The commedia dell'arte. Like any other form of prose theater, it is by default related to opera. Opera, from its noble heights, would come to recognize and embrace this connection only in the decadence phase (not decadent, mind you, it is a different concept); between the late 1800s and early 1900s, works began to appear here and there in which among the various characters we find Colombines, Pantalones, Truffaldinos, Farfarellos, Harlequins, and, of course, Pagliacci. Leoncavallo was the first, followed by Mascagni with a much lighter and faithful interpretation of the original spirit (Le Maschere), and then Richard Strauss, who in Ariadne auf Naxos combined commedia dell'arte with Greek tragedy in a delightful play of contrasts. But now let's delve a little deeper: Carlo Gozzi, a great Venetian playwright, whose theatrical fairy tale "La donna serpente" is the literary inspiration for the first "apocryphal" opera by a then perfectly unknown Richard Wagner, "Die feen". The most famous example of the Gozzi-opera combination is nevertheless Turandot, even though Puccini completely overturned its spirit, transforming it into a (grand, splendid etc etc...) heroic melodrama; however, not many know that a few years earlier Ferruccio Busoni, known mostly as a composer and virtuoso pianist, had already proposed the same subject in a comic key faithful to the original, which involves characters from commedia dell'arte in the story.
And it is precisely by playing these rather unusual cards, Gozzi and commedia dell'arte, that Sergei Prokofiev attempted to conquer America, presenting in Chicago, in 1921, The Love for Three Oranges (Lyubov' k tryom apel'sinam), sung for the occasion in French. Essentially, it was a flop, probably also due to political prejudices but, I think, mainly for the characteristics of the proposal itself, a work already extravagant in itself, especially for an audience not inclined to avant-garde or even just unconventional proposals, as in this case. The conditio sine qua non to fully appreciate and understand this masterpiece by Prokofiev is to avoid any comparison with Mozart's and Rossini's comedies, and also with the contemporary works of Richard Strauss: the purposes are very different, fundamentally aimed at caricature, and the means are adapted accordingly: The Love for Three Oranges is an opera in the purest Prokofiev style, chaotic, sarcastic, absurd, and fragmented into scenes of great color and liveliness, and despite this, it remains a unique block, you either appreciate it in its entirety or not at all. The charm lies entirely in the sensation of total unreality it manages to convey, fully perceivable even by a casual listener, even without a libretto at hand.
As in The Fiery Angel, here too the orchestration is rather heavy, but far from the German canons which envision a flow as enveloping and constant as possible, on the contrary, Prokofiev literally intoxicates, I would say almost literally, the listener with a continuous succession of leitmotifs, melodies never fully developed (consequently nothing even remotely resembling an aria), changes of tempo and desecrating choral interventions at the least opportune moments. Despite the purely satirical subject, the atmospheres are often dark and unsettling, perfect for underlining the apparent unreality of the mondo bizarro in which the story takes place, and in the most tense moments (for example the card game between the magician Celio and the fairy Morgana) it is immediately perceived that the compositional hand is the same as the famous Dance of the Knights. In short, here is the reduction in symphonic form (a very common practice at the time), the entiremagical and farcical atmosphere of the opera condensed into a delightful quarter of an hour. Of course, the numerous vocal parts are missing in the symphony, among which the Prince and Fairy Morgana stand out particularly: with the former, Prokofiev "reinvents" the light tenor's vocality, about a century after the glories of Rossini and Bellini, with the latter he masterfully uses a dramatic soprano in a decidedly unusual context. Let’s not forget the small part of the "terrible" Cook, in all probability the only basso role (deep bass, moreover...) en travesti in the history of all opera. Pure and simple creative flair. I love it. Oh, and if desired, there are also various symbolisms and even more various possible interpretations to extrapolate at will, but this time no, let's limit ourselves to enjoying an eccentric theatrical-musical masterpiece without too many complications.
Despite the flop of the premiere, journalist and writer Ben Hecht expressed a counter-current opinion on this opera: "There is nothing difficult about this music, unless you are unfortunate enough to be a music critic. But to the untutored ear there is a charming capriciousness about the sounds from the orchestra." I completely agree, and over time, The Love for Three Oranges has become Prokofiev's most well-integrated opera in the international repertoire, where Russian composers' works, also due to cultural isolation reasons, enter with much more difficulty than Italian, German, and French ones. Another reason why it's seen rather rarely in theaters is undoubtedly a script that's challenging to stage with all its magic and special effects; a genuine puzzle for directors and performers, and I imagine a decidedly costly one, but a Gozzian fairy tale reworked with such great insight and inspiration in modernist-decadentist opera style deserves nothing less. I conclude by emphasizing that Prokofiev, not satisfied with this critical failure, immediately started working on a new subject, none other than The Fiery Angel: for the series "you didn't like this one, then I'll offer you something along the same lines and even more extreme and filled with blasphemous content." This alone is enough to consider him the jokerman of 20th-century opera.
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