
Riccardo Zandonai, Francesca da Rimini
★★★★☆
Milan, Teatro alla Scala, 15 April 2018
Breaking with Verismo: Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini returns to La Scala
In the eagerness for new works that permeated the eve of World War I, Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini broke with Verismo to enter into a full decadent climate: Francesca lost Santuzza or Fedora’s passionate connotation to become a Dante Gabriele Rossetti character, a Pre-Raphaelite figure.
Probably unaware of Ambrose Thomas’ Françoise de Rimini (1882) or Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem (1877), Zandonai noted that Middle and Renaissance Ages were very fashionable in Italy at the time…
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