Opera Nera - Eclectic revelations

We catch up with the Neapolitan band on the release of their second sung album, "Revelation", to talk about an increasingly surprising stylistic evolution, their love of Nosferatu, the state of health of metal in Italy, the Book of Revelation and much more. A wide-ranging conversation, complete with a metal top five and unexpected revelations, such as a passion for the verses of Garcia Lorca and the unforgettable flamenco of Enrique Morente.

You basically locked yourselves in the recording studio during yet another pandemic lockdown. How long did the gestation of "Revelation" actually take? Any anecdotes from those strange days?

Writing for the album began in autumn 2021; given the restrictions of the evening curfew, we wrote and played everything over long afternoons. The dusk and the Camaldoli woods surrounding our rehearsal space accompanied the mood beautifully, and no doubt influenced the writing too. The first pre-production recording was made at the Teatro Summarte in Somma Vesuviana, with the hall empty during the height of the restrictions. We needed to make the album detonate in all its power; it was later recorded at Max Pone's Godfather studio in Naples.

Why "Revelation"?

The album revolves around a dialogue between man and the divine; the revelation lies in the awareness of being alone, without help from above. There's a clear interplay of meanings at work: the biblical book of the apocalypse is translated into English as "Book of Revelation," while the translation of "apocalypse" from the Greek is "prophecy." Endpoints are spaces for construction if you refuse a blind ending. It's possible to establish whether you're at the end of something or the beginning of something else.

Not just metal. Rock, flamenco, progressive. Unusual elements that, from what I read on your website, you define as spirits, to be precise: "These spirits have started speaking in Spanish, German and English; they do so chanting, livid with rage in the dark of the corridors, creaking the floorboards, smashing the windows. No one is saved in these rooms."

We wanted other styles to enter our sonic home as well; metal, like flamenco, is a genre with a strong identity. When two such clearly defined elements meet, they can generate splendid creatures without ever losing their original character - if anything, strengthening it.

The fossil-like skeleton on the cover seems to hide a message.

The narrating voice running through the whole record feels betrayed by the divine at the moment of greatest need, increasingly resembling a fallen angel: the meaning of a lost grace. The skeleton of a buried angel represents bitterness and disappointment, while the empty grave on the back cover and the feathers represent resurrection.

Tiziano Spigno is now an added member of the band. How did this collaboration come about? Will it continue in the future?

In the aftermath of Nosferatu we set to work writing "Land Of Salvation", which is also our first sung album. Elio Bordi of Frontiers Records in Naples, whom we asked for advice, pointed us to Tiziano as the right voice for our music. On that record he gave his all, even across very different registers. The time he spent with us in Naples helped cement a genuine friendship and artistic partnership. Now Tiziano is a full-fledged member of the band, a decision he made following our latest recording, which we obviously welcomed with joy. Beyond the personal bond, our artistic chemistry keeps growing, along with the desire to keep writing together, with him actively involved in composing future material.

"Gloria" is a suite that embraces multiple themes and styles. At the end you can sense a sudden glimmer of hope.

"Gloria" is a look back at the journey travelled up to a watershed moment in life. It's the moment when you take stock, when you settle accounts. There are usually three or four such moments in a life. It's specifically the moment when a narrating voice realizes that everything he had believed in before that event loses the traits that had always defined it for him. He falls in love, and the love for the person he meets turns his whole outlook upside down, upends it completely. So everything he had believed in before crumbles and reshapes itself. Love thus changes form. First it's the joy for one's own woman, for one's friends, then it's the love for one's child, and finally it's the child's love for what is yet to come. Everything is seen through the eyes of humankind, which believes in a ready-made God who has little to do with the love that humanity can discover in the simplicity of life.

Unlike the Nordic countries, where metal has enjoyed uninterrupted good health, in Italy we go through ups and downs. Nowadays it's increasingly rare to see young "metalheads". Interest in rock in general has somewhat faded, despite Maneskin, who, contrary to what's often said, haven't sparked anything. What do you think about that? And, to paraphrase Mino Di Martino, what's your approach to so-called "young people's music"?

Metal in Italy and around the world lives in a circuit all its own. It has its own radio stations, its own print magazines (the few still found on newsstands, unlike other genres), its own festivals. Metal fans are doing fine and have survived even though, back in the early Nineties, they were written off as finished. Rock is an underground river that sometimes dips out of sight but never stops flowing. The well-deserved success of Maneskin might encourage some teenager to pick up a guitar, and that can only be good for rock.

The "Agnus Dei" triptych opens up a chapter all of its own on the record. Especially the flamenco-tinged "Agnus Dei (miserere)" featuring Juan Murube.

"Miserere" is our personal tribute to Enrique Morente's album "Omega", where rock, flamenco and Garcia Lorca coexist. Josè Miguel Molero, a poet from Madrid and winner of the Francisco de Quevedo International Prize, agreed to write the lyrics; Juan Murube, a cantaor from Seville, threw himself into this stylistic experiment, and we tried to bring in what our metal musical culture could contribute. It's a wonderful "musical mixed-breed" that we're proud of. It was recorded between Malaga and Naples; the guitars and the baglama - an instrument of Turkish origin - are instead courtesy of Alfonso Bruno. The triptych revolves around the figure of the lamb of God, as a sacrificial being sacrificed, with whom man identifies. Once again, the theme is a lost grace, perhaps never truly experienced at all.

In the past you scored "Nosferatu", Murnau's masterpiece, with an hour and a half of entirely original music. How did the idea of tackling such an important work come about?

We spent months looking for a singer to complete our line-up without ever finding one, so we decided to try our hand at a composition that needed no vocals at all. We turned that obstacle into an opportunity, into a challenge. Writing, arranging and syncing the music to the images took three years of work. The music was performed live during a screening of the film in November 2018 at the Casa della Musica. Writing so much purely instrumental material completely changed the way we compose, creatively steering us away from the verse/chorus structure. It's a legacy we hold very dear. It's a defining part of our style.

"Revelation" closes with a ballad sung by Loretta Moretto, "Ite". Is that a way of hinting at what your future might hold?

All the songs on the record are drawn from the chapters of the Catholic mass, "Ite" closes an album that's harsh both lyrically and musically, but we wanted this track to be as light as possible, in contrast with lyrics that are the most critical in their dialogue with the divine. Loretta Moretto captured this desire of ours emotionally and musically, recording one of the record's most powerful moments, while Antonio "Gomez" Caddeo of La Maschera gave it an orchestral quality with his double bass - his contribution lent a deep majesty to the closing track.

We recently published a ranking of the greatest metal albums of all time. It would be intriguing to hear your own all-encompassing top five - albums, even not strictly metal ones, that have particularly moved you.

We belong to five different generations of metal, ranging from Black Sabbath to Slipknot, so we don't always share the same listening habits, but I'll do better: I'll list five albums that were definitely on our speakers during the songwriting process (answers Alessandro Pacella, ed.).

Machine Head – “The Blackening”

Tremonti – "A Dying Machine"

Dream Theater – "Images & Words"

Enrique Morente – "Omega (Poema Para Los Muertos)"

Metallica – “Master Of Puppets”

What's brewing in the Opera Nera cauldron? Is a tour on the horizon?

There's a real desire to play this album live, and not in a pub in front of people eating, "absit iniuria" (from the Latin "let no offense be taken at the word," ed.). As soon as the live scene opens back up, we'll make sure to take it around Italy and, why not, abroad too. This is a record of music, and we'd love for some promoter to notice us and welcome us into a bill that isn't strictly metal.

Ride the wave of great music

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