Franco Alfano Totally Explained

Everything about Franco Alfano totally explained

Franco Alfano (March 8, 1875 – October 27, 1954) was an Italian composer and pianist. Though today best known for completing Puccini's unfinished opera Turandot in 1926, he'd considerable success with his own works during his lifetime.

Biography

He was born in Posillipo, near Naples. Until recent times, musical histories usually gave the year of Alfano's birth, incorrectly, as 1876. He attended piano privately under Alessandro Longo (1864-1946), and harmony and composition respectively under Camillo de Nardis (1857-1951) and Paolo Serrao (1830-1907) at the conservatory San Pietro a Majella in Naples. Later, after graduating, he pursued further composition studies with Hans Sitt (1850-1922) and Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1902) in Leipzig. While working there he met his idol, Edvard Grieg, and wrote numerous piano and orchestral pieces. He completed his first opera, Miranda, still unpublished, for which he also wrote the libretto after a novel by Antonio Fogazzaro, in 1896. His work La Fonte Di Enschir (libretto by Luigi Illica) was refused by Ricordi but was shown in Wrocław (then Breslau) as Die Quelle von Enschir on 8 November 1898, enjoying some success.
The following three operas are usually considered as his most important:

Risurrezione, 1904, based on Tolstoy. It was later also sung by Magda Olivero.

Cyrano de Bergerac, after the famous play by Edmond Rostand and composed to the French libretto by Henri Cain. It had its Italian version premiere in Rome in January 1936, and its French version premiere in Paris four months later. It was recently revived by the Kiel Opera (Germany), the Montpellier Radio Festival (France) and the Metropolitan Opera, New York, starring Plácido Domingo in the title role.

La leggenda di Sakùntala, 1921, presented revised in 1952 as Sakùntala, after Abhijñānaśākuntalam (The Recognition of Sakuntala), the Sanskrit play by Kalidasa. From 1918 he was Director of the Conservatory of Bologna, and he directed the Turin Conservatory from 1923. Alfano died in San Remo. Jennifer Alfano is his great granddaughter.

Historical perspectives

Fanfare Sept/Oct 98-99 gives the following information: Alfano's reputation suffers because (a) he shouldn't be judged as a composer on the basis of the task he was given in completing Turandot (La Scala, April 25, 1926), (b) "we almost never hear everything he wrote for Turandot--the standard ending heavily edits Alfano's work." (c)"...it isn't his conclusion that's performed in productions of Turandot but only what the premiere conductor Arturo Toscanini included from it...Puccini had worked for nine months on the following concluding duet and at his death had left behind a whole ream of sketches....Alfano had to reconstruct ...according to his best assessment...and with his imagination and magnifying glass" since Puccini's material "had not really been legible."
   [KonradDryden, cited supra, p. 33, adds that the project, reluctantly undertaken, resulted in "near blindness in his right eye, requiring three months spent in darkened rooms."]
   Fogel: "Alfano's reputation has also suffered [IC:alongwith Mascagni], understandably, because of his willingness to associate himself closely with Mussolini's Fascist government."
   Alex Ross, in an article in The New Yorker, February 27, 2006, pp. 84-85 notes a new ending composed by Luciano Berio premiered in 2002 (External Link

) - this is preferred by some critics, for making a more satisfactory resolution of Turandot's change of heart, and of being more in keeping with Puccini's evolving technique.

List of works

1896 Miranda Opera

1898 La Fonte di Enschir Opera

1899 Four Romanian Dances for piano

1901 Napoli Ballet

1901 Lorenza - Ballet

1904 Risurrezione Opera

1909 Suite Romantica for orchestra (became Eliana)

1909 Il principe di Zilah - Opera

1910 Symphony n. 1

1910 I Cavalieri e la Bella Opera (never completed)

1914 Lombra di Don Giovanni Opera (later Don Juan de Manara)

1918 Tre poemi by Tagore for voice and piano

1918 Quartet n. 1 for strings

1919 Six songs for voice and piano

1921 La Leggenda di Sakùntala Opera

1923 Eliana Ballet from Suite Romantica

1923 Sonata for violin and piano

1925 Sonata for cello and piano

1926 Turandot finale Opera

1926 Quartet n. 2 for strings

1927 Madonna Imperia Opera

1928 Tre Liriche by Tagore for voice and piano

1929 Trio

1930 Lultimo Lord Opera semiseria

1930 Himno al Libertador dedicated to Simon Bolivar

1933 Vesuvio Ballet

1933 Symphony n. 2

1935 Divertimento for piano and chamber orchestra

1936 Nuove Liriche Tagoriane for voice and piano

1936 Quintet for piano and strings

1936 Cyrano de Bergerac Opera

1939 Tre Nuove Liriche

1941 Don Juan de Manara Opera

1943 E Giunto il Nostro Ultimo Autunno for voice and piano

1945 Quartet n. 3 for strings

1948 Cinque Nuove Liriche Tagoriane for voice and piano

1949 Il Dottor Antonio Opera

1950 Vesuvius Opera for radio (from Vesuvius)

1952 Sakùntala Opera (reconstruction)

1953 Sinfonia Classica from Symphony n. 1 Other works: Suite Adriatica; Intermezzi for Strings; Ninna-Nanna Partenopea.
Symphonies 1 and 2 [reviewedby Barry Brenesal in the same issue of Fanfare, pp. 103-4].

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