Lyric Opera 2025-2026 Issue 4 - Cavalleria

21 | Lyric Opera of Chicago from romantic verse-drama and chivalric fancies in favor of an emerging fascination with the everyday (and often sordid) dramas of the working class. Compositional styles had advanced as well; both Verdi and Wagner had achieved a coalescence of music and text heretofore unknown in opera. But the new obsession with the plight of the common man within his social environment brought opera yet further away from one of the primary tenets of bel canto — beautiful sound for beauty’s own sake — towards what many today might describe as a “cinematic” style of aural narration; nothing was to be merely pleasing to the ear. The verismo era was relatively short-lived, and many of its exponents have vanished into the sands of operatic time. Puccini is occasionally tendered as an exception, and his output contains veristic elements, but his lyrical, Italianate writing is generally considered a thing apart from strict verismo. And when did anyone last hear Tommasini’s Uguale Fortuna ? Or Guasco’s Leggenda delle sette torri ? As a distinct performance style, however, verismo’s impact on the vocal art is incalculable. The career of Bellincioni, Santuzza at the Cavalleria premiere, is instructive; a prodigiously gifted singing actress, much admired in Traviata by Verdi himself, Bellincioni went from Santuzza to create roles in many new works, including Giordano’s Fedora , establishing herself as the first true verismo soprano. Contemporary accounts suggest that the dramatic employment of her instrument required by veristic exercise exacted a price in flexibility and ease on high (though nominally scored for soprano, Santuzza’s tessitura is rather low-lying; the role is often effectively taken by a mezzo with a good top). Purists were alarmed, fearing the standards of bel canto were fading away, but popular taste prevailed and singers enthusiastically adopted the new style. That verismo could be sung beautifully was exemplified in the person of Enrico Caruso. Revered today as the quintessential Golden Age singer, in his own time the great tenor sang a great deal of what was then contemporary music, finding the genre dovetailed perfectly with the extrovert style and populist sympathies which had set him apart from his predecessors. Caruso embraced the repertory with relish (photographs of him as Pagliacci ’s Canio remain iconic images to this day), and endowed the music with all his accustomed tonal resplendency and technical prowess. Over time, Caruso’s example attenuated as vocalists sacrificed purity of line in a misguided quest for veristic passion, often interpolating sobs and verbal tics into the music. But while verismo was an outgrowth of bel canto (and in some ways a counter-movement) it was never intended as a wholesale rejection of its principles. The proof lies in the scores; Leoncavallo asks that Nedda field two perfectly calibrated trills in the introduction to the balatella “ Qual fiamma ,” and in order for Turiddu’s Siciliana to make a proper effect, it requires the precise, seamlessly flowing legato of a belcantist. Happily, in the late-20th century many singers, notably soprano Renata Scotto, sought to restore the genre to its original luster. “Much verismo had a bad reputation as I was learning it,” Scotto explains, “and I have felt compelled throughout my career to rediscover it and display it in a clean, bright light ... sloppy sobbings and lazy vocal technique became associated with verismo as an aberration.” Neither Mascagni nor Leoncavallo ever matched their initial triumphs. Leoncavallo’s Zazà had a brief shining moment, and he had great hope for his La Bohème , based on Henri Murger’s popular novel — little suspecting that Puccini had the same idea. Mascagni was somewhat luckier with his Iris and the delightful L’amico Fritz , which have earned a rare revival or two. But had neither composer produced anything beyond their flagship efforts, their legacy would be assured — and their names forever intertwined — for these two seminal masterworks. Mark Thomas Ketterson was the longtime Chicago correspondent for Opera News . He has also written for Opera UK, Playbill, the Chicago Tribune , Ravinia, the Edinburgh Festival, and other publications. Canio became a signature role for more than one legendary tenor.