Puccini's 'La Rondine' — Utah Opera finally mounts overlooked score

With his keen sense of theater, Giacomo Puccini was hard on his librettists.

Puccini rejected countless librettos, often justifiably because they were of inferior quality. But he also refused to even consider others, because they simply didn't offer any variety to the operas he had already written.

And when he did come across a story that fueled his imagination, Puccini didn't think twice about demanding rewrites, with which the librettists often grudgingly complied.

Puccini usually got what he wanted, but occasionally, no matter how hard he and his librettists worked, the end result was problematic.

"La Rondine" ("The Swallow") is one such work. The opera originated as an idea suggested by a Viennese publisher, who approached Puccini to write a light work in the style of a Viennese operetta. Puccini was amenable to the proposal, but he turned down the German libretto that was submitted to him and had it refashioned more to his liking.

The libretto that Puccini set to music allowed for numerous opportunities to write fluffy, light tunes and music that flows with infectious waltz rhythms. But everything takes a turn for the serious in the melodramatic third act.

"La Rondine" is an irresistible melange of Franz Lehar, Richard Strauss and the Puccini of "La Boheme" or "Tosca." Despite its tuneful score — "La Rondine" is one of the composer's most consistently lyrical operas — the work has never caught on with the public or found a permanent place in the world's opera houses.

To its credit, Utah Opera has finally decided to mount a production of Puccini's neglected score, as "La Rondine" opens its five-performance run Saturday in the Capitol Theatre.

The cast includes tenor Gerard Powers, who's making his Utah Opera debut; soprano Robin Follman, who was last seen here in Utah Opera's 2002 production of Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci"; and local favorites George Dyer, tenor, and Celena Shafer, soprano. The production is under the baton of Utah Symphony music director Keith Lockhart.

One of the reasons the opera has never found favor is that it makes an abrupt about-face in Act III. The first two acts could be lifted straight out of Lehar's "The Merry Widow" in its vividly drawn picture of Parisian nightlife, as the composer delightfully depicts the atmosphere in Cafe Bullier, where the champagne flows freely and love is perhaps just around the corner.

In Act III, however, the mood turns somber. Ruggero, who has fallen in love with Magda and wants to marry her, doesn't know that she is a kept woman. She never tells him the truth about her past, nor does she renounce it. Instead, she turns her back on Ruggero, even though she loves him, and returns to Paris and resumes the life of a courtesan.