Lyric Opera 2022-2023 Issue 1-Ernani

33 | Lyric Opera of Chicago MAZZOLA Inside all the virtuosic, even heroic vocal output of this opera, there is an island of that darkness. It’s the beginning of the third act, at the tomb of Charlemagne, when the characters go into the subterranean vaults. ANDRE I’ve listened to the music recently, and I agree—the feel is very different there. You’re in these vaults, and then you’ve got the conspirators, and it’s almost like looking toward Act IV of Don Carlos (in the five act version) where you have King Philip II in the vault. It’s dark, he’s alone, and it’s such a personal, intimate moment. MAZZOLA Exactly. And in Ernani it is in some ways the quintessential Romantic scene. The Romantic imagination lives underground, with maybe a ray of sun entering through a small window. The prelude here is scored for two clarinets and two bassoons in the lower register, and in just a few bars we have the Verdi of the future. It’s exactly the same in the last 20 minutes of Luisa Miller , the opera that started Lyric’s exploration of the early work. ANDRE Agreed. Luisa Miller is already transitional, I would say, between the early Verdi style and the mature central period. MAZZOLA I’m used to living in that Verdi time machine. In Luisa Miller , we have that brilliant, somewhat leggiero Verdi, through the beginning and throughout the middle of the opera. And suddenly the opera goes down into the subterranean depths of the human soul. ANDRE That’s fascinating. I love all of opera, and I can listen to recordings of early Verdi, but when you hear them live, that brings them to the present. I’m so glad you— somebody who sort of lives and breathes them—are bringing them to Chicago. MAZZOLA I’ve become used to finding in almost every early Verdi opera, places where you think this is an Otello or an Aida moment. It’s something that rarely happens in Bellini or Donizetti. They are much more consistent. I’m not a musicologist, but I can say that this is my experience when rehearsing and performing. When I’m conducting Ernani , I’m thinking, “This is not 1844!” ANDRE I love that. MAZZOLA And that’s my invitation to our audience. To discover how different that Act III prelude sounds, to really savor the change of atmosphere, which is in some ways very modern. I have a feeling that’s partly why 19th century audiences went crazy for this opera. And it’s hopefully what will make our audiences in 2022 go crazy for Ernani as well. Giacomo Prestia,Boaz Daniel,Sondra Radvanovsky,and Salvatore Licitra in Lyric’s 2009/10 production of Ernani . Dan Rest