Tuesday night I heard Lisa Batiahvili play Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 1 for Violin and Orchestra, and a concert version of Dallapiccola’s 50-minute opera “Il prigioniero” (The Prisoner), at the Philharmonic with the singers Patricia Racette and Gerald Finley (along with two others) and the Collegiate Chorale. Prokofiev is one of my favorite composers. I feel that works of his should rank alongside the likes of Bach or Beethoven (who, actually, as I’ve said before, I don’t much care for) as among the greatest of composers. Dallapiccola was a 12-tone composer (or serialist), and I like serialism and have gone out of my way to hear as much as I could make available to myself. Dallapiccola, though, unlike his Viennese counterparts, is known as a lyrical composer who still squeezed harmonies out of his 12-tone rows, unlike the harsh dissonance often associated with 12-tone. I have heard little of Dallapiccola’s music, though. Dallapiccola was at first a supporter of Mussolini, but as Dallapiccola’s wife was half-Jewish, he soon turned against fascism, refusing to tour or perform in Nazi countries and himself going into hiding. “Il prigioniero” is set in the times of the Inquisition and The Prisoner (Finley) has been tortured and held captive for what seems like a lifetime. The opera opens with his mother (Racette) lamenting his confinement and misery. When The Prisoner makes his appearance, he narrates the tale of how the Jailer (Peter Hoare) brought a light of hope into his dungeon simply by calling The Prisoner “My brother.” The Jailer leaves the door to the cell open and the Prisoner escapes. Before he has spent much time luxuriating in the open, though, the Jailer, now doubling as the Grand Inquisitor, re-enters, saying “My brother,” this time filled with menace and threat. The Prisoner is threatened with death at the stake, a death that paradoxically he sees as possible liberation from his confinement and grief. The opera ends with the Prisoner asking the one-word question “Freedom?,” an ambiguity that even decades later Dallapiccola refused to explain. The Prisoner’s imprisonment and gloom, while patently a symbolic reference to political oppression, still seemed Existential in its magnitude.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:32:47 +0000
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