Alberto Franchetti's 'Asrael'

[BerlinExpat]

I don't know about anyone else but I have been waiting a very long time to hear Alberto Franchetti's Asrael.

The opera will be premièred on 16th October 2022 in the theatre in Bonn.

From the Bonn Theatre homepage.

Alongside Giacomo Puccini, Ruggero Leoncavallo and Pietro Mascagni, Alberto Franchetti was considered a great hope for Italian music. His first opera, ASRAEL, to a libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, was published in Reggio Emilia on February 11, 1888 (largely at his father's expense). The premiere was so successful that Italy's largest music publisher, Ricordi, immediately got in touch and offered to publish the piece. In addition, Giuseppe Verdi recommended that his younger colleague be commissioned to commission a festive opera to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. The critics, enthusiastic about ASRAEL, connected the name of the young composer with Meyerbeer, as whose modern descendant he was traded. Ironically, the country that was his special love - with GERMANIA he wrote the opera of the wars of liberation - then posed the danger for the last years of his life: Since Franchetti was Jewish, his music was no longer allowed to be played in Germany after 1933. After Italy adopted the »racial laws« in 1938, the old composer's situation in his home country deteriorated considerably; only the intercession of Pietro Mascagni, who was a member of the Partito Nazionale Fascista, prevented the worst.

ASRAEL was not performed after 1945. As in the case of EIN FELDLAGER IN SCHLESIEN, the performance here is based on material specially created for the Bonn production.

This production will be recorded by Deutschlandfunk Kultur and broadcast with a time delay.