Alfredo Catalani

Alfredo Catalani (born June 19, 1854, Lucca, Italy—died Aug. 7, 1893, Milan) was an Italian composer of the popular opera La Wally (1892) and several other works that earned him a place among the most significant creative talents to emerge in Italian opera during the latter half of the 19th century. Catalani’s openness to international influences, particularly from the German composer Richard Wagner, marked an important transition to the fin-de-siècle works of Giacomo Puccini.

The son, nephew, and grandson of professional musicians, Catalani learned the rudiments of music from his father, Eugenio, before moving on to study with Fortunato Magi, an uncle of Puccini’s, in the music conservatory in Lucca, Italy, where Eugenio had given instruction in solfège and piano for many years. Catalani studied composition with Franƈois Bazin at the Paris Conservatoire in 1873. Later the same year, study with Antonio Bazzini at the conservatory in Milan brought his formal music education to completion.

In Milan the success of Catalani’s graduation piece La falce (1875; “The Scythe”), a one-act opera presented at the small theatre of the conservatory, brought him a commission by the publisher Giovannina Lucca for a new opera. The libretto of La falce was by Catalani’s friend, acclaimed composer and librettist Arrigo Boito. Through his connection with Boito, Catalani was drawn into the scapigliatura (“bohemianism”) movement, which sought to supplant the classical and moralistic traditions in the arts with a realistic pessimism derived more from German Romanticism than from any representatitive of the Italian tradition. The result was the 1880 premiere of Elda (1876, rev. 1877), a dramatic treatment of a variant of the German Lorelei legend, set in the Baltic region. In 1889 Catalani completed a thoroughly revised version of Elda, now with a Rhenish setting, which was performed in 1890 under the title Loreley. Between Elda and Loreley came two operas, the unsuccessful Dejanice (1883), on an ancient Greek subject, and Edmea (1886), a tragic tale of an orphan girl in a love triangle. After a moderate success at its Milan premiere, Edmea was performed abroad in Nice (France), Moscow, and Warsaw. On its return to Italy, the opera was conducted in Turin by the young Arturo Toscanini. This engagement led to a firm personal and professional relationship between Toscanini and Catalani.

The period surrounding Catalani’s final opera, La Wally (1892), was marked by strain, brought about primarily by the composer’s increasing ill health, his financial worries, and the disappointment of seeing his publisher and supporter Lucca absorbed into a publishing firm (Ricordi) that championed other composers. Despite such adverse circumstances, La Wally nevertheless went on to become his most acclaimed work, both in Italy and abroad. The opera was based on Wilhelmine von Hillern’s tale of love, jealousy, and reconciliation set in the Tirolian mountains of Austria, and it boasted an outstanding libretto by Luigi Illica. The style of the work demonstrated the thorough assimilation of Wagner’s influence in its avoidance of self-standing pieces, its inclusion of bold harmonic touches, and its accordance of an important role to the orchestra in effecting both continuity and atmospheric coloration. All of these features were later absorbed into the musical language of Puccini and his contemporaries. Though it never entered the permanent repertoire, La Wally has enjoyed occasional revivals since the late 20th century, both onstage and in concert performance. It also has experienced a vigorous, if partial, afterlife through the enormous popularity of its soprano aria “Ebben, ne andrò lontano” (“Ah, well then, I shall go far away”), which, in addition to its frequent inclusion on vocal recitals and recordings, has been featured in the sound track of a number of popular films including Diva (1981) and Philadelphia (1993).