Word: cilea
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...strong individual style. For all its harmonic piquancies and orchestral sleight of hand, the score of Francesca sounds derivative-a touch of Puccini, a sprinkle of Debussy, a pinch of Wagner. Further, it lacks a single memorable melody, the essential ingredient that keeps a relic like Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur on the boards. Its plot, however, is operatic gold. Based on a play by Gabriele d'Annunzio, it recounts an episode from Dante's Inferno. Francesca (Soprano Renata Scotto) is tricked into marrying the deformed Gianciotto (Baritone Cornell MacNeil) when his handsome brother Paolo (Tenor Placido...
...After the Met season ended, I was in a very small opera company in the Beacon theatre in New York which did Adriana Lecouvreur by Cilea. It was their first production and it showed. In the ball scene, the ballet dancer was supposed to float in on a platform through the smoke and dance around very ethereally. But they started the dry ice too early, so in the middle of the scene before, smoke started coming up from under the setting and flooding the stage. It was very pathetic. The company has not been heard from since...