Intolleranza 1960

Intolleranza 1960 (Intolerance 1960) is a one-act opera in two parts (azione scenica in due tempi) by Luigi Nono, and is dedicated to his father-in-law, Arnold Schoenberg. The Italian libretto was written by Nono from an idea by Angelo Maria Ripellino, using documentary texts and poetry by Julius Fučík, "Reportage unter dem Strang geschrieben";Henri Alleg, "La question (The Torture)"; Jean-Paul Sartre's introduction to Alleg's poem; Paul Eluard's poem "La liberté;" "Our march" by Vladimir Mayakovsky; and Bertolt Brecht's "To Posterity". The plot concerns a migrant, who travels from Southern Italy looking for work. Along the way, he encounters protests, arrests and torture. He ends up in a concentration camp, where he experiences the gamut of human emotions. He reaches a river, and realises that everywhere is his home. The opera premiered on 13 April 1961 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. It has a running time of approximately one hour and fifteen minutes.

Intolleranza 1960 was Luigi Nono's first work for the opera stage and is a flaming protest against intolerance and oppression and the violation of human dignity. The year in the title refers to the time of the work's origin. Nono himself said of this work that it "did mark a beginning for me, but in no sense did it constitute a tabula rasa or in response to 'divine inspiration'". It was commissioned for the 1961 Venice Biennale by its director Mario Labroca. The first performance was conducted by Bruno Maderna on 13 April 1961 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. The stage design was by the famous radical painter Emilio Vedova, a friend of Nono's. The premiere was disrupted by neo-fascists, who shouted "Viva la polizia" during the torture scene. Nono's opponents accused him of poisoning Italian music. (Nono revised the work into a one-act version for a 1974 performance.) A performance by the Boston Opera, in 1964, was suppressed by the John Birch Society and other right-wing activists. It was subsequently presented the following year, with Maderna conducting Sarah Caldwell's production, with Beverly Sills in the cast.

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