Riccardo Drigo - Drigo Returns To Italy

Drigo Returns To Italy

In 1919 Drigo was finally repatriated to his native Italy. For his farewell gala at the former Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, the Ballet Master Fyodor Lopukhov mounted a new version of Drigo and Petipa's final collaboration, the ballet La Romance d'un Bouton de rose et d'un Papillon which Lopukhov staged under the title Le Conte du bouton (The Tale of the Rosebud). At the close of the gala, the renowned bass Feodor Chaliapin read an emotional farewell speech in both Italian and Russian. Allowed to take only 60 kilograms with him, Drigo left all of his belongings in Russia with the exception of a collection of his manuscript scores, which he used as a pillow during his two-month journey to Padua via Odessa and Constantinople.

In 1920 Drigo accepted the post of kapellmeister to the Teatro Garibaldi in Padua where he had begun his career many years before. In 1926 he composed the comic opera Flaffy Raffles for the Opera company of Padua's Teatro Verdi, and in 1929 his last work was given, the opera Il garofano bianco (The White Carnation) at the Teatro Garibaldi. He spent the remainder of his life conducting and composing masses and various songs, including a vocal version of the famous Serenade from Les millions d’Arlequin, which Beniamino Gigli made a world-wide hit with under the title Notturno d'amour.

Riccardo Drigo died on 1 October 1930 at the age of 84, in his birthplace, Padua. There is now a street in Padua which is named Via Riccardo Drigo in his honour.