Allesandro Longo complied the most complete edition of Domenico ...

with his aunt. The uncertainty that comes with war leads Katiusha to proclaim her love to
Dimitrii, who takes advantage of the situation and seduces Katiusha, impregnating her. Rebuked
by her mistress, and abandoned by Prince Ditmitrii, Katiusha is left alone to have her baby. The
death of her child sets Katiusha on a spiraling descent into the world of Russian prostitution, and
eventually she is falsely accused of murder. As an aristocrat, one of Prince Dimitrii’s duties is to
serve on a jury. He recognizes the accused woman as his former conquest, Katiusha. As the trial
unfolds, Dimitrii realizes that his behavior was the catalyst that propelled the poor young woman
to her subsequent demise. Katiusha is found guilty and exiled to Siberia. Overcome with
remorse, Dimitrii is determined to right the wrong he has perpetrated on Katiusha. He obtains a
pardon for her from the Tsar and proceeds to travel to Siberia to ask for Katiusha’s hand in
marriage. Katiusha refuses his offer. As an advocate for fellow prostitutes she has finally found
her purpose in life. She has also been befriended by a fellow prisoner and political exile,
Simonson, who helped to restore her self-respect. Although, she is not in love with Simonson,
Katiusha respects him and believes that her true place is at his side fighting for the rights of their
fellow prisoners.
Risurrezione xv was the third and last of Alfano’s operas composed during the verismo xvi
period. Unable to obtain the rights for the play xvii , Alfano enlisted the assistance of Italian
journalist Cesare Hanau xviii , (who was living in Paris at the time) to write the libretto. Alfano
wrote the opera in just five months, across four cities, Paris (acts one and two), Berlin (act three),
Moscow (part one of act four), and the final duet in his home town of Posillipo. G. Ricordi &
Co., having passed on the publishing rights to Alfano’s second opera An den Quellen von
Enschir, would not make the same mistake again. Upon hearing the score to Risurrezione,
Ricordi acquired the publishing rights and premiered the opera at the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele
in Turin on November 30, 1904. The production was conducted by Tullio Serafin and cast
consisted of Elvira Magliulo as Katiusha, Oreste Mieli as Dimitrii and Angelo Scandiani as
Simonson. Two years later, the opera was presented at La Scala. Critics labeled Alfano as a
“veristic” composer, comparing Risurrezione to Giordano’s Fedora. The success of Risurrezione
gained the twenty-nine-year-old Alfano international recognition with subsequent performances
in Brussels, Berlin and Madrid. Over a span of forty-nine years, Risurrezione would receive over
1000 performances in Italy alone.
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