Rossi - Cleopatra (David Crescenzi, Dimitra Theodossiou) [2010]

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Rossi - Cleopatra (David Crescenzi, Dimitra Theodossiou) [2010]

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The article on Lauro Rossi (1812–85) in Grove I was written by the late Julian Budden, who was regarded, rightly, as an expert on Verdi. But as Budden considered all other Italian opera composers during the latter half of the 19th century as engaged in frustrated attempts to escape conventionality, so he does Rossi. “As a creative artist,” we’re told, he “belonged to that generation of minor composers who achieved a certain individuality within the post Rossinian tradition, but whose talent was unable to survive the tradition’s collapse.” There are several matters to dispute here: the casual proscription of the life effort of an entire generation of Italian musicians; an evolutionary theory of music that sees traditions in decline based on the rise of a single composer, a century or more after the fact; and of course, the dismissal of Rossi as a minor talent. One great composer doesn’t render all their good contemporaries less worthy of notice. When Bongiovanni released an admittedly subpar but exciting performance of the comic Il domino nero (2328/29) in 2003, it was apparent that Rossi rated neither this dismissal, nor that the style he wrote in had “collapsed.” …

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Rossi - Cleopatra (David Crescenzi, Dimitra Theodossiou) [2010]

Close