Hugh Macdonald, the Avis H. Blewett Professor of Music in Arts & Sciences, has prepared a performing edition of Fiesque (1866-68), a previously unperformed opera by French composer Eduardo Lalo (1823-1892).
The piece will receive its world première July 27 at Le Festival de Radio France et Montpellier.
The prestigious annual festival, which runs July 12 to 29, is organized by Radio France and the City of Montpellier and features almost 100 events, ranging from plays and operas to symphonies and jazz. As part of the festival, Macdonald will lecture on Fiesque July 26. His newly prepared score will be published later this year by Bärenreiter Editions.
Lalo is probably best known for his Symphonie espagnole (1874) — a flamboyant violin concerto that remains a popular work in the violin repertoire — and for his celebrated Cello Concerto in D minor (1877).
Born in Lille, France, to a family of Spanish descent, Lalo studied violin at the Paris Conservatoire and began composing in the 1840s. In 1855, he helped form the Armingaud Quartet to promote the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Mendelssohn. In 1865 he married the contralto Julie Bernier de Maligny, who performed many of his songs.
Lalo wrote Fiesque, his first opera, for a competition sponsored by Paris’ Théâtre-Lyrique. It is based on the play Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua (Fiesco: or the Genoese Conspiracy) by Friedrich von Schiller, a leading 18th-century German dramatist and poet, whose “Ode to Joy” was adopted as text for the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Set in Genoa, Italy, in 1547, Fiesque follows the struggle between the republican Count Fiesco and the city’s ruling Doria family of doges. Matters are complicated by Fiesco’s feelings for Julie Doria, a daughter of the family, which in turn arouse the jealousy of Fiesco’s own wife, Léonore. Though the Dorias are ultimately overthrown, Fiesco’s triumph is cut short when Verrina, a fellow republican disillusioned with Fiesco’s ambition, throws him into the harbor.
(The cast is led by the renowned operatic couple, tenor Roberto Alagna as Fiesco and soprano Angela Gheorghiu as Léonore.)
“There is much in the score of magnificent quality,” Macdonald notes. “The vocal writing is assured and effective, and Lalo generated a strong feeling of movement in choral scenes.
“For a first opera the music is extraordinarily deft and varied,” Macdonald adds, “occasionally pompous but never dull, and full of brilliantly successful numbers.”
To Lalo’s disappointment, Fiesque placed third in the Théâtre-Lyrique competition and never received a performance. Macdonald speculates that the poor reception may have resulted from the work’s emphasis on republican ideals as well as from the left-wing political leanings of its librettist, Charles Beauquier.
Nevertheless, Lalo continued composing for the stage. In 1881 he completed the opera Roi d’Ys, based on a Breton legend, though it too initially failed to find a venue. Yet in 1888 Lalo received a degree of vindication when Roi d’Ys was finally performed, to general acclaim, at the Opéra-Comique.
Since 1967 Macdonald has served as general editor of the New Edition of the Complete Works: Hector Berlioz, which was concluded earlier this year. In 1992 Macdonald edited the performing edition of Berlioz’s early — and also previously unknown — Messe Solennelle, from an assumed-lost autograph manuscript that he discovered in Belgium. A modern première of the work took place in Bremen, Germany, the following year.
In addition to his work on Fiesque, Macdonald recently edited a new edition of Lalo’s famous Cello Concerto, also published by Bärenreiter. He will serve as general editor for a proposed new edition of the works of Georges Bizet, a joint venture between French and German publishers. Macdonald also has provided English translations for libretti used by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and the English National Opera.