Zandonai - Francesa da Rimini DVD

First staged in 1914, Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini had a tough life. Even as Zondonai’s masterpiece it had to contend with the vice-like grip with which Puccini held (and still holds) the world’s opera stages. Even with Puccini’s own publisher Tito Ricordi having a hand in Francesca’s libretto and Tito’s trumpeting of Zandonai as the next best thing to Puccini this remarkable opera has had a chequered career. The Met staged it in 1914 and then selected it again for that golden period in the 1980s for Renata Scotto’s vocal ‘Indian Summer’ where she was partnered (as she so often was) by the young(ish) Placido Domingo. The result preserved in this video and now remastered on DVD is one of the erotically charged operatic performances imaginable. Scotto at 50 already had close to 30 years stage experience and creates a passionate woman carried away by her attraction to Paolo. Zandonai, unlike Puccini, could carry the erotic charge in his music far beyond the premature ejaculation that afflicted the more famous composer.
In the first meeting the orchestra dies away to a solo cello melody accompanying the silent stage action of Francesca walking slowly to the gate where Paolo stands where they then place their hands on the either side of the gate, the caress of each other’s hand transcending the wrought iron that separates them. Later, when they read together from Thomas Mallory’s “Death of Arthur” how Lancelot and Guinevere first kissed, Scotto, laying prone on a divan brings her lips to Domingo’s and create a sexiness that eludes even the greatest of screen kisses.

Scotto, is so totally immersed in the role. She savours the words and music as though it were the richest Italian food or wine. Her incredible legato is as though, pardon the analogy as it really doesn’t sound very sexy, it were a long strand of spaghetti that she draws right down to the plate licking every remnant of the sauce.

The production itself is the most handsome thing the Met must have ever mounted. Even by their own luxurious standards it is exquisite in its faux Medievalism as Zandonai’s own music. Every minor part, even down to the last spear carrier seems to understand their part in the tragedy. During the battle scene every soldier wields his weapon as though they trained to use them since childhood. The handmaidens shudder with fear as the guilty Francesca wakes from her nightmare. And instead of being as crowded as a peak hour train by singers standing and delivering from this favoured position, the area at the front of stage remains as empty as no-man’s-land, these singer’s have found a new way to win over the audience.


Riccardo Zandonai Francesca da Rimini
Francesca - Renata Scotto
Paolo - Placido Domingo
Gianciotto - Cornell MacNeil
Malatestino - William Lewis
Chorus, Orchestra and Ballet of the Metropolitan Opera, New York
Conductor - James Levine
recorded April 1984
DVD Deutsche Grammophon 00440 073 4313