This week’s theme is…Shuffling Off! Musicians are human, and humans die, often with works in progress. These unfinished works form a tantalizing “what would have been”. Sometimes they are finished by crafty folks who aim for the double bar. Sometimes it is interesting to listen to them as they remain, a fascinating window into the creative process of a genius, cut short by the mortality we all share.
Shuffling Off, Day 5 – Turandot by Giacomo Puccini
If you are a fan of the Disney experience, I definitely recommend dining at least once at the Blue Bayou. The Blue Bayou is the Cajun-style restaurant that is integrated within the scenery of The Pirates of the Caribbean, one of the Disney Parks’ most iconic dark rides (see this post). I have had the pleasure of eating there twice and it is a most enchanting experience. In addition to fine Cajun cuisine, the distinctive ambiance, which it shares with the most peaceful episode of the ride, is enhanced by the periodic passing of boats from the attraction, with diners and riders sharing in the collective experience from different perspectives.
As if having a full-service fine dining experience completely integrated within one of the best rides in the park is not enough, Disney took it one step further. The large house behind the dining area of the Blue Bayou actually houses something even more special: an area called Club 33, the most exclusive part of Disneyland. A private club with annual dues of $12,000, patrons wait for years to gain membership, allowing them to access the finest dining in the park (every dinner is a 6 course meal) and the only alcohol served within the perimeter.
Clubs come in many shapes and sizes, but the one thing they all share is a measure of exclusivity. There is always some criterion which serves to restrict membership. For Club 33 it is largely financial (although I suspect there is at least some form of recommendation involved even if it is not disclosed to the general public – given what is published on the website anyone with the financial means should be eligible), but for other clubs (we might call them de facto clubs), it is accomplishments. For example, a very exclusive club is living presidents of the United States which currently boasts a membership of 5, soon to be 6 (as of this writing). Another, similar club, is astronauts who have walked on the moon, membership 12. Yet another exclusive de facto club is composers who feature in the regular rotation of the great opera houses of the world today. Given the sheer number of opera composers in the Western history, it is astounding that the list is so small. It indicates either that history’s method of selecting winners is somehow flawed, prejudiced, or reliant on highly arbitrary factors, that opera is just really that hard to write well, or maybe both (this seems likely).
If you look at the current or upcoming season of any of the world’s great opera houses you will notice a small number of composers represented, and an even smaller number if you exclude those known only for one opera (for a related phenomenon see this post). The resulting list is a very exclusive club indeed – the seasons of today’s opera houses are primarily filled with the scores of Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Wagner, Richard Strauss (somewhat), and Puccini. Sure, there is a Carmen in there, also a Fidelio, and often a Cavalleria Rusticana among a handful of others (these are the operatic one-hit wonders), but it astounds me that a tradition so strong and distinctive is represented by such a small group of creators. Also, you might be justified in regarding Richard Strauss as something of an odd duck on that list – his best operas are always toeing the line of the avant-garde, never quite so comfortable as the others, for many audiences an exercise in endurance as enjoyment. If we grant this, we can say in a very real sense that the grand tradition of opera, melodious, melodramatic, and lush, ended with Puccini, who died in 1924, and his last masterpiece, Turandot, is its last great utterance, very much still with us, and composed long after Strauss’ shocking operas of the early 1900s. After Puccini, the club has accepted no new members.
Part of the reason for Puccini’s enduring success is certainly his response to the times in which he lived. Living until 1924, he would have been aware of and even familiar with the trends flowing through the music around him. He wrote his first professional opera right as Richard Wagner died and as his career played out he would have witnessed the Germans and the French idolizing and imitating the great German figure. He would have heard the first experiments of Schoenberg (see this post) and his early serialist disciples, not to mention the spiky, stoic music of Hindemith (see this post) and the piquant scores by Stravinsky (see this post) which grew out of Russian nationalism. He would have heard all of this, but internalized none of it, sticking squarely within his lyrical, post-romantic Italian vein. Even the modernizing currents which touched Italy, expressed through the gritty realism of verismo, did not work its way into Puccini’s scores as thoroughly as it might, always tempered with warmth, and never completely overtaking his output. Puccini seemed determined, in his obsessive fastidious way, to provide the Italian bel canto tradition with a creamy, sensuous twilight.
All of his operas, even those written during what might be termed the modern age, exhibit this old school bel canto sensibility, focused on telling tear-jerking stories with lyrical melodies of exquisite balance. His swansong Turandot is an oriental drama par excellence, telling the story of an icy Chinese princess whose heart is softened by the persistent advances of a mysterious prince named Calaf. The most recent opera to remain in regular rotation at Western opera houses, Turandot was left unfinished at Puccini’s death. Arturo Toscanini, a hot-and-cold friend of Puccini’s, recommended a young opera composer, Franco Alfano, to pick up where he had left off and render his sketches into a coherent and seamless finale. It is this feat for which Alfano, a successful composer of Italian opera in his own right, is now best known. Legend has it that at the first performance of Turandot, Toscanini stopped conducting at the end of Puccini’s finished score, turned to the audience and stated “It is here that the master laid down his pen.” If you did not know the story, you would easily be convinced by Alfano’s seamless writing that everything had come from the same composer’s pen:
Thanks to the brilliant reconstruction of Franco Alfano Turandot was given a solid double bar and a solid finale which meshed fluidly with what had come before. Experts will tell you they can tell the difference, but can you? Because of Alfano’s contribution, Turandot has become the bookend of an era, entering steady rotation in opera houses, and sealing Puccini’s membership within the exclusive club of composers whose work fills the Western operatic canon.
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