MAGGIO MUSICALE FIORENTINO. 24 Aprile - 4 Giugno / 1935 - XIII. (Program)

Firenze: Grafiche G. Spinelli & C., 1935.. 1935.. Very good. - Octavo. Program for the 1935 season of this music festival bound by an owner in three-quarters dark green calf & decorative dark green & tan boards titled in gilt on the spine, with the original printed wrappers bound in. The boards are bumped darkened around the edges with a light stain to the front board. The leather is rubbed. The spine is faded & chipped with a piece out of the head & the top half of the front joint is split. [204] unnumbered pages. Illustrated with a double-page color map of Florence, with portraits & stage designs in color and black & white & with pictorial ads. The inside wraps are lightly foxed, else the program contents are very good. <p>This music festival presented choral and orchestral music, operas and ballets. Among the works presented in the 1935 season were Rameau's "Castor and Pollux"; Rossini's "Mose"; the ballet "Dafni e Chloe" starring Lorcia and Lifar, with choreography by Fokine and scenery by Bakst; Pizzetti's "Orseolo", Verdi's "Masked Ball" and his "Requiem" with Pinza, Caniglia and Stignani; Mozart's "Il Ratto dal Serraglio" and his "Requiem"; Rino Alessi's play "Savonarola, directed by Jacques Copeau, with incidental music by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco; Bellini's "Norma" and Gluck's "Alceste". Conductors included Vittorio Gui, Tullio Serafin, Bruno Walter and Fernando Previtale. The program notes and synopses are printed in both Italian and English.<p>Mario Castelnuovo- Tedesco [1895-1968], who became a well-known composer of film music, was considered one of the most significant Italian composers of his generation and was performed by such artists as Gieseking, Heifetz, Piatigorsky and Segovia. Although he was critical of Mussolini's regime, he knew how to take advantage of the opportunities it offered and he wrote the incidental music for "Savonarola" at Mussolini's request. He was a friend both of Carlo and Nello Rosselli, the regime's principal opponents [both assassinated in 1937], and of Alessandro Pavolino, who later became a fanatical fascist leader.<p>On the inside front cover of the book, the owner has penned an "Operatic Diary" listing 31 operas attended, with theatres, dates, composers and in some cases conductors.<p>Rare.