By Elise Petit
Written within ten years of
each other, these two one-act operas by Maurice Ravel and Giacomo Puccini
provide a brilliant account of the patchwork of musical aesthetics prevailing
at the beginning of the 20th century and represent two very personal and accomplished
re-appropriations of Italian opera buffa. L’Heure espagnole is Ravel’s first
completed opera and Gianni Schicchi is Puccini’s last: he died before
completing Turandot. A youthful work and something of a manifesto for the
French composer, who was only thirty-two when he undertook it; a mature work
for the Italian master, who was sixty years of age at the first performance in
1918.
“The most complicated thing
is simplicity, and simplicity is a divinity that all artists who believe must
celebrate.”
Puccini
L’Heure espagnole was
conceived as a musical offering by Ravel to his father, whose days, in 1907,
were evidently numbered. But the project was delayed and death intervened
ineluctably the following year. After numerous setbacks, the work was finally
performed in 1911 at the Opéra Comique. For the libretto of his “musical
comedy”, Ravel chose a vaudeville play by Franc-Nohain which had been a triumph
at the Théâtre de l’Odéon in 1904. For personal reasons first of all: the title
brings together from the outset the backgrounds of his parents: that of a Swiss
engineer fascinated by all types of mechanisms, and that of a girl from the
Basque country brought up in Madrid. And then for aesthetic reasons:
Franc-Nohain was at that time a member of the non-conformist circle known as
Les Amorphes, alongside Jules Renard et Alfred Jarry. When he began work on the
composition, Ravel was a member of the “Société des Apaches”, which included
Erik Satie, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, Paul Valéry, Igor Stravinsky and Manuel
de Falla; they also intended to rejuvenate the French artistic scene, notably
by combatting the excesses of symbolism.
The opening bars of L’Heure
espagnole sound therefore like a prosaic manifesto: metronomes represent the
ticking of the clocks in Torquemada’s workshop. The orchestra has been
supplemented with unusual instruments – a celeste, bells, a whip and, in the
bottom register, a sarrusophone, similar to a contrabassoon. An exploration of
timbres and ways of playing is also perceptible: the “brassy” mode of the horn
imitating “an automat playing the trumpet”; the crystalline sounds of the
celeste evoking the magic of the clock mechanisms and trombone glissandi
heralding the farce in the offing.
Gianni Schicchi, first
performed seven years after L’Heure espagnole, seems considerably less
innovative by comparison. It is, however, a work apart within Puccini’s output.
This short opera is in fact the last part of a tryptich that includes the
sombre, verismo Il Tabarro and the severe Suor Angelica. Then, in the summer of
1917, Puccini wrote the following to Forzano, his librettist, “I feel the need
to amuse myself”, as if, like Giuseppe Verdi, his model, he felt an
overwhelming urge to try his hand at comedy. Of verismo, from which he
completely frees himself here, he retains only the one-act structure, some
borrowings from popular music and an unmitigated exposure of human cynicism.
Without renouncing the use of bel canto, that most Italian of arts, of which
the aria “O mio babbino caro” remains one of the most accomplished examples,
Puccini takes particular care with the orchestration, rendering the music not
so much an illustrative element but rather a means of supporting the creative
freedom of the performers.
What remains of the opera
buffa tradition that these two works claim to belong to? First of all, the
choice of hero – modest and undervalued – the muleteer in Ravel and an upstart
in Puccini: heroes with whom, in the closing bars, the audience is invited to
side. Secondly, the use of musical elements borrowed from popular repertoire:
Spanish dances in Ravel, Tuscan melodies for Puccini. But the real tour de
force resides in the subtlety with which music serves humour, a return to the
very essence of opera buffa.
With a final, albeit
involuntary, wink, L’Heure espagnole joyously echoes Puccini’s personal
history: Elvira Gemignani, who became his wife, was already married when he met
her and their romance blossomed whilst he was giving her “piano lessons” during
her husband’s frequent absences…
https://www.operadeparis.fr/en/magazine/from-verismo-to-the-apaches
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