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Luigi Nono was the son-in-law of Arnold Schoenberg, and his "Intolleranza" was premiered at the 24th International Festival for Contemporary Music at the Teatro La Fenice, in Venice, on April 13, 1961, conducted by Bruno Maderna. The première was a scandal, yet it is one of the most important works of the post-World War II period. Dedicated, indeed, to Schoenberg, the argument is a "flaming protest" against intolerance and oppression.
Only four years later, the Boston Opera presented the twelve-tone "scenic action" in its American première, on February 21, 1965, in English translation. Maderna again conducted, Sarah Caldwell was the stage director, and Lawrence White (replacing John Moulson as the Migrant), Beverly Sills (as the Companion), Margaret Roggero (A Woman), Ercole (later Mario) Bertolino (An Algerian), and Guus Hoekman (A Tortured Man, sung at the world première by Italo Tajo) headed the cast.
Due to various delays, the two scheduled performances ultimately occurred on the same day (!), as matinée and evening performances, at the Back Bay Theatre. National Education Television filmed both, and telecast a combination of the two on March 11, 1966. This recording published by Opera Depot (with the encouragement of the present writer) is the soundtrack of that television film. Would that film of Caldwell's production (by many accounts, one of her most fascinating, with set designs by Josef Svoboda) emerge some day!
The cast copes heroically with the fiercely difficult, magnificent score, with Miss Sills, in the most advanced opera the prima donna was to sing, astonishing in her hapless rôle. She famously declared her personal dislike of the composer, but admitted his dodecaphonic score was "intriguing." The fact that the very next year she was to triumph in the vastly different rôle of Cleopatra in Handel's "Giulio Cesare," at the New York City Opera, indicates the vast range of the soprano's talents.
Congratulations are due to Opera Depot for publishing this thrilling recording of one of the most challenging works of the twentieth century, which can be considered a sequel to their magnificent recent publication of Luigi Dallapiccola's twelve-tone "Il prigioniero," with Norman Treigle conducted by Leopold Stokowski.
Three further recordings of "Intolleranza" have been published. In 1995, Teldec published (and in 2010 Warner Classics reissued) a "live" recording from March 1993, in Stuttgart, with David Rampy, Urszula Koszut, Kathryn Harries, Jerrold van der Schaaf, and Wolfgang Probst, conducted by Bernard Kontarsky (who also led the overwhelming 1988-89 Teldec recording of "Die Soldaten," with Nancy Shade). It is in German translation and omits the spoken Part II, Scene 1. Otherwise, it is electrifying.
In 2012, Radio Bremen and Dreyer Gaido published a Compact Disc of the February 2001 "live" performance from Bremen, with Wolfgang Neumann, Judy Berry, Maria Kowollik, Armin Kolarczyk, Bartholomeus Driessen, and Ina Schlingensiepen, conducted by Gabriel Feltz. Much as I admire the Kontarsky Brothers, Feltz is even more vibrant in this difficult score. Neumann's expressive Heldentenor is thrilling to hear in the role of the Migrant. As with the Teldec set, it is sung in German, and omits Part II, Scene 1.
In 2011, the Teatro La Fenice mounted the work to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the world première at that theatre. Stefan Vinke, Cornelia Horak, Julie Mellor (an interesting voice as the Woman), Alessandro Palinga, and Michael Leibundgut (very moving as the Tortured Man), were conducted by Lothar Zagrosek. Luca Ronconi (and his studio) directed the production, and a DVD is available from Première Opera. The copy is flawed: It omits the ethereal opening, off-stage, a cappella chorus, and it appears Part II, Scene 1 was not performed. The cast sings the jagged score with relative ease, and Ronconi's work was always fascinating. If he did not remove the masterpiece from the drab, proletariat ethos of the original setting, it is nevertheless interesting. Perhaps the chief value of this recording is that this production was--quite surprisingly--the first since the première to be sung in the original Italian!
