Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Marchetti: Ruy Blas

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

As an opera composer, Filippo Marchetti (1831-1902) is the link between the established mid nineteenth century operatic style of Verdi and the new stylistic movement that came to be called Verismo. Marchetti wrote seven operas and much other music besides, but his only major success and his one claim to lasting fame in operatic history is his four-act tragedy Ruy Blas (1868).

After hundreds of performances in opera houses worldwide in the nineteenth century Ruy Blas clung to the fringe of the twentieth century repertoire. It was revived in 1998 at the Teatro Pergolesi in Jesi, Italy, where it was recorded live in performance for the Italian Bongiovanni record label. Daniel Upton conducts the musical forces. Today in the twenty first century Marchetti's music for Ruy Blas continues to charm listeners with its sweet lyricism, dramatic conciseness and skillful orchestration. Ruy Blas does indeed take a big step up to a higher level of wholly integrated Italian music drama. The two-CD Bongiovanni release of Ruy Blas last went over the airwaves on this program on Sunday, March 5, 2000.