Page 229 - 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. 229
the italian “national oper a” imagined from a souther n slavic viewpoint
posers from a positivist perspective. As an example, in his monograph on
Wagner (1890), the prominent Italian musicologist Luigi Torchi analyses
the history of culture in Germany before and after Wagner’s dramas.20 Nev-
ertheless, he avoids the discourse on the feeling of the maestro that remains
inscrutable. That is to say, musicology can only examine how a maestro
writes an opera, i.e., describing its shape and style. Vice versa, if the mis-
sion of the scholar is to detect the composer’s feeling, any answer would be
wrong.
After this assumption, Mandić emphasises the decadence of Western
European culture. Even though he neglects any mention of the role of mu-
sic within the national trend of Central Europe, I suppose he refers to it.
His penchant for a renewal of Croatian opera, by means of the Wagneri-
an orchestration, is witnessed by Slovenian critics after the staging of Pe-
tar Svačić in Ljubljana. Unfortunately, the lack of a score of the opera does
not allow complete feedback on Mandić’s attitude. His adverse opinion on
Puccini’s Tosca, staged at the Teatro Verdi of Trieste, is due to a quick dis-
semination of Wagner’s Musikdrama. Like a whirlwind that cleans the air,
but blows so hard that it tears down the roofs, his music influenced the so-
called neo-romantic Italian school. The result is, as Mandić says, “a contin-
uous effort to insert the unpredictability and the bizarre”, so that “unusual
harmonies, prevailing alterations, recurrent changes of rhythm, gruelling
orchestration are the main characteristics of the modern school. This ‘the-
atricality’ is the most important goal. […] What is impossible in music is re-
stored through external requirements”. In this regard he quotes the exotic
opera Iris of Pietro Mascagni and Tosca of Giacomo Puccini.
Mandić considers Tosca by the dramatist Victorien Sardou an unsuita-
ble source to set to music. He loves the lyrical flair of Puccini, which cannot
be arisen in a drama based on murder, revenge and suicide. Tosca is a dra-
ma of blood, intertwined with an increase of theatrical effects that do not
meet expectations. Compared to the delicate and touching Bohème, Tosca
could not reach the peak of the former opera. As remembered by Mandić,
Tosca was a fiasco in Trieste and at the same time a success in Monte Car-
lo. This incoherence is due to a group of music critics of the Adriatic city.
They were strong followers of Wagner, but also unprofessional writers una-
ble to accept the innovative language of Puccini, whose leitmotif technique
stems from Wagnerian drama. Maybe the young Croatian intellectual also
sensed that the multicultural audience of Trieste, at the crucial moment of
20 Luigi Torchi, Richard Wagner: studio critico (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1890): 8–11.
227
posers from a positivist perspective. As an example, in his monograph on
Wagner (1890), the prominent Italian musicologist Luigi Torchi analyses
the history of culture in Germany before and after Wagner’s dramas.20 Nev-
ertheless, he avoids the discourse on the feeling of the maestro that remains
inscrutable. That is to say, musicology can only examine how a maestro
writes an opera, i.e., describing its shape and style. Vice versa, if the mis-
sion of the scholar is to detect the composer’s feeling, any answer would be
wrong.
After this assumption, Mandić emphasises the decadence of Western
European culture. Even though he neglects any mention of the role of mu-
sic within the national trend of Central Europe, I suppose he refers to it.
His penchant for a renewal of Croatian opera, by means of the Wagneri-
an orchestration, is witnessed by Slovenian critics after the staging of Pe-
tar Svačić in Ljubljana. Unfortunately, the lack of a score of the opera does
not allow complete feedback on Mandić’s attitude. His adverse opinion on
Puccini’s Tosca, staged at the Teatro Verdi of Trieste, is due to a quick dis-
semination of Wagner’s Musikdrama. Like a whirlwind that cleans the air,
but blows so hard that it tears down the roofs, his music influenced the so-
called neo-romantic Italian school. The result is, as Mandić says, “a contin-
uous effort to insert the unpredictability and the bizarre”, so that “unusual
harmonies, prevailing alterations, recurrent changes of rhythm, gruelling
orchestration are the main characteristics of the modern school. This ‘the-
atricality’ is the most important goal. […] What is impossible in music is re-
stored through external requirements”. In this regard he quotes the exotic
opera Iris of Pietro Mascagni and Tosca of Giacomo Puccini.
Mandić considers Tosca by the dramatist Victorien Sardou an unsuita-
ble source to set to music. He loves the lyrical flair of Puccini, which cannot
be arisen in a drama based on murder, revenge and suicide. Tosca is a dra-
ma of blood, intertwined with an increase of theatrical effects that do not
meet expectations. Compared to the delicate and touching Bohème, Tosca
could not reach the peak of the former opera. As remembered by Mandić,
Tosca was a fiasco in Trieste and at the same time a success in Monte Car-
lo. This incoherence is due to a group of music critics of the Adriatic city.
They were strong followers of Wagner, but also unprofessional writers una-
ble to accept the innovative language of Puccini, whose leitmotif technique
stems from Wagnerian drama. Maybe the young Croatian intellectual also
sensed that the multicultural audience of Trieste, at the crucial moment of
20 Luigi Torchi, Richard Wagner: studio critico (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1890): 8–11.
227
