Leoni in San Francisco

Synopsis

A decidedly un-politically correct opera had its premiere at London’s Covent Garden on today’s date in 1905: L’Oracolo or The Oracle by the Italian composer Franco Leoni. Here’s a witty one-sentence précis of the opera prepared by Nicolas Slonimsky for his chronology Music Since 1900:

“L’Oracolo, an opera in one long act, dealing with multiplex villainy in San Francisco’s Chinatown, wherein a wily opium-den keeper kidnaps the child of the uncle of a girl he covets, kills her young lover, and is in the end strangled by the latter’s father, with a local astrologer delivering remarkably accurate oracles; an Italianate score tinkling with tiny bells, booming with deep gongs, and bubbling with orientalistic pentatonicisms.”

Another wag described L’Oracolo as “Puccini-and-water,” suggesting that if Puccini were whisky, Leoni music was definitely a less potent brew.

But when a touring Italian opera company announced a performance of L’Oracolo in San Francisco in 1937, the city’s Asian residents protested, demanding they cut the most racially offensive scenes or, better yet, stage a different opera altogether. A compromise was reached, whereby the House manager preceded the performance with a speech assuring the capacity audience that the opera’s locale and action were pure fiction, and bore no resemblance to San Francisco’s Chinatown past or present.

Music Played in Today's Program

Franco Leoni (1864-1937): L’Oracolo; Tito Gobbi, baritone; National Philharmonic; Richard Bonynge, conductor; London OSA-12107; LP

On This Day

Births

• 1491 - English monarch, instrument collector and part-time composer Henry Tudor (as King Henry VIII he reigned 1509-1547) in Greenwich

• 1712 - Swiss author, philosopher and composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in Geneva

• 1831 - Hungarian violinist and conductor and composer Joseph Joachim, in Kittsee (now Köpcsény), near Poszony

• 1902 - American composer Richard Rodgers, in Hammels Station, Long Island, New York

• 1913 - English composer George Lloyd, in St. Ives, Cornwall

• 1946 - American composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez, in San Antonio, Texas

Deaths

• 1745 - French composer and gamba virtuoso Antoine Forqueray, 74, in Nantes

• 1979 - East German composer Paul Dessau, 85, in Königs Wusterhausen, near (then) East Berlin

Premieres

• 1905 - Leoni: opera, L’Oracolo (The Oracle), in London. The opera’s story of opium and crime is set in San Francisco, and caused protests from that city’s Chinese community when it was revived in San Francisco in 1937.

• 1916 - Hindemith: Cello Concerto, by the Frankfurt Conservatory Orchestra, with the composer conducting and Maurits Frank the soloist

• 1951 - Leroy Anderson: Blue Tango at a Decca recording session in New York City, with the composer conducting. This recording reached No. 1 on the pops charts and earned Anderson a Gold Record award in 1952 when it became the first instrumental record to sell over one million copies (see also June 29).

• 1959 - Hovhaness: Symphony No. 4 for wind band, in Pittsburgh.