The Collegiate Chorale and Music Director Robert Bass present rare Respighi opera “La Fiamma”

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Rare Respighi Opera at Carnegie

Tonight at Carnegie Hall, New York will have one of its infrequent opportunities to assess Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) as a composer of opera, a sphere in which his relative obscurity is a matter of some irony.

Unless one counts Rossini for his operatic overtures, Respighi was the first Italian composer since the 18th century to produce concert music of lasting appeal. His horizons were broader than Italy had traditionally offered: He studied with Rimsky-Korsakov in Russia, spent a year in Berlin, investigated music of his own country's more remote past, and thus knew musical cultures in which opera was not the only thing that really counted. He was influenced by Ravel, Strauss and Debussy. With Arturo Toscanini as their champion, his symphonic works entered the repertory worldwide.

But beside that emancipation lies a larger tragedy, since the much more important Italian tradition of composition for the theater looked to Respighi as Puccini's likeliest heir. In the theater he failed, and the long line has found no subsequent claimant. It was such a failure as today's opera composers would have to call triumph, since each of his major works was produced with the best casts, under the best conditions, and most were heard in several cities. But they never quite caught on. Audiences responded warmly but did not long to hear them again; singers took their turn essaying his biggest roles, but did not create classic impersonations.

By WILL CRUTCHFIELD, The New York Tiime - December 4, 1987