Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music Stages World Premier of Bruno Rigacci opera Ecuba

Maestro Bruno Rigacci at the start of his career, around the time he composed his award-winning one-act opera Ecuba.

May 5, 2002    In 1950, the twenty-eight-year-old composer Bruno Rigacci was awarded the first prize at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome for his one-act opera Ecuba. Set in 1184 B.C. at the end of the Trojan War, the opera follows the story of King Priam's widowed wife, Hecuba, and her two daughters, Cassandra the Prophetess and the maiden Polyxena, the youngest member of the Trojan royalty.

   As the city of Troy burns in the background, the conquering armies of Agamemnon and Menalaeus want Hecuba to hand over Cassandra to be Agamemnon's captive. Cassandra, who was given the gift of prophesy by the god Apollo but not the gift of persuasion, is considered to be half mad. meanwhile, Polyxena had fallen in love with the Greek warrior Achilles, who was killed during an earlier battle after being struck by an arrow on the back of his ankle. His ghost has requested Polyxena to be sacrificed at his tomb, and in exchange he will provide a calm sea for the Greek ships to return home. While Cassandra makes wild protests, and foretells terrible fates for Agamemnon and the Greeks, Polyxena accepts her fate bravely and is slaughtered by Neoptolemus, the ruthless son of Achilles, who had also murdered Polyxena's father, King Priam.

    With its large cast and complicated staging, Bruno Rigacci's opera received only a concert premier in Rome on March 31, 1951, but was never staged, which made the Brooklyn College performance, held May 4 and 5, Ecuba's world premier. Rigacci, eighty-one and living in his hometown of Florence, is best known as a conductor and has led concerts and operas with dozens of orchestras in Europe and the United States, including Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Opera di Roma; La Finice in Venice; Teatro alla Scala in Milan; the New York City Opera; and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

     "I've known Bruno for many years," says Richard Barrett, director of the Brooklyn College Conservatory Orchestra. "A few years ago, when I was in Italy, he gave me a CD that he made himself from a recording of the 1951 performance, and I fell in love with it. Never had I heard such passionate, wonderful music!"

Ecuba (Sophie Tallefer) mourns her daugher Polyxena (Sena Bender).

     Famed mezzo-soprano Mignon Dunn, an adjunct associate professor of voice in the Conservatory, is directing the performance. "The lead in the opera, the character of Ecuba, is a mezzo-soprano, and I'm really sorry I never got the chance to do it," says Dunn, who rose to prominence during the '50s and '60s in hundreds of roles at the Metropolitan Opera and international venues. "I've known Bruno for twenty years. He's a very funny and charming man and he's always been telling me that I should sing it."

     "I consider this opera a sort of prequel to the Richard Strauss opera Elektra, which I've directed all over the country," says Dunn. "It's got many of the same characters, and the music is terrific, too. It's a lot like Puccini, and there are several great roles for mezzo-sopranos and light-sopranos. I'm going to make the staging as classical as I can. Stories like this are happening right now, all over the world as wars take children away from their parents."

Greek art depicting Polyxena's sacrifice at the hands of Neoptolemus.

     Ecuba made its Whitman Hall debut without Maestro Rigacci, who was unable to attend due to an illness in his family. The one-hour opera, which was warmly received, was followed by another one-act-opera, Gianni Schicchi (1918), by Giacomo Puccinni. As if to balance the unrelenting tragedy of the preceding performance, this comic opera deals with the greedy Donati family. Upset that the will left by their recently-deceased patriarch left his entire fortune to a local monastery, the family enlists the unscrupulous Gianni Schicchi to impersonate the dead man on his death bed, inviting a notary public to witness the "dying" man as he rewrites his will, leaving his possessions to the family instead of the monastery.

Brooklyn College Conservatory Orchestra conductor Richard Barrett.

   Gianni Schicchi, directed by Joachim Schamberger (a Conservatory student who also sung the role of Rinuccio, the only honest member of the Donati family), was also supported by the Brooklyn College Conservatory Orchestra, a stellar fifty-piece orchestra that has won high marks for past performances. "That orchestra does not have its praises sung enough," observes Mignon Dunn. "They are very good—spectacularly good, in fact. Brooklyn College is lucky to have them."

   For more information on additional Brooklyn College musical performances, call the box office, (718) 951-4500, or the Brooklyn College Conservatory, (718) 951-5792, or visit the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College Web page.

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