Well, here is another hat trick! Zandonai, Rachmaninoff, Mercadante! This opera was, for whatever reason, canceled before its scheduled 1831 performance. It was considered lost for a while, but then it was rediscovered and received its world debut--this--in 2016. Neat.
Well, you might know the story: Francesca marries this dude she doesn't love, Lanciotto, for political reasons. In the other two operas, she's tricked by being made to think she's going to get to marry his hotter brother whom she's into, but that's not a thing here. But she IS carrying on an affair with his younger brother Paolo. And when Lanciotto finds out, he kills them both in a pasison. Well...that's how it normally goes, but it's a little different here. They're found out at about the midpoint of the opera, and you think, man, how can this possible continue another ninety minutes? But here Lanciotto does not kill them in a passion: he makes them prisoners and sort of maunders around trying to decide what to do. Eventually he tries to kill them by making one of them stab themselves and the other take poison (he gives Paolo the choice--great guy). But what's this? Francesca's father Guido (who is not a character in the other two operas) appears with some troops to rescue the lovers. Lanciotto's troops don't like him, so they're overwhelmed. Francesca determines that she's going to go into a convent, in spite of Paolo's protests. But then Lanciotto shows up and she just...dies. From shock or something. And Paolo stabs himself. There ya go!
This is my third Mercadate opera, but I wasn't super-keen about the first two (Il Bravo and Didone abbandonta. Let's be honest: I mainly sought this one out because I wanted the hat trick. I sort of thought I was going to end up classifying Mercadante with Massenet in the category of "composers I'm extremely unenthusiastic about for reasons I can't articulate." But you know...turns out I was wrong. I actually like this a hell of a lot. Some really great arias and duets. A little longer than necessary at three and a half hours? Probably, but that's opera for you! On the strength of this, I would definitely see more Mercadante, though that's easier said than done: he's not exactly super-commonly performed.
This is a very minimalistic production, with just a general sort of castle background and not much else, except that all the characters are wearing these flowing, billowy robes that are constantly fluttering around--there must be some kind of wind machine. And I've gotta say, that kinda bugged me: obviously, it's an intentional artistic choice (in Dante, Francesca and Paolo are in the realm of the lustful, with endless wind blowing--interesting that he made this a relatively mild circle; I think our current Evangelicals would be much more severe), but I found it really distracting, and once you notice it you can't un-notice it.
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