of deep affection and high regard in France. She was the recipient of several official honors, including the Légion d’honneur. A measure of the esteem she enjoyed was the choice of Norman, an American artist, to sing “La Marseillaise” in the spectacular celebration of the 200^th anniversary of the French Revolution on July 14, 1989. Draped in the Tricolor that recalled “Marianne,” the national personification of the French Republic, she stood at the foot of the obelisk at the center of the Place de la Concorde and unfurled her huge voice in this extravagant rendition of what is arguably the most stirring of national anthems.