Opera on 3

Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Migrated podcast image for: Radio 3 Opera Guides

Music: Classical: Opera

Programme presenting rare and fascinating operatic performances

Programme presenting rare and fascinating performances and vividly communicating the immediacy of the live experience

Opera on 3: Leoncavallo's Zazà

Leoncavallo's Zazà

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Leoncavallo's Zazà

Recorded at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with Svetlana Aksenova in the title role.

Leoncavallo's Zazà at the Theater an der Wien with Svetlana Aksenova in the title role. Stefan Soltész conducts the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna. Flora Willson presents.

Leoncavallo's Zazà recorded earlier this year at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with soprano Svetlana Aksenova in the title role. Rarely heard these days but a world-wide success at the turn of the 20th century, this lyric comedy tells the story of Parisian music-hall singer Zazà and her rejected lover Milio, sung here by tenor Nikolai Schukoff, in an atmosphere imbued with the culture and flavours of French café music, which Leoncavallo was acquainted with from his days spent in France. Stefan Soltész conducts singers, the Arnold Schoenberg Chorus and the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna. 
Presented by Flora Willson.

Zazà, a concert hall singer: Svetlana Aksenova (soprano) 
Anaide, Zazà's mother: Enkelejda Shkosa (mezzo-soprano)
Floriana, a singer / Signora Dufresne, Milo's wife: Dorothea Herbert (contralto) 
Natalia, Zazà's maid: Juliette Mars (mezzo-soprano)
Milio Dufresne, a wealthy Parisian: Nikolai Schukoff (tenor) 
Totó Dufresne, daughter of Milio: Livia Gallenga (spoken role)
Cascart, a concert hall singer: Christopher Maltman (baritone) 
Bussy, a journalist: Tobias Greenhalgh (baritone) 
Courtois, a theatre director: Paul Schweinester (bass) 
Duclou, stage manager: Dumitru Mădăraşăn (baritone) 
Marco, the Dufresnes' concierge / Augusto, auxiliary stage manager:  Johannes Bamberger (tenor) 

Arnold Schoenberg Chorus
ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna
Stefan Soltész, conductor

SYNOPSIS
Zazà is the acclaimed star of the Alcazar variety theatre in St. Etienne, a provincial French town somewhere beyond the outskirts of Paris. All the men adore her, with the exception of the Parisian businessman Milio Dufresne who seems to prefer her rival, Floriana. What seems unobtainable becomes the thing most desired: Zazà has long had her eye on the obstinate man and now enters into a wager with the journalist Bussy that he will fall for her in next to no time. The conquest is easy for her, since Milio secretly desires Zazà but has not yet had the courage to approach a woman coveted by so many, not least because he fears for his reputation. Zazà’s bold attempt to seduce him quickly dispels his misgivings and the two become lovers. However, this conquest prompted by ambition proves Zazà’s undoing. She falls deeply in love with Milio, and wants to marry him and leave the music hall behind. But the dream is shattered when Cascart, her stage colleague and former lover, tells her that he saw Milio in Paris with another woman. Furious, Zazà travels to Paris and bursts into Milio’s flat to fight for her future with her rival. But the only person she finds there is a little girl: Totò, Milio’s daughter. The girl tells the nice stranger all about her mother and that the little family will soon be going to America. Gradually Zazà realises that Milio is married and has been lying to her about his circumstances all along. When Madame Dufresne eventually comes home she is surprised to see a stranger in her living room. Zazà tells her that she accidentally came to the wrong address and then leaves. She decides not to destroy the family’s happiness, remembering her own childhood misery and not wishing to inflict the same fate on little Totò: Zazà's father left her mother Anaide who then took to drink. When Milio next comes to Zazà she ends their affair. He then reveals to her his true, conservative attitudes, and she is left without so much as a happy memory of romantic love. She sadly accepts that her fate is to be a music hall star.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Opera on 3

Leoncavallo's Zazà

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3