When Composer Italo Montemezzi wrote L'Amore dei Tre Re, Poet Sem Benelli provided him with a libretto which cried for music of exquisite passion and tenderness. The fact that parts of it recall the music of Tristan & Isolde never seemed important. Montemezzi's score has surge and spontaneity of its own, enough to arouse high hopes for his one-act La Notte di Zoraima (The Night of Zoraima), given its U. S. premiere last week at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House.
In every way Zoraima disappointed. The setting among the Incas of 16th Century Peru was new for opera but the story was just...
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