Ensemble Habana XXI, Nathalie Marin - Paolo Coletta: Il canto dell'amore trionfante, Sung-Ballet Suite from the Opera (2024)

Tracklist

01. Ouverture
02. Aspettatemi!
03. Hai portato l'occorrente?
04. A partire da quel che mi confida
05. Ma che azzardo!
06. Chi?
07. Mia madre, rispettabile vedova
08. Mio caro Muzio
09. Non mi resta che mantener la mia parola
10. Amico mio!
11. T'amo, o mia Valeria
12. Far di tutto è mio dovere (instrum.)
13. Rieccoti, Ferrara!
14. Sei tu?
15. Fiori leggerissimi
16. Ho attraversato la Persia
17. Cosa fa?
18. Mi dispiace che ti sia spaventata
19. Canto dell'amore trionfante
20. Ehi! Cos'era? Cosa hai suonato?
21. Interludio del sogno
22. Dove sono?
23. Canto dell'amore trionfante (reprise)
24. Buongiorno a te, Muzio
25. Valeria!... Valeria dove sei?
26. Incomprensibile!
27. Qualcosa di tremendo incombe su di noi
28. Andiamo di là
29. Valeria... che ci sta accadendo?
30. Deve andare via
31. Vino? Perché no!
32. Interludio del sonno profondo
33. E adesso dove vai?
34. Ascoltami, mio tesoro
35. La luna sfavilla
36. Morte di Muzio
37. Finale

Love and pathos, heart-wrenching passions and violent tensions. These are some of the elements present in “The Song of Triumphant Love” by the great Russian writer Ivan S. Turgenev. It is a tale in 14 parts written in 1881 in the form of Italian Renaissance novellas. The content itself is inspired by life in Italy. Set in 16th-century Ferrara, at the time of Ariosto, the novella tells the story of love and magic that binds the three protagonists: two inseparable friends who fall in love with the same girl, in a fantastical context, a constant element in much of Turgenev’s work. The supernatural or at least magical motif of the story prompted me to take both the writing and staging to a decidedly fantastical level. This work was first performed at the Teatro Coccia in Novara on December 12, 2014.
The score brings together a cantabile of dodecaphonic matrix with true borrowings from nineteenth and early twentieth-century musical theater: arias and, generally, closed numbers that emerge in the score like monoliths in the boundless desert of tonality absence. Moreover, the choice to adapt Ivan S. Turgenev’s “The Song of Triumphant Love” into an opera stemmed primarily from the temporal and spatial displacement of the story, set in Ferrara in 1542, despite the author being Russian and living and operating in the nineteenth century. This obliquity is the main criterion that favored the translation of the story into opera and which – I believe – continues to represent the founding characteristic even in the recent version in the form of a sung ballet recently staged in Cuba, for the Habana XXI ensemble, in collaboration with Danza Contemporánea de Cuba, on the initiative of Nathalie Marin.
While refraining from the temptation to reconstruct the atmosphere of the sixteenth-century courts in Italy, and striving not to betray a rigorous historical-musical perspective, the score aims to interpret in the present the complexity of musical influences, emblematic of that period. I have thus diversified compositional languages, starting from the melodic and vocal heritage of the Renaissance period, managing to bring together a series of seemingly distant worlds, but which — thanks to cinema (and therefore film music) — become decidedly reconcilable through the use of the “genre”.
So, with swift leaps, when the story takes on the dark hues of noir and tragedy, thinking of Hitchcock — a great master of genre storytelling — becomes inevitable. In this case, the music of Bernard Herrmann (his unmistakable sound, a certain convulsive use of strings) is capable of summarizing an entire poetics of thriller and suspense. The smallest sample of such material is capable of germinating meaning in any other context, even the most distant.
However, without the expert guidance and patient, tenacious care of Nathalie Marin, this work would likely have floundered the day after its Italian debut. Instead, it has been traveling and being heard around the world for years thanks to her orchestral direction.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Nath.

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