Francesca

“Paolo, datemi pace!” comes from Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini, a four-act opera based, by way of a play by D’Annunzio, on a famous episode in Dante’s Inferno (also the source of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic fantasia and Rachmaninov’s one-act opera of the same name). It is addressed by Francesca to Paolo as they are alone together in the third act, just before they fall into an ultimately fatal embrace. So much nearer in its intimate melodiousness to Puccini than his verismo colleagues, it is only one reason to regret that Zandonai’s masterpiece is so rarely performed in this country.