True to romance: Catalani's Loreley

Andrea Battistoni previously conducted Mascagni' s L'amico Fritz at the Matinee. With Loreley, he also puts this relatively unknown Alfredo Catalani back on the map.

Puccini contemporary Catalani's own path
The Loreley is the 132-meter-high mountain near a sharp bend in the Rhine that is difficult for boaters to navigate. The poets Brentano and Heine both created the myth of the seductively singing woman on the rock, who would distract boaters, resulting in shipwreck. The romantic Italian composer Alfredo Catalani, best known for his slightly later opera La Wally, was a townsman and contemporary of Puccini. Unlike the latter, who incorporated elements of realism and verism into his works, Catalani remained true to the Romantic musical language. Sources of inspiration included German composers such as Von Weber and Wagner.

Famous for grand arias
Catalani's subjects, such as Loreley, are much more mythical and fairy-tale-like than the works of his contemporaries, and in many cases more symphonic. Although this opera is not often performed or recorded in its entirety, great Italian voices, such as Magda Olivero, Beniamino Gigli, Mario del Monaco sang beloved arias from Loreley. But it was above all the ambassadorship of conductor Arturo Toscanini that made Catalani's operas known and loved in Europe and the United States.