La rondine

1° From Vienna...

From the mid-19th century up until the start of the First World War, two Viennese theatres vied to be recognised as the city’s premier venue for operetta: the Theater an der Wien, located in the Mariahilf district; and the Carltheater, which was in the suburbs in Leopoldstadt. During this golden age of Viennese operetta, each commissioned their fair share of works by Johann Strauss II, Carl Zeller, Oscar Straus and Franz Lehár, among other great composers of the artform. But it was the Carltheater that in autumn 1913 commissioned an operetta from none other than the composer of verismo tragedies, Giacomo Puccini.

The Italian composer agreed to the commission but was dissatisfied with the drama presented to him by the Austrian librettists Heinz Reichert and Alfred Willner. He negotiated with the theatre to do away with spoken dialogue altogether and for the text to be reworked by the Italian librettist Giuseppe Adami. While the characters, plotlines and dance-like melodies of an operetta were kept, these changes ultimately turned the planned work into a comic opera.

2° ...to Monaco...

Puccini completed La rondine - Italian for ‘The swallow’ -  in 1916 but by that time the Kingdom of Italy had joined the Allied Powers against Austria-Hungary and it became impossible to present it in Vienna. Moreover, Puccini’s usual publisher, Ricordi, declined the score, describing the opera as ‘bad Lehár’. But all was not lost: the new work was taken up by Ricordi’s rival, Lorenzo Sonzogno, who arranged for the premiere to take place in March 1917 at the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo in the neutral territory of Monaco.

Despite being received warmly there and in theatres on its return to Italy, the opera soon faded from the repertoire. It has remained a rarity compared to Puccini’s other works. For Adami, however, it was a success, and he would later go on to write librettos for Puccini’s one-act opera Il tabarro and his final, unfinished full-length opera, Turandot.

3° ...to Riga

After a string of highly successful productions of Puccini operas in their last two seasons - including Madama Butterfly, Turandot, Manon Lescaut and Le Villi - Latvian National Opera now presents this pearl from his mature ouvre in a concert performance. ‘It is a skilfully composed work that holds a fine balance between the emotional drama characteristic of the composer and a pure naivety,’ says music director and conductor Jānis Liepiņš. Though young in his career, his conducting experience ranges from Bizet to Wagner and from serious operas to the operettas that influenced the writing of La rondine. ‘Puccini has tried to imitate the style of an operetta,’ Liepiņš explains, ‘while at the same time trying not to stray too far from his melody-writing talents.’

4° A songful swallow

The metaphorical swallow of the story is Magda, a glamorous Parisian courtesan, who leaves her wealthy protector for a beguiling young man. The character is played in this concert performance by Azerbaijani soprano Dinara Alieva, a soloist at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. She has performed as a guest soloist in opera houses all over Europe and is a particular favourite with audiences at the Latvian National Opera, where in recent years she has played the leading lady in two operas by Verdi: Elvira in Ernani, and Leonora in Il trovatore. She returned to Riga in November 2018 when she performed in the company’s Anniversary Gala. 

5° Full of character

‘This was not a role debut for me,’ explains Dinara Alieva in this interview for OperaVision. She previously played Magda at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2015 in a staged production of La rondine that marked the directorial debut of the tenor Rolando Villazón. She wants to use that experience in this performance at the Latvian National Opera: ‘Even though this was a concert performance, I wanted to do everything possible to reveal Magda’s character to the audience.’