A long-forgotten operatic work by the legendary musical pedagogue Nadia Boulanger has been exhumed and given its first ever recording. The album, released by Pentatone, presents La Ville Morte, an opera Boulanger composed in collaboration with Raoul Pugno that was destined for the stage but silenced by the outbreak of the First World War.
The Lost Work of a Legendary Teacher
While Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) is revered as one of the most influential composition teachers of the 20th century, her own ambitions as a creator are less known. She largely abandoned composing in the early 1920s following profound personal losses, including the death of her prodigiously talented younger sister, Lili Boulanger, and her mentor, pianist Raoul Pugno.
La Ville Morte stands as a testament to that earlier creative period. Conceived as a four-act opera based on a play by Gabriele D’Annunzio, it was scheduled for a premiere at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1914. The cataclysm of war led to its cancellation, and the work survived only as a vocal score, never receiving a full orchestration or performance in her lifetime.
A Modern Resurrection
This pioneering recording stems from live performances in New York during 2023, spearheaded by conductor Neal Goren. Faced with the incomplete manuscript, the production required a new orchestration for a modest ensemble of eleven players from the Talea Ensemble.
The opera's plot, set in the ruins of the ancient city of Mycenae—the "dead city" of the title—unfolds as a complex drama of love, desire, and rivalry among a group of archaeologists. Musically, critics note the score echoes the influences of Wagner, Fauré, and early Debussy.
Does the Opera Convince?
Despite the committed efforts of Goren and a hard-working cast of four singers—Harvey, Rubin, Dennis, and Williams—the recording reveals a work that struggles to find a coherent dramatic voice. Reviewers suggest that La Ville Morte never fully settles into a convincing stylistic mode and its dramatic momentum falters before the concise final act.
Nevertheless, this release is a significant historical document. It provides a fascinating, if flawed, glimpse into the compositional mind of a figure who would later shape the sound of modern classical music through her students, rather than through her own published works. It completes a chapter in the story of one of music's great enigmas.
