Donizetti’s Imelda de’ Lambertazzi

The Guelphs and Ghibellines are at it again! Back we go to the brutal Italy of centuries ago in this definitely lesser-known and rather macabre outing from the very famous Donizetti. Written in 1830, this opera dates from the same time as the better known Anna Bolena and predates the very well-known Lucia di Lammermor by five years. This recording has come out from the Italian outfit Nuova Era as part of what has been mostly a welcome (I say mostly because a few of the items have been way too provincial—no interesting repertoire is THAT interesting…) service to opera lovers. Obscure works from all periods have been brought out by the company (if a little indiscriminately at times, as I have said).

This one is a one of the good ones. The conducting by one Marc Andreae is lively. The singers get the job done and even do so at times with a certain amount of style. The standouts in terms of singing are Floriana Sovilla (soprano) as Imelda and Diego d’Auria (tenor) as her brother Lamberto. While neither has a particularly great voice, they generally stay in tune and have a good sense of the line. They both are keen actors with their voices--- you really sense their anger, their angst, their occasional longing. Neither has a ringing top note to wow us--- which is a disappointment but both, interestingly, manage some very cool portamento at climactic spots to underscore the emotions in play. A review I read of this recording from early 1990s at the time said that Sovilla had a voice that reminded him of Callas. That’s mad. Yes the voice is a little dark but the tone is not as full, there is no amazing chest register and there is no gleaming top (wild or otherwise). But one should not bring up Callas anywhere near this other singer, all it will do is spoil the reader’s enjoyment of the perfomance at hand. (What have I done in bringing her up right now? Do as I say not as I do, I guess.)

So this opera is set in late-medieval Italy. Blood feuds! Unforgivable actions! Executions! Brutality!! The Lambertazzis are allied with the Ghibellines and Geremei with the Guelphs. Naturally, Imelda is in love with one Bonifacio Geremei. We have a Romeo and Juliet thing going on here which Lamberto, Imelda’s brother, sniffs out and snuffs out. It is not like Lamberto (or Imelda) does not have a grievance: the Geremei had killed three of their brothers and threw their mother into prison where she starved to death. Anyway, Lamberto runs Bonifacio through with a poisoned sword. Imelda runs to her lover when she finds out and sucks the poison out of his wound (offstage). She then returns to stage to die there, bumming out her family out as she does. The action is brisk and makes its way right to catastrophe. This opera is tighter than the more expansive Anna Bolena. If you like bel-canto, you should check this out.

Now before signing off on this one, one last thing. I noted that she sucked that poison out of the wound of her lover. What is that about? What do we want to make of it? Well, it is, of course, clearly of a piece with the delirious excesses to which the Romantic era was devoted. Macabre stuff abounds; one recalls Lucia’s wedding night after all. But is this enough to say about this action? A little more: note that this is climax here, death. A fatal intoxication. Could we say that Imelda has overdosed here and that the gateway drug that led her to this point was disobeying her family and pursuing sexual pleasure (sometimes also known as love) on her own? Is it a lesson to draw here that sexual autonomy and freedom innagurate a slide that can lead to truly yucky behavior like this? If you are this free sexually is there any degradation to which you will not stoop? I am reminded of the crack-pot surveys of the behavior of gay men that assert that all kinds of out-there behavior [like coprophagy] are quite common among gay men. What credence these surveys can command must rely on a similar dynamic.

[illustration at top = Pacifico Buzio, Imelda de' Lambertazzi presso il cadavere dell'amante, olio su tela, Pavia, Musei Civici]

BREAKING: Wikipedia reports that a concert performance of this work is planned for March 10, 2007 by Opera Rara at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, under the baton of Mark Elder and with soprano Nicole Cabell in the title role.