Ukrainian composer Alexey Shor (b. 1970) takes Giuseppe Verdi to South America! In his 2015 work, Verdiana, Shor took advantage of a tour of South America to recast familiar melodies from three operas by Giuseppe Verdi using three different South American musical styles: samba and bossa nova from Brazil, and tango from Argentina.
Giovanni Boldini: Giuseppe Verdi, 1886 (Milan: Casa Verdi)
Alexey Shor
Using the music from Il Trovatore, Shor uses the quick rhythm of the samba to create Il Sambatore. The rhythmic and melodic accents drive the work forward, taking the tragedy of a betrayed gypsy and her revenge on the Luna family to a completely different end.
Luigi Morgani: Il Trovatore poster (Gallica, btv1b531181807)
Alexey Shor: Verdiana, Fantasy on Themes by Giuseppe Verdi (version for clarinet and string orchestra) – I. Il Sambatore (Fabrizio Meloni, clarinet; Kyiv Virtuosi Orchestra; Daniel Raiskin, cond.)
The work manages a wonderful balance between two continents, sounding both South American and Italian at once. The clarinet plays a wonderfully melodic gloss on the original Verdi melodies.
The slow movement, Un Bossa in Maschera, has an obvious source in an aria from Verdi’s 1859 opera Un ballo in Maschera. Shor captures the essence of bossa nova in keeping each melodic voice with a different rhythm, as in the original genre definition by Antônio Carlos Jobim, but it doesn’t, in the end, sound very much like real bossa nova.
Un ballo in maschera
Alexey Shor: Verdiana, Fantasy on Themes by Giuseppe Verdi (version for clarinet and string orchestra) – II. Un Bossa in maschera (Fabrizio Meloni, clarinet; Kyiv Virtuosi Orchestra; Daniel Raiskin, cond.)
The tango finale, Don Tangoletto, on the other hand, combines melodies from Don Carlos and Rigoletto and the tango version of ‘La donna è mobile’ is wonderfully funny. You can just imagine the Duke and, say, Maddalena whirling around to this brilliant South American take on Verdi’s famous works.
Mr. Ismaël in the role of Rigoletto, Galerie dramatique, no. 907, 1863 (Gallica, ark:/12148/cb44462000)
Alexey Shor: Verdiana, Fantasy on Themes by Giuseppe Verdi (version for clarinet and string orchestra) – III. Don Tangoletto (Fabrizio Meloni, clarinet; Kyiv Virtuosi Orchestra; Daniel Raiskin, cond.)
This kind of fantasy on an opera theme was a 19th-century standard and a way of squeezing a large opera down into something for home performance. Shor’s 21st-century take on the fantasy genre is a wonderful addition to so many different musical elements: national styles, virtuoso performance, and humour in music.
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