Un Giorno Di Regno

SOURCE:Performance recorded live on January 25, 1951 for broadcast on RAI and subsequent publication by CETRA.SOUND:1951 Italian mono. As usual for recordings of this period, voices are well-captured and given emphasis. The orchestra sounds somewhat compressed and rather distant; the piano, in particular, sounds as though it is locked away in someone's dressing room. One's ear quickly becomes accustomed to the period sound, however, and it is perfectly listenable.COMMENTARY:This is Verdi's other comedy, his second opera. It premiered in 1840 with no success and served as a marker for the bleakest period of the composer's life, during which his two children and his first wife died. As Verdi, himself, famously told the story, he despaired of ever writing another opera, and fell into an uncreative depression until a publisher forced the libretto for what came to be his third opera, "Nabucco," into his pocket."Un giorno di regno," is hardly ever performed and seldom recorded. Like "Alzira," it is regarded as one of Verdi's misfires and better left untouched. Prior to listening to this performance, I knew that I would not hear a youthful "Falstaff." I did have some hazy expectation, however, of listening to a sort of primordial, protoplasmic Fra Melitone along with some touches of Oscar and of that drummer-girl, whatever her name is, from "La forza del destino."I could not have been more wrong. From the overture on, I defy anyone unfamiliar with the piece to identify this as a work by Verdi. It now seems to me that in 1840, the 27 year-old hayseed from Busetto had concluded that the very model of a modern operatic comedy had been devised by Donizetti, so he set out to write one for himself. If "Un giorno di regno" is not precisely Donizettian, it is absolutely not Verdian. It even has--and this I never expected of Verdi!--passages of dry recitative accompanied by piano. It also has light, charming little tunes that might sneak in the back door of Don Pasquale's house, but would be trampled by the horses at Ernani's fortress or wither beneath Iago's sneers. Still, for all that, "Un giorno" is a charming piece of work. Just as "Andrea Chenier" is the very best Puccini opera that Puccini did not happen to write, "Un giorno di regno" might be the best Donizetti comedy not by Donizetti. This is certainly the only Verdi opera I know of which the word "pretty" can be used appropriately.The cast is a good example of the wartime generation in Italy. Capecchi and Bruscantini acquired international fame. Lina Pagliughi's great girth kept her from performing very often on Italian opera stages but she was a strong presence in radio performances. Before the war she recorded a very formidable "Lucia" in the pre-Callas style that became part of the CETRA catalogue and is now available in various editions, including one from Naxos. The youthful Juan Oncina's voice had a pleasing quality to it and a resemblance to Tito Schipa's that I suspect was not entirely accidental.This is a fine performance of a most un-Verdilike Verdi opera. I think it is worth five stars.-------HISTORICAL NOTE:That "Un giorno di regno" is so singulary un-Verdian in subject, style and vocal character is almost certainly attributable to the circumstances of its creation. At this stage in his career, Verdi (just as Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini before him) wrote to order for a specific impresario at a specific opera house for a specific cast during a specific season. He would have written his music with the capabilities of the singers and the desires of the impresario firmly in mind. In this case the singers were Raineri, Abbadia, Salvi, Ferlotti and Scalese and the impresario was Bartolomeo Merelli, the general manager of La Scala. Ten months earlier, Raineri had been the soprano at the premiere of "Oberto," Verdi's first opera, and Salvi had been the tenor.On the opening night, September 5, 1840, Verdi sat, as was then the custom for composers, in the orchestra pit, where he listened to hisses and boos from the audience. On the following day, the reviews were unfavorable and the remaining scheduled performances of the opera were cancelled.Twenty years later, Verdi wrote a letter, saying this about his second opera, "From that day to this, I have never set eyes on Un giorno di regno; it is certainly a bad opera, although many other operas no better have been tolerated." (I strongly suspect that among those tolerated operas that were no better, Verdi would have placed "L'elisir d'amore" and "Don Pasquale.")Verdi walked away from his youthful failure and never looked back, just as Wagner did with his "Das Liebesverbot," with the result that two fine works have languished for over 160 years.