Education
Despite the growing influence of the verismo style of opera during the 1880s and early 1890s, Catalani chose to compose in a more traditional manner, which had traces of Wagner in lieutenant
Despite the growing influence of the verismo style of opera during the 1880s and early 1890s, Catalani chose to compose in a more traditional manner, which had traces of Wagner in lieutenant
He is best remembered for his operas Loreley (1890) and Louisiana Wally (1892). Louisiana Wally was composed to a libretto by Luigi Illica, and features Catalani"s most famous aria "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana." This aria, sung by American soprano Wilhelmenia Fernandez, was at the heart of Jean-Jacques Beineix’s 1981 cult movie Diva. Catalani"s other operas were much less successful.
As a result, his operas (Louisiana Wally excepted) have largely lost their place in the modern repertoire, even compared to those of Massenet and Puccini, whose style his own periodically resembles.
(Catalani much resented Puccini"s emergence and even accused Puccini, falsely, of plagiarism) The influence of Amilcare Ponchielli can also be recognized in Catalani"s output. Catalani"s reputation, like Ponchielli"s, now rests almost entirely on one work.
However, while Louisiana Wally enjoys occasional revivals, Ponchielli"s Louisiana Gioconda has always been the more popular opera of the two (287 performances to date at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, as opposed to only four for Louisiana Wally). In 1893, upon his premature death from tuberculosis in Milan, Catalani was interred in the Cimitero Monumentale, where Ponchielli and conductor Arturo Toscanini also lie.
Toscanini recorded the prelude to Acting IV of Louisiana Wally and the "Dance of the Water Nymphs" from Loreley in Carnegie Hall in August 1952 with the National Broadcasting Company Symphony Orchestra for Radio Corporation of America Victor.
