Page 222 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2019. Vloga nacionalnih opernih gledališč v 20. in 21. stoletju - The Role of National Opera Houses in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 3
P. 222
vloga nacionalnih opernih gledališč v 20. in 21. stoletju
musical associations working in quasi-pacific competition.3 The territori-
al unity of both Italy and Germany, which became independent states re-
spectively in 1861 and in 1871, contributed to the political clash among these
national groups. The changing of the political environment undermined
the attempts to create a collaboration in view of a renewal of the Haps-
burg policy, which in turn pursued a pragmatic perspective known as di-
vide et impera (i.e., sometimes in favour of the Slovenes and Croats, some-
times in favour of the Italians). However, irredentism, Pan-Slavism, and
German nationalism did not exert a negative influence on the musical life
of the town. It flourished in a very strange mixture of Wagnerism, Italian
bel canto, and, foremost on the shared feeling for Hausmusik, i.e., the prac-
tice of performing chamber music imported from eighteenth-century Aus-
tria, which became a distinctive habit of local culture.
Kuhač, Mandić and the fin de siècle Italian Opera
The aim of my contribution is to give a short survey of the criticisms of Ital-
ian opera and Wagnerian Musikdrama, written in the light of the Southern
Slavic revival of both Croatian musicologist Franjo Kuhač (1834–1911) and
composer Josip Mandić (1883–1959). The negative judgement of Kuhač on
the final works of Verdi, and the opposite appreciation of Mascagni’s Cav-
alleria rusticana, are due to his ideological trust in folk music, as the main
source for creating a national grammar of opera. Mandić, as a lawyer and
musician who worked within the frame of the Slovenian and Pan-Slavic re-
vival in Trieste until World War I, collaborated with the newspaper Jadran
(The Adriatic), printed for the Croatian inhabitants of Trieste and Istria.4
In 1903 he published a long article on Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca and Alber-
to Franchetti’s Germania.5 In such a context, the composer was attracted
by the “neoromantic style” of Italian opera using a different approach than
that of Kuhač. He did not want to retrace the authenticity of popular style
People, Works, Styles, Paths of Dissemination and Influence, ed. Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak
and Aneta Markuszewska (Warsaw: Liber pro Arte, 2016), 323–35.
3 Giuseppe Radole, Ricerche sulla vita musicale a Trieste (1750-1950) (Trieste, Svevo,
1988), passim. Idem, Le scuole musicali a Trieste e il Conservatorio Giuseppe Tartini
(Trieste: Svevo, 1992), 106–07.
4 The weekly newspaper appeared in Trieste for a short time, from 1903 to 1904. Cf.
Fedora Ferluga Petronio, “Il settimale Jadran di Ante Trešić-Pavičić,” ed. Gian Car-
lo Damir Murković, I croati a Trieste (Trieste: Comunità Croata/Hrvatska Zajedni-
ca, 2007), 275–84.
5 Josip Mandić, “Glazba: nekoliko refleksija,” Jadran 3–5 (1903).
220
musical associations working in quasi-pacific competition.3 The territori-
al unity of both Italy and Germany, which became independent states re-
spectively in 1861 and in 1871, contributed to the political clash among these
national groups. The changing of the political environment undermined
the attempts to create a collaboration in view of a renewal of the Haps-
burg policy, which in turn pursued a pragmatic perspective known as di-
vide et impera (i.e., sometimes in favour of the Slovenes and Croats, some-
times in favour of the Italians). However, irredentism, Pan-Slavism, and
German nationalism did not exert a negative influence on the musical life
of the town. It flourished in a very strange mixture of Wagnerism, Italian
bel canto, and, foremost on the shared feeling for Hausmusik, i.e., the prac-
tice of performing chamber music imported from eighteenth-century Aus-
tria, which became a distinctive habit of local culture.
Kuhač, Mandić and the fin de siècle Italian Opera
The aim of my contribution is to give a short survey of the criticisms of Ital-
ian opera and Wagnerian Musikdrama, written in the light of the Southern
Slavic revival of both Croatian musicologist Franjo Kuhač (1834–1911) and
composer Josip Mandić (1883–1959). The negative judgement of Kuhač on
the final works of Verdi, and the opposite appreciation of Mascagni’s Cav-
alleria rusticana, are due to his ideological trust in folk music, as the main
source for creating a national grammar of opera. Mandić, as a lawyer and
musician who worked within the frame of the Slovenian and Pan-Slavic re-
vival in Trieste until World War I, collaborated with the newspaper Jadran
(The Adriatic), printed for the Croatian inhabitants of Trieste and Istria.4
In 1903 he published a long article on Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca and Alber-
to Franchetti’s Germania.5 In such a context, the composer was attracted
by the “neoromantic style” of Italian opera using a different approach than
that of Kuhač. He did not want to retrace the authenticity of popular style
People, Works, Styles, Paths of Dissemination and Influence, ed. Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak
and Aneta Markuszewska (Warsaw: Liber pro Arte, 2016), 323–35.
3 Giuseppe Radole, Ricerche sulla vita musicale a Trieste (1750-1950) (Trieste, Svevo,
1988), passim. Idem, Le scuole musicali a Trieste e il Conservatorio Giuseppe Tartini
(Trieste: Svevo, 1992), 106–07.
4 The weekly newspaper appeared in Trieste for a short time, from 1903 to 1904. Cf.
Fedora Ferluga Petronio, “Il settimale Jadran di Ante Trešić-Pavičić,” ed. Gian Car-
lo Damir Murković, I croati a Trieste (Trieste: Comunità Croata/Hrvatska Zajedni-
ca, 2007), 275–84.
5 Josip Mandić, “Glazba: nekoliko refleksija,” Jadran 3–5 (1903).
220
