La Ville morte is an opera by Nadia Boulanger and Raoul Pugno to the text of Gabriele D'Annunzio's play La città morta . It has been called Boulanger's "most significant achievement as a creative artist".[1]
| La Ville morte | |
|---|---|
| by Nadia Boulanger and Raoul Pugno | |
| Language | French |
| Based on | Gabriele D'Annunzio's play La città morta |
| Premiere | 2005 |
History
After hearing her examinations at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1904, Pugno became Boulanger's teacher, collaborator and promotor.[2] Some writers say that Pugno and Boulanger became lovers, while others do not.[3] In 1909 they wrote a song cycle, Les heures claires, together.[4] Work on the opera probably began in 1909 and was finished in 1912.[5] Pugno died on 3 January 1914, before the opera could have its premier. Opéra-Comique had finished casting by July 1914, and choir rehearsals were scheduled to start on August 17 that same year when the outbreak of World War I disrupted all plans.[6] With many echoes of Pelléas et Mélisande, the story follows the lives and loves of an archeologist, Léonard, his sister Hebé, Alexandre, a colleague, and his wife Anne, amidst the ruins of Mycenae.[7]
A fully orchestrated version of the opera has not survived.[8] The opera was reconstructed from surviving scores by Mauro Bonifacio and had its world premiere at the 2005 Chigiana festival in Siena.[9] It was performed for the second time in a concert staging by Mia Nerenius, using screens and projections, in March 2020 at the Gothenburg Opera.[7][10]
A chamber version (with some scenes cut and without chorus) co-produced by Greek National Opera and Catapult Opera (the successor to Gotham Chamber Opera[11]) was presented in Athens in January 2024 and New York in April 2024, conducted by Neal Goren.[12]
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere cast, 16 March 2005[13] (Conductor: Luca Pfaff) | Gothenburg Opera cast, 8 March 2020[14] (Conductor: Anna-Maria Helsing) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hebé | soprano | Michelle Canniccioni | Katarina Karnéus |
| Anne | mezzo-soprano | Letitia Singleton | Matilda Paulsson |
| Léonard | tenor | Lorenzo Carola | Markus Pettersson |
| Alexandre | Baritone | Randal Turner | Anton Ljungqvist |
References
Citations
Bibliography
- Brooks, Jeanice (2013). The Musical Work of Nadia Boulanger: Performing Past and Future between the Wars. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107328310.
- Francis, Kimberly (2005). Nadia Boulanger and "La Ville Morte": En'gendering' a woman's role in the making of an opera (MA diss.). University of Ottawa. doi:10.20381/ruor-18554.
- Potter, Caroline (2000). "Nadia Boulanger's and Raoul Pugno's La ville morte". The Opera Quarterly. 16 (3): 397–406. doi:10.1093/oq/16.3.397.
- Potter, Caroline (2006). Nadia and Lili Boulanger. Ashgate. ISBN 978-0754604723.