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Pietro Mascagni between Vistilia and Nerone

Reproduced and translated with the kind permission of Edizioni Curci . This article was first published in Rassegna Musicale Curci, periodico di cultura e attualita musicali, anno LI n. 1 - gennaio 1998. Translation from the original Italian text © 2004 Erik Bruchez. Many thanks to John for his help proof-reading. Comments, additions, corrections are welcome. See also the Italian version.

Translation version: 1.5 (2004-07-23)

Scene from Act III of Nerone

A few years ago, as researcher (but not musicologist) of the works of Mascagni, I published a small book ¹ in which I had the opportunity to go over the musical itinerary of Mascagni from an autobiographical point of view. In this context I directed my attention to the analysis of the last opera by the maestro from Livorno, Nerone, and I asked myself the still unanswered question of the identification of the musical parts written for an earlier, never completed opera, Vistilia, which were actually used by the composer in his last work. It seemed to me at the time, given that more accurate indications were missing from the otherwise vast literature about the author, that one could conclude from the liner notes written by Fernando Battalia for the CD Nerone (published in 1988 by Bongiovanni) that the composition of Vistilia was undertaken between 1906 and 1910. However, those dates were revealed as immediately incorrect when I read in "Opera" magazine of October 1990 a letter from the Mario Morini collection addressed by Mascagni to his mother on February 14, 1893, where the maestro himself mentions having played and sung the "tenor romance" from Vistilia during an evening dedicated to Verdi in Milan. It is therefore certain that this aria was already composed in 1893. We will see that the romance was inserted in its entirety in Nerone with the exact same words that one can read in the libretto of Vistilia ("Quando al soave anelito").

This means that the period of time during which Mascagni dedicated himself, even intermittently, to the composition of Vistilia, is longer than that considered by Battaglia. It is true that the authors of the libretto (Targioni-Tozzetti and Menasci) published it in Livorno in 1900 (published by Belforte) around the same time the text of Boïto's Nerone was published. But it is hard to dispute the idea that the text was already available to the composer, even partially, since 1893. It is likely however that the other musical parts used later in Nerone were written years after that date. Let's not forget that, in spite of the love that Mascagni had for the idea of writing an opera taking place in Imperial Rome, the tasks that kept the composer busy between 1893 and 1910 were numerous and overwhelming: think of the completion of Ratcliff, the composition of operas such as Silvano, Zanetto, Iris, Le Maschere, and Amica, his engagements as conductor, as well as his role as director of the Liceo Musicale of Pesaro.

But these considerations only regard the chronological aspect of the question. It is much more important to search for an answer to the question of the identification of the musical material of Vistilia that was reworked and perfectly inserted by Mascagni in his last creation. The key of the enigma, given that a solid musical documentation is missing, can only consist in confronting the texts of Vistilia and Nerone. This is what maestro Emilio Gragnani, a keen musicologist from Livorno, has taught us with his article "Miscellanea mascagnana" ², which has only recently come to my attention.

On pages 16 to 19 of his article, Gragnani refers to an article published in 1923 by cultivated musician and musicologist Domenico Alaleona in the newspaper "Il Mondo". The author relates a recent conversation he had with Mascagni, during which the maestro talked about Vistilia and even played a few pages of the work on the piano. Alaleona relates: "Among the pieces heard, I will point out a delicious chorus of women selling oranges, and the duets between Vistilia and Elio, filled with passion in the typical Mascagni vein; in the last act, the lament of Elio reaches summits of expressive beauty." From this premise Gragnani starts confronting the two texts (we know that Targioni-Tozzetti had to work hard during the composition of Nerone in order to make compatible, from the point of view of the drama but also the versification, poetic fragments written for Vistilia with others written especially for Nerone).

He starts with the reprimand of Atte to Egloge ("Io posso per forza d'incanti...", Act Two, scene three), similar to that addressed by Canidia to Vistilia (Act Three, scene three) and starting with the following verses: "Io posso per forza di canti, di filtri, d'arcani scongiuri, l'amore tuo dissolvere, Vistilia Vistilina!" and continues for a total of twelve verses, while in Nerone there are sixteen, all however with the same meter.

