Alberto Franchetti
Encyclopedia
Alberto Franchetti was an Italian
opera
composer
.
, a Jewish nobleman of independent means. He studied first in Venice
, then in Dresden
under Felix Draeseke
, and finally at the Munich
Conservatory under Josef Rheinberger
. His first major success occurred in 1888 with his opera Asrael
. His operatic style combined Wagnerianism
and the traits of Meyerbeer
with Italian verismo
. During his life, critics sometimes referred to him as the "Meyerbeer of modern Italy."
The words of music critic G. B. Nappi sum up Franchetti's primary talents: "His character is perhaps unsuitable for passionate dramas, but rather for those subjects, where the fantastic, romantic and epic are required in the symphonic texture and large choral pictures. In this regard Alberto Franchetti knows that he has no rival" (from "Orfeo" 6.3, 1915).
Grove
considers Cristoforo Colombo
(1892) Franchetti's best work. However, his most popular opera was Germania
(1902; libretto by Luigi Illica
). It clung to the general operatic repertoire until the First World War
; it was performed worldwide, and Arturo Toscanini
(who conducted the work at La Scala) and Enrico Caruso held it high regard. Caruso included a few of the arias in his very first commercial recording session in 1902 and repeated one piece the following year for the Zonophone company, and two pieces with orchestra in 1910 when he appeared in a revival of the work in New York. But by the war, Germania had lapsed into obscurity. Mosco Carner
notes that Illica's libretto of Tosca
, or at least the sketch for a libretto, was first offered to Franchetti, who, too busy with other projects at the time, passed it on to his friend Puccini
.
Of Franchetti's last opera Glauco only the third act finale (sung by soprano) No piange ancora with its haunting melody,seems to have survived.
Among the reasons for Franchetti's descent into obscurity is the fact that, after the promulgation of the Fascist Racial Laws of 1938, which largely disenfranchised Italy's Jewish population, Franchetti's works were banned from performance. This was despite a plea for tolerance on his behalf from Pietro Mascagni
to Benito Mussolini
, which was rejected, just before Franchetti's death.
Recent revivals and recordings of Cristoforo Colombo and Germania (Berlin Oper 2006/7) show his work to be of genuine quality with a fine ability in orchestration and use of the chorus, symphonic in style. These traits, along with an unfortunate tendency for two-dimensional characters, were recognised early.
He also wrote a Symphony in E minor. He was the director of the Florence College of Music from 1926 to 1928: it was the only musical post he ever held. He died in Viareggio
in 1942, aged 81. Franchetti's main residence the substantial Villa Franchetti - (Nardi) in Florence was accepted as a "Historical Residence of Italy" in 1991 and in 2009 it became a hotel as well as a home, preserving much of its historical fabric. The villa, with its numerous outbuildings, was rescued from near dereliction by its current owner Gustavo Nardi, who writes of the villa's connections with Franchetti(http://www.villanardifirenze.com/History)
His son Arnold Franchetti
(1911–1993) became a successful composer after immigrating to the United States in 1949. Before coming to the US, he studied physics at the University of Florence, music at the Salzburg Mozarteum, and then moved to Munich where he studied composition and orchestration with Richard Strauss
for three years. He was a member of the World War 2 Italian Resistance Underground movement from 1946 to 1948. Arnold Franchetti was Professor of Composition at the Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford, Connecticut from 1950 until his retirement in 1979.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Biography
Alberto Franchetti was born in TurinTurin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
, a Jewish nobleman of independent means. He studied first in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, then in Dresden
Hochschule für Musik "Carl Maria von Weber"
The "Carl Maria von Weber" College of Music is a college of music in Dresden, Germany.- History :...
under Felix Draeseke
Felix Draeseke
Felix August Bernhard Draeseke was a composer of the "New German School" admiring Liszt and Richard Wagner. He wrote compositions in most forms including eight operas and stage works, four symphonies, and much vocal and chamber music.-Life:Felix Draeseke was born in the Franconian ducal town of...
, and finally at the Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
Conservatory under Josef Rheinberger
Josef Rheinberger
Josef Gabriel Rheinberger was a German organist and composer, born in Liechtenstein.-Short biography:...
. His first major success occurred in 1888 with his opera Asrael
Asrael
Asrael is a leggenda or opera in four acts by composer Alberto Franchetti and librettist Ferdinando Fontana. The plot, based on German fairy tale and folklore, displays the conflict between the spirit of evil and the spirit of Christian love, represented by Asrael and Nefta respectively...
. His operatic style combined Wagnerianism
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
and the traits of Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
with Italian verismo
Verismo
Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....
. During his life, critics sometimes referred to him as the "Meyerbeer of modern Italy."
The words of music critic G. B. Nappi sum up Franchetti's primary talents: "His character is perhaps unsuitable for passionate dramas, but rather for those subjects, where the fantastic, romantic and epic are required in the symphonic texture and large choral pictures. In this regard Alberto Franchetti knows that he has no rival" (from "Orfeo" 6.3, 1915).
Grove
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
considers Cristoforo Colombo
Cristoforo Colombo (opera)
Cristoforo Colombo is an opera in four acts and an epilogue by Alberto Franchetti to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica...
(1892) Franchetti's best work. However, his most popular opera was Germania
Germania
Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...
(1902; libretto by Luigi Illica
Luigi Illica
Luigi Illica was an Italian librettist who wrote for Giacomo Puccini , Alfredo Catalani, Umberto Giordano, Baron Alberto Franchetti and other important Italian composers. His most famous opera librettos are those for La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Andrea Chénier.Illica was born at...
