<<  -- 11 --  Roderic Dunnett    LUCIANO CHAILLY

La Cantatrice calva (based on Ionesco's 'Anti-Comedy' The Bald Prima Donna) was staged in 1986 by the Vienna Kammeroper, and was recently revived at Bordeaux and at Paris's Opéra-Comique. Chailly said that Sogno -- ma forse no (A Dream -- or maybe not?) 'formed a key point in my development : just then I embarked on my third period (after Hindemithian Neoclassicism and a freed-up use of 12-Tone Serialism).' This 'third', or 'deformalised' phase was, he felt, one of expressive 'hallucination in sound'.

The Pirandello adaption was made by Chailly's other regular and invaluable collaborator, Renato Prinzhofer, who adapted six of his libretti including the unpublished four-act La riva delle Sirte. Based on Julien Gracq's Goncourt Prize-awarded third novel Le Rivage des Syrtes (1951), Chailly composed this for Monte Carlo in 1959 (a bumper year for Chailly, which also saw Procedura penale open in Como and the composition of Il Mantello). Critics singled out Chailly's writing for the chorus as making a particularly profound impression. Another shorter opera, Il Libro dei reclami (Vienna 1975), was revived by Rome Opera at the Teatro Nazionale in 2001, the same year that Florida State Opera mounted the US première of Procedura penale.

Chailly wrote four highly revealing and entertaining books of memoirs (including the engrossing Le Variazioni della Fortuna) and was awarded the President's Italian State Prize in 1984. He spent much of his composing life with his wife Anne Maria at the family home in Pieve di Ledro, near Lake Garda (not far from where Catullus, relaxing at his villa at Sirmione, penned the texts used for Tre Liriche Latine). There Chailly passed many happy hours, swam and played tennis, and was revered by villagers as the local 'Maestro'.

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