I owe to the courtesy of editor and librarian Paolo Belforte in Livorno to have been able to access and make an assiduous reading of the libretto of Vistilia, published - as I have already mentioned - in 1900. This Vistilia is a play ("scena lirica" - "lyric scene" - in Italian) in a prologue and four acts, based on the story of the same title by Rocco De Zerbi, inspired in turn by a passage from the Annales of Tacitus. The plot takes place during the time of Tiberius. It tells of the love of Elio, Roman knight, for Vistilia, of praetorian family and the wife of Titidio Labeone, and is interleaved with the story of the patrician Canidia and her no less unsatisfied love for Livo Salico. In the end, Vistilia, who in spite of loving Elio has always refused his passionate advances and has suffered the shame of being raped by unknown attendees at a ceremony in the temple of Isis, reveals herself to her lover during a banquet, but now dying of starvation, passes away in his arms.

All the scenic action has Imperial Rome as background, with its gladiators, its feasts, and its orgies. It is on this background that already in the 1890's the idea of creating an opera inspired by this world took shape in Mascagni's mind: a Nerone competing with the one announced by Arrigo Boïto or, rather, a Vistilia. That Vistilia had at first a lot of traction and seemed for a while destined to be completed, but the long gestation led in the end to the choice of Nerone instead; and which, like the one from Boïto, was performed only after long years of enthusiasm, rethinking, and delay. However Vistilia is Nerone and Nerone could not be anything but Vistilia. Because, when one speaks about music from Vistilia reused in Nerone, in reality one should speak not so much about reuse but about a real fusion.

Considering now the analysis of the musical parts already composed and the ones composed during the last years (1932-1934) that crowned the complex work of the maestro, it is necessary again to refer to the study of Gragnani who, after having discovered that the reprimand of Canidia and that of Atte were one and the same piece, goes on to examine the romance of Elio, that same romance mentioned by Mascagni in that letter of 1893. There is no doubt that this romance is the same sung by Nerone (Act Three, scene one): the text is identical for sixteen out of twenty verses comprising this piece. I note however that the last four verses are newly written and that the romance of Nerone is preceded by four verses and ten bars announcing it, clearly of new and significant creation regarding not only the text but also the music ("Vergini Muse e te, divino Apollo..."). Gragnani continues with the discovery of the relationship between the chorus "Io Bacche, Evoè, evohè" from Vistilia (Act Three, scene four) and that "Io Bacche, Io bacche, Evohe" (in the first cene of the third act, first part of Nerone). But here it is relevant to note the different positioning received by the fragments of the Bacchic chorus which, in Vistilia, are found also in Act Four, scene one ("Gloria a Trione, bravo!...Viva Trione!") and in the same act, scene two ("A te noi beviamo, Trione! Beviamo!, Tracanna! Mescete! La coppa ricolma spumeggi! la patera vuota si spezzi!...", etc.).

In Nerone those fragments are all reunited in the first part of Act Three, scene one ("Gloria a Nerone, Gloria a Nerone!... A te noi beviamo, regina! la coppa ricolma spumeggi, la patera vuota si spezzi"). Not without noticing, as a confirmation of the tight connection between the two operas, the major development given by Mascagni to the Bacchic chorus of Nerone with regard to the original sketch of Vistilia. In Nerone there are in fact numerous groups of verses that do not respond to any in the text of Vistilia, like the following: "Sopra il desco olezzante di rose, più soavi di bocche amorose...", etc. A fragment which even musically alludes to the old "Viva il vino spumeggiante!...".

