Following the Second World War, Menotti was America’s most acclaimed opera composer. He has a brilliant sense of theatre which combines with an intuitive grasp of character and situation. He was also something of a prodigy, having composed his first opera at the age of eleven. Encouraged by Toscanini, he went to the Curtis Institute (Philadelphia) where he met Samuel Barber, who became his close companion. A double-bill of The Medium (1945) and The Telephone (1946) proved a huge success, helped by Toscanini’s advocacy of these and his other works. The gripping drama of The Consul (1949) was another major success, reinforcing Menotti’s high profile, whilst Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951) earned him mass popularity as a work specially written for television. Following that success, he composed further operas for television, inluding Martin’s Lie (1964).
Though the effectiveness of his operas has never been in question, his style of music fell out of favour during the 1970’s, but the tide has now turned. On this recording, the rarely heard Five songs for Tenor and piano and Canti della Iontananz show how effective Menotti was as a writer of songs, and in Martin’s Lie - a compulsive and gripping one-act opera we can understand why hw was so successful as an opera composer.