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Revival of Paolino Vassallo’s ‘lost’ opera, ‘Edith Cavell’
An enquiry about an opera about Edith Cavell by one of Malta’s foremost composers, Paolino Vassallo (1856–1923), came into the Cavell archive in Norfolk in 2017. This led to the unearthing of the first two acts of Vassallo’s three-act opera in a Norfolk library. The scores had been lying there untouched since being purchased in 1940.
Hoping to locate the third act, I contacted various relevant bodies in the UK to no avail. I talked about the opera regularly around England, which led to a meeting with Anglo-Italian conductor Dario Salvi in Norwich in October 2018.
Salvi, who is a specialist in restoring and performing forgotten 19th-century operas across Europe, was immediately struck by Vassallo’s dramatic music, with its lush melodies and rich harmonic vocabulary.
He embarked on a search with libraries and archives to find the score of Act III.
Maltese composer Paolino Vassallo.Before Christmas 2018, contact with Vassallo expert and Pjazza Teatru Rjal director Christopher Muscat resulted in the sourcing of the missing pages of the opera in Malta. At last, the possibility of a modern revival of this important operatic work became a real possibility.
In 2019, during the COVID lockdown, a modern performance edition was created by transferring all of Vassallo’s manuscript into music software.
Maestro Salvi then spent many weeks meticulously checking the work, translating the libretto and creating a piano reduction and vocal score.
As a result of all this effort, on June 17 – one hundred years after the death of Vassallo – Pjazza Teatru Rjal will be performing a concert version of this opera.
Who was Paolino Vassallo?
Paolino Vassallo was born in Malta in 1856 and, at the age of 19, moved to Paris to study with Massenet and Guiraud. For several years, he led, and later conducted, the Opéra-Comique and the Lamoureux Orchestra in France.
Contemporary biographies report that the composer had refused the coveted Prix de Rome in order to hold on to his Maltese (British) nationality.
Back in Malta, he founded a musical institute in Valletta in 1885 and was appointed maestro di cappella of the Metropolitan Cathedral in 1902. Besides many chamber, sacred and orchestral works, Vassallo wrote three operas: Amor Fatale, Frazir and Edith Cavell (which was completed shortly before his death).
The Edith Cavell memorial in London.Vassallo worked to a libretto by two Maltese writers: Alfonso Giglio and Augusto German.
A popular anecdote about this opera recalls how the authors, wanting to ascertain that the work might be appropriately set to music, submitted a copy of the libretto for the scrutiny of composer Pietro Mascagni. He was enthusiastic about the artistic manner in which the historic events of the story had been developed.
The British nurse Edith Cavell
The opera focuses on British nurse Edith Cavell (1865-1915). From 1907, she worked as the first professional matron and nurse trainer in Brussels.
In early August 1914, she bravely returned from holiday in England just before the outbreak of the World War I – she wanted to be with her team in Brussels to organise care for the wounded from both sides.
Over the nine months from November 1914, along with Belgian colleagues, she helped around 200 British and French soldiers caught behind German lines.
The opera’s honouring of men and women who put their lives on the line in resistance to oppression gives it real contemporary relevance
She hid them in the basement of her hospital and treated their wounds. She arranged for guides to take them (and Belgian men wanting to join up with the Allies) to the Dutch border and freedom.
The British nurse Edith Cavell, whose story inspired Vassallo’s opera.She knew all along that this was in breach of German military rules and could result in her execution.
On August 5, 1915, she was arrested and held for 10 weeks in solitary confinement. She was tried by court martial with 34 others, and she and a Belgian resistance leader were condemned to death.
They were executed by a firing squad at dawn on October 12, 1915.
The opera Edith Cavell
Edith Cavell was first performed at the Royal Opera House in Valletta on March 21, 1927, four years after Vassallo’s death.
The international cast included soprano Emma Lattuada in the titular role, and the celebrated tenor Giovanni Breviario as Philippe Baucq (a leading figure in the Belgian resistance, executed with Cavell).
Phillipe Baucq, Cavell’s collaborator and network leader.Other main parts were sung by Manuel Marti Folgado (von Flacken, the head of the German secret police), Ines Guasconi (Charlotte Bonett, an undercover agent) and Enzo Feliciati (Rev. H. Gahan, Cavell’s friend and pastor). Several performances were held during 1927 under the direction of Chev. Arturo Sigismondo.
The opera has it all – the shining courage, compassion and faith of Cavell, Baucq’s fierce patriotism, and Bonett as a glamorous spy torn between love for Baucq and von Flacken.
Act II includes the tense interrogation of the nurse and Bonett being overwhelmed by her guilt in sealing Cavell’s fate.
A trial scene follows, with the prosecutor and judges confronting a jury unwilling to send Cavell to her death.
The final act is full of tragedy and glory: it is set in Cavell’s prison cell where, hours before her death, she is allowed time with her friend and pastor, facing her end with heartbreaking fortitude.
The opera’s honouring of men and women who put their lives on the line in resistance to oppression gives it real contemporary relevance.
Rev. H. Gahan, Cavell’s friend and pastor.On June 17, at Pjazza Teatru Rjal, Maestro Salvi will conduct an international cast headed by soprano Martina Bortolotti in the title role and acclaimed American tenor Jorge Carreras as Phillipe Baucq (Cavell’s collaborator and network leader).
Other roles include Gina Galati (Charlotte Bonett), Joseph Lia (von Flacken), Louis Andrew Cassar (Gonrad) and Albert Buttigieg (Rev. Gahan).
This concert version production features the participation of two proud promoters of Maltese musical heritage – Kor Malta (under the direction of Riccardo Bianchi) and the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra.
A recent concert performance in London of one of Edith Cavell’s arias – Nacqui, vissi – had “spines tingling” in the audience, and was described as containing “the most essential music of the opera in a nutshell” and as “completely perfect”.
This revival has already aroused much interest in England and Belgium, and it is hoped that it will be staged in full in due course.
The concert version of Edith Cavell by Paolino Vassallo will be staged on June 17 at Pjazza Teatru Rjal at 8.30pm. For more information about this production, visit pjazzateatrurjal.mt/upcoming events/.
Nick Miller is an Edith Cavell Archivist based in Norfolk, UK.
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