Gragnani concludes his comparison citing one of the most famous musical phrases of Nerone: "È una festa di voli: Già le garrule rondini han fatto il nido..." (Act Two, scene three) and noting the similar phrase addressed by Elio to the dying Vistilia (Act Four, scene two): "È una festa di voli, ivi le garrule rondini fanno il nido...". However he neglects to point out the two quatrains which precede the strophe of Elio in the text of Vistilia ("Oh, vivi, o prediletta, o fior dell'anima, vivi...", etc.), to which the eight verses written for Nerone correspond with perfect prosody ("Egloge, o tutta bella, o fior purissimo, t'amo..."). This means that the entire love duet of the second act of Nerone finds antecedents in the duet already composed, albeit in a very different dramatic context, for Vistilia. A singular fate touched the duet just discussed as well as the aria from Vistilia referred to by Alaleona as "Lamento d'Elio". Both in fact take place in Nerone in dramatic situations quite opposite to those of Vistilia: the first one evolves from tragedy to a happy love scene; the second one, initially a "lament", loses its erotic melancholy for an explosive invocation to Bacchus ("Oh, vieni liquida porpora, vieni...") which, preceded by a new seven-beat melodic phrase marked by the didascaly "Lentamente, dolcissimo" ("Slowly, softly") and punctuated in every strophe by the counterpoint-comment of Atte, is the characteristic of the scene six of the first act.

Gragnani doesn't consider this important moment of the opera, nor does he pay attention to another delicate melodic slice mentioned by Alaleona: the so-called "chorus of women selling oranges", which from Vistilia (Act One, scene two: "O luminosa terra di Sicilia...", etc.) has probably made its way to the second act of Nerone, scene four, as the chorus of the Greek maidens. ("O luminosi margini dell'Ellade..."). The text of each chorus consists in fact of the same number of verses - eight - all of the same meter. But in this case again Mascagni has been able in Nerone to augment and beautify the existing composition, integrating it with the delicate solo counterpoint of Egloge ("O Anadiomene, di mirti e gigli...", etc.) and obtaining an ensemble result truly remarkable, even on the level of the novelty of language.

At this point it is relevant to observe that no other part of Vistilia lends itself to being used in the drama that saw the light in 1935. There are many poetic passages of diverse and refined construction, but none is certain or even a probable candidate for material that the maestro could have used for the final musical garment of his last opera, which contains abundant newly composed material, culturally in harmony with the dominant neo-classicism of the time, and however reminiscent of an unmistakable style, that same style that is deeply engraved in each and every production of Pietro Mascagni.

I will point out, only briefly for reasons of space, the parts of the score of Nerone that best illustrate the modernity and strength of invention of the opera. After the initial chords and the incisive beginning assigned to the bass voice, the double declamato of Nevio (Act One, scenes two and four) containing the chromatic phrase "Chi può dalla rovina salvare Roma e il mondo?"; then the unexpected appearance of the protagonist in the Suburra, accompanied by slow, epic orchestral music; then a notable arioso of Atte (scene six): "Ancor t'illudi... già i Germani oppressi...", etc.); in Act Two, scene three, the dance of Egloge, the best-known aria of the opera, followed - scenes four and five - by a new arioso of Atte ("Non danzare sull'orlo dell'abisso...") and the "andante delicato" of Egloge, of delicate construction, that starts with the phrase "Oh, lasciami goder la giovinezza!"; in Act Three, first part, the extremely sad, "lento" and "pianissimo" song of Nerone for the dying Egloge ("Tu soffri, o mio tesoro...", etc.), and then in scene five, a new exit of Atte in the middle of an inspired duet with Nerone: "Perchè mi innamorai dì un uomo tanto crudele e vil?...". There is more: the dense orchestral interlude, before the beginning of the second part of the act which, with its four scenes full of recitative and melodic declamato and its intense fifteen minutes of duration, is the most novel part and the closest to the canons of European music at the time of its composition. In this second part of Act Three, between oneiric fantasy and explosions of contrasting feelings, the andante of Atte stands out, with its ternary rhythm, enveloped by the sound of a cello quartet, and comprising the two strophes starting with the words: "Né tu possa mai risvegliarti, o grande infelice!".

This is Mascagni's last operatic melody.

1. Bianchini, Roberto, "Una vita per Mascagni", Edizioni di Barbablù, Siena, 1991
2. Gragnani, Emilio, "Miscellanea mascagnana", in Rivista di Livorno n. 5, Livorno, 1956