„Ricomincio a respirare l’aria di quei paesi“. Zu einem ‚russischen‘ Naturalismus und seiner ästhetischen Entgrenzung in Opern von Umberto Giordano und Franco Alfano (1898–1904)

Abstract

The unexpected success of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (1890) gave the starting signal for a turn of Italian opera to naturalism. The problematic integration of naturalistic plots into the melodramma was approached in part by means of musical exoticism. The recently started reception of Lev Tolstoy’s and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novels could serve as basis for a re-evaluation of Russian subjects in fin de siècle Italian opera.Since the beginning of the 19th century, the Western image of Russia had been stamped by the contrast of tsarist glamour and the penal camps of Siberia. Umberto Giordano’s Fedora displays this dichotomy from a Parisian point of view. For Siberia, Luigi Illica contributed a libretto based on Dostoyevsky’s House of the Dead, in the composition of which Giordano sought to amalgamate the notions of naturalism, Russian exoticism and tragic love. With Risurrezione, Franco Alfano expanded in this direction by creating a powerful Russian atmosphere. His formal solution for the opera’s finale uses a juxtaposition of disparate material which evolves as a hallmark of musical realism.