Cilea- Adriana Lecouvreur -Blu-ray-

Adriana Lecouvreur has a reputation as a two-hit wonder: the heroine s Io son l umile ancella and Poveri fiori . As showpieces for star sopranos, away from their dramatic contexts, these concert extracts have to a large degree shaped the reputation of the whole work. While the arias show off the composer Francesco Cilea s sympathetically lyrical writing for singers, they may also create an impression that there isn t much more to the opera. Full stagings in the repertory outside Italy that could challenge this last assumption have been sporadic for example, before this production at the Royal Opera House in 2010, the opera had only been seen at Covent Garden in two short runs in 1904 and 1906. Yet it is an accomplished and engaging work that deserves to be appreciated more widely for its taut pacing, skilful orchestration, effortless melodic style and sheer musical charm. Born on 26 July 1866, Cilea is one of that group of contemporary Italian opera composers known as the giovane scuola (effectively a next generation ) that also included Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Catalani, Leoni, Franchetti, Wolf-Ferrari and Giordano. It was to them that the Italian musical world looked for the successor to Verdi as a symbol of national identity and an ambassador to the world. Posterity may have put Puccini firmly in that position as a result of what eventually became a series of major international operatic hits, but in the early 1900s there still seemed to be something to play for. Thus, Cilea had a success with Adriana Lecouvreur at the Teatro Lirico, Milan, on 6 November 1902 (Enrico Caruso was Maurizio, and Angelica Pandolfini was Adriana), while Puccini s Madama Butterfly in its first version was a noted disaster at La Scala, Milan, in February 1904. The competition for Verdi s mantle between all these composers was also a manifestation of the battle between the two big publishing houses of Casa Ricordi (Verdi s publisher and Puccini s) and Casa Musicale Sonzogno, with whom Cilea and many of the other members of the giovane scuola had contracts. Through commercial power, these two publishers influenced the repertory of Italian opera houses, and it was Ricordi that gained the upper hand, not least through its hold over the rights to the Verdi repertory. As a result, works from the Sonzogno stable including Adriana Lecouvreur as well as Cilea s L Arlesiana (1897) a