If an opera is neglected, there is usually a reason. In the case of Alfredo Catalani's La Wally, the latest work to be shaken awake by Chelsea Opera Group, it might be the difficulty of staging the final scene, in which the lead tenor is crushed by an avalanche. Or perhaps it is the lack of sympathetic characters: the heroine of the title is a hot-headed little madam who throws herself into a ravine at curtain-down. Nevertheless, Toscanini was so taken with her that he named his daughter Wally in tribute.
The neglect cannot have so much to do with the music itself. It is true that nothing in the score matches Wally's early aria, the only passage that is at all well-known. But the Tyrolean setting inspired some characterful music: there is a rollicking overture, atmospheric orchestral preludes to the later acts, and some inventive (if not especially memorable) melodies. Much of it sounds fresh and original, though Catalani does borrow ideas: Verdi used a wordless off-stage chorus to depict a howling wind 40 years previously in Rigoletto, and did it better.
Alwyn Mellor put passion and drama into her fiery performance of Wally, at times pushing her voice a little too hard, and David Barrell's Hagenbach was similarly committed but rather relentlessly loud. Some of the best singers were in the smaller roles: it was a pity Iain Paterson's character was killed off after the first act, and Anna Burford's Afra sounded too classy for a village barmaid.
The work had a persuasive advocate in the conductor David Lloyd-Jones. The amateur orchestra was highly responsive: the muted strings in the act three prelude were hauntingly evocative and the full orchestral climaxes were thrilling. The chorus sang with gusto.
In 1892, when La Wally was written, Italy was looking for a successor to Verdi. Catalani had an excellent pedigree; he was taught by the uncle of the fast-rising Puccini and was welcomed in the Milan salons once frequented by Verdi. But a year later, tuberculosis killed him. Had he lived, we might regard La Wally not as a curiosity, but as a quirky early work by an operatic master just reaching his stride.