). It clung to the general operatic repertoire until the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
; it was performed worldwide, and Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
(who conducted the work at La Scala) and Enrico Caruso held it high regard. Caruso included a few of the arias in his very first commercial recording session in 1902 and repeated one piece the following year for the Zonophone company, and two pieces with orchestra in 1910 when he appeared in a revival of the work in New York. But by the war, Germania had lapsed into obscurity. Mosco Carner
Mosco Carner
Mosco Carner was an Austrian-born British musicologist, conductor and critic. He wrote on a wide range of music subjects, but was particularly known for his studies on the life and works of the composers Giacomo Puccini and Alban Berg.-Biography:Born in Vienna to Rudolf and Selma Cohen, Carner...
notes that Illica's libretto of Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, or at least the sketch for a libretto, was first offered to Franchetti, who, too busy with other projects at the time, passed it on to his friend Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
.
Of Franchetti's last opera Glauco only the third act finale (sung by soprano) No piange ancora with its haunting melody,seems to have survived.
Among the reasons for Franchetti's descent into obscurity is the fact that, after the promulgation of the Fascist Racial Laws of 1938, which largely disenfranchised Italy's Jewish population, Franchetti's works were banned from performance. This was despite a plea for tolerance on his behalf from Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
to Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
, which was rejected, just before Franchetti's death.
Recent revivals and recordings of Cristoforo Colombo and Germania (Berlin Oper 2006/7) show his work to be of genuine quality with a fine ability in orchestration and use of the chorus, symphonic in style. These traits, along with an unfortunate tendency for two-dimensional characters, were recognised early.
He also wrote a Symphony in E minor. He was the director of the Florence College of Music from 1926 to 1928: it was the only musical post he ever held. He died in Viareggio
Viareggio
Viareggio is a city and comune located in northern Tuscany, Italy, on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. With a population of over 64,000 it is the main centre of the northern Tuscan Riviera known as Versilia, and the second largest city within the Province of Lucca.It is known as a seaside resort...
in 1942, aged 81. Franchetti's main residence the substantial Villa Franchetti - (Nardi) in Florence was accepted as a "Historical Residence of Italy" in 1991 and in 2009 it became a hotel as well as a home, preserving much of its historical fabric. The villa, with its numerous outbuildings, was rescued from near dereliction by its current owner Gustavo Nardi, who writes of the villa's connections with Franchetti(http://www.villanardifirenze.com/History)
His son Arnold Franchetti
Arnold Franchetti
Arnold Franchetti was a composer born in Lucca, Italy. Young Franchetti studied composition and piano with his father, the Baron Alberto Franchetti...
(1911–1993) became a successful composer after immigrating to the United States in 1949. Before coming to the US, he studied physics at the University of Florence, music at the Salzburg Mozarteum, and then moved to Munich where he studied composition and orchestration with Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
for three years. He was a member of the World War 2 Italian Resistance Underground movement from 1946 to 1948. Arnold Franchetti was Professor of Composition at the Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford, Connecticut from 1950 until his retirement in 1979.
Performed operatic works
- AsraelAsraelAsrael is a leggenda or opera in four acts by composer Alberto Franchetti and librettist Ferdinando Fontana. The plot, based on German fairy tale and folklore, displays the conflict between the spirit of evil and the spirit of Christian love, represented by Asrael and Nefta respectively...
(1888) - Cristoforo ColomboCristoforo Colombo (opera)Cristoforo Colombo is an opera in four acts and an epilogue by Alberto Franchetti to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica...
, libretto by Luigi IllicaLuigi IllicaLuigi Illica was an Italian librettist who wrote for Giacomo Puccini , Alfredo Catalani, Umberto Giordano, Baron Alberto Franchetti and other important Italian composers. His most famous opera librettos are those for La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Andrea Chénier.Illica was born at...
(1892) - Fior d'Alpe (1894)
- Il signor di Pourceaugnac (1897)
- GermaniaGermania (opera)Germania is an operatic dramma lirico consisting of a prologue, two acts, an intermezzo and an epilogue by Alberto Franchetti to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica...
, libretto by Luigi IllicaLuigi IllicaLuigi Illica was an Italian librettist who wrote for Giacomo Puccini , Alfredo Catalani, Umberto Giordano, Baron Alberto Franchetti and other important Italian composers. His most famous opera librettos are those for La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Andrea Chénier.Illica was born at...
(includes the tenor aria Studenti! Udite) (1902) - La figlia di IorioLa figlia di IorioLa figlia di Iorio , sometimes written as La figlia di Jorio, is an opera in three acts by Alberto Franchetti to a libretto by Gabriele D'Annunzio. The libretto is a very close rendering of D'Annunzio's play of the same name. La figlia di Iorio premiered at La Scala on March 29, 1906, conducted by...
, libretto by Gabriele D'AnnunzioGabriele D'AnnunzioGabriele D'Annunzio or d'Annunzio was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist...
(1906) - Notte di Legenda (1915)
- Giove a Pompei, joint composition with Umberto GiordanoUmberto GiordanoUmberto Menotti Maria Giordano was an Italian composer, mainly of operas.He was born in Foggia in Puglia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples...
(1921) - Glauco (1922)
- Fiori del Brabante (1930)
External links
- Alberto Franchetti (1860-1942) at www.albertofranchetti.it
- http://www.freundefranchettis.com