Lazzari, Sylvio

Silvio Lazzari – La Lépreuse

(b. Bozen 30. December 1857 – Suresnes b. Paris, 10. June 1944)

Preface
Born in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy at the end of 1857, Sylvio Josef Fortunat Sylvester Lazzari was a prolific composer of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. As the only child of wealthy Austrian-Italian parentage, he traveled widely and studied the violin. Lazzari’s parents did not encourage his musical abilities and to appease his parents’ wishes he obtained a law degree in 1882, studying in Innsbruck, Munich, and Vienna. While in Germany and Vienna, Lazzari traveled to Paris. This time in Paris in 1882 was transformative; he met composers Ernest Chausson and Charles Gounod and both recognized Lazzari’s musical talent and encouraged him to study music further. By 1883, Lazzari entered the Paris Conservatoire and studied composition under Ernest Guiraud and Cesar Franck. After his time at the Conservatoire, he worked frequently as a conductor in French theaters, including the Gaîté-Lyrique in Paris. He lived in Paris for the rest of his life, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1894. While Lazzari wrote a wide variety of musical works, he is mostly known today for his operas: Lulu, Armor, Melaenis, Le Sauteriot, Le Tour de Feu, and his masterwork as noted by several contemporary critics, La Lépreuse.

La Lépreuse, also known as L’Ensorcelé, was written between 1899 and 1906 together with French playwright Henry Batallie who wrote the libretto. The libretto is an adaptation of Batallie’s successful second play La Lépreuse (1896). In this opera based in medieval Brittany, young Ervoanik falls in love with Aliette, a young woman who carries leprosy and lives with her leprosy-afflicted mother, Old Tili. Ervoanik’s mother and father warn him of the rumors around town that Aliette is a leper, but Aliette denies these allegations, announcing that she and Ervoanik will go on a pilgrimage to the next town over to pray to the saints for a blessed union. Ervoanik and Aliette head to Aliette’s home to see Old Tili, who is terrorizing the neighbor children and trying to convince them to eat leprosy-contaminated bread. After meeting Ervoanik, Old Tili believes that Aliette is only trying to sleep with Ervoanik, but after seeing Aliette’s true chaste love for her lover, Old Tili tries to convince her daughter that Ervoanik already has a wife and children. Aliette asks Ervoanik if this is true, and he jokes that it is true. Hurt, she serves Ervoanik a cup of wine that she has already drank from, hence tainted with leprosy. Ervoanik drinks and contracts leprosy. Resolved to their fates as two individuals with leprosy, they dress in clothing marking them as lepers and tell Ervoanik’s parents the sad news at a village festival. While a requiem plays, the couple process to the home where they will live out the rest of their days….

read more / weiterlesen … > HERE