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Home > Composers Datebook > Leoni in San Francisco


	Podcast:		Composers Datebook
	Episode:		Leoni in San Francisco
	Category:		Health
	Duration:		00:01:59
	Publish Date:		2018-06-28 00:00:00
	Description:		A decidedly UN-politically correct opera had its premiere at London’s Covent Garden on today’s date in 1905. It was entitled “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. Nevertheless, the 1905 premiere of “L’Oracolo” starred the great Italian baritone Antonio Scotti, who apparently enjoyed depicting the evil opium-dealer “Chim-Fen.” Scotti sang the role at the Metropolitan Opera in 1915 and even in San Francisco in the 1920s. 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.
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