Lyricist Jacint Verdaguer | Language Catalan | |
Composers Manuel de Falla, Ernesto Halffter Similar Hercules vs Vampires, Hercule mourant, El retablo de maese Pedro, Los as de la Inés, La vida breve | ||
Atlántida (Atlantis) is an opera (titled a 'cantata escénica') in a prologue and three parts, by Manuel de Falla, based on the Catalan poem L'Atlàntida by Jacint Verdaguer. Falla worked on the score for twenty years but had not completed it at his death in Argentina in 1946; his disciple Ernesto Halffter prepared the score for performance.
Contents
Original legend on which the opera is based
Verdaguer brought together pre-history and history: a child (Christopher Columbus) is the sole survivor of a shipwreck of a Genoese boat off the Spanish coast. After reaching shore he is adopted by a hermit who recounts the history of the earth and seas. He begins the legend with Alcide (Hercules) arriving from Greece to attack the Arlanteans reaching the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. He finds a huge fire started by Geryon, a three-headed African monster. King Tubal of the Pyrenees is killed and his daughter Pyrene gives her father to Alcide imploring him to set forth to kill the monster, before dying. Alcide decides to make a port where a white barque (barca) had landed. After arriving in Cadiz from Barcelona, Alcide goes to the Hesperides, finding the orange tree, Atlas's widow and three daughters, and kills the dragon wrapped on the tree defending the entry to the contient. The Hesperides die (ascending to the heavens as the Pleiades) and Alcide returns to Cadiz; he kills Geryon and sees the waters break over Mount Calpe and rush over Atlantis. Still accompanied by the hermit, the adult Columbus dreams of unlocking the mystery of Atlantis and appeals to Queen Isabella of Spain who gives him jewels to pay for his venture. The old man bids Columbus to fly.
Composition and performance history
Atlántida started in 1926 as a cantata, but grew over 20 years to become a full opera. The poem suited him as he responded fully to its blend of mythology and primitive Iberia, and the setting of Cadiz, his home city. He visited many of the sites referred to in the epic: Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the temple of Hercules, Medina-Sidonia, Tarifa and its castle. Falla died in Argentina before he finished the work, leaving a loose collection of sketches. The long work of editing and completion was undertaken by Ernesto Halffter. The music shows the influence of classical models from Spanish polyphony, 17th century monody, and of 16th century or earlier choral writing.
It is not a true opera, more a stage cantata, where the chorus takes a principal role, interrupted by Coryphaeus as the narrator. Sometimes this narration of the action is depicted on the stage by the appropriate characters (some singers, some – Hercules and Columbus – actors).
When finally completed, large extracts were performed in a concert version at the Liceu, Barcelona in November 1961, conducted by Eduard Toldrà, with Victoria de los Ángeles as Isabella, and in Cadiz. The following June it was presented in a staged production at La Scala, Milan, in Italian, under the baton of Thomas Schippers with Lino Puglisi, Giulietta Simionato and Teresa Stratas and produced by Margherita Wallmann, (according to the Opera magazine reviewer this performance took three hours.) then in Berlin and Buenos Aires, and America conducted by Ernest Ansermet. The score was withdrawn by Halffter after this while he made further revisions; a shorter version was heard in concert form in Lucerne in 1976 and a longer definitive version heard at the Granada Festival the following year prior to a studio recording at the Teatro Real.
The opera has three major singing roles: the narrator Corifeo (baritone), an old man who tells Columbus of the sinking of Atlantis, Queen Pyrene (mezzo-soprano), and Queen Isabella (soprano), then minor roles such as the three-headed Geryones (three tenors).
Synopsis
In the first part, Christopher Columbus, as a boy, is shipwrecked on an island. To console him an Old Man tells him the legend of Atlantis, the fabled land wiped out by Hercules and submerged at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Spain. To the spot — the Pillars of Hercules — Columbus, now a grown man, comes and dreams of crossing the ocean. Isabella of Spain provides him with the means and he discovers the New World and claims it for Christendom. The work is both an epic of Catholic Spain and its mission in the world, but treated with poetic dignity and classical restraint.
Recordings
A live recording of the 1962 stage premiere at La Scala in Milan, was issued by Memories HR on two CDs in 1993.