ELISABETTA, REGINA D'INGHILTERRA
Giacchino Rossini (1792 - 1868)
Opera in two acts in Italian
Libretto: Lorenzo de Ponte
Premièr at National Theatre, Prague – 29 October 178704, 07, 09† September 1972
King's Theater, Edinburgh
EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Massimo, Palermo
Matilda his secret wife MARGHERITA GUGLIELMI soprano
The Duke of Norfolk PIETRO BOTTAZZO tenor
Enrico (Henry) Matilda’s brother GIOVANNI VIGHI mezzo-soprano
Guglielmo (Fitzwilliam) Captain of the Royal Guard GIANPAOLO CORRADI tenor
Conductor: Nino Sanzogno
Giacomo Zani (09.09)
Chorus master: Mario Tagini
Stage director: Mauro Bolognini
Scene and costumes: Gaetano Pompa
Elizabeth I Queen of England LEYLA GENCER soprano
The Earl of Leicester Commander of the army UMBERTO
GRILLI tenorMatilda his secret wife MARGHERITA GUGLIELMI soprano
The Duke of Norfolk PIETRO BOTTAZZO tenor
Enrico (Henry) Matilda’s brother GIOVANNI VIGHI mezzo-soprano
Guglielmo (Fitzwilliam) Captain of the Royal Guard GIANPAOLO CORRADI tenor
Place: London
Time: Late Sixteenth Century† Recording date
Photos © D. G. KINGSTON, Edinburgh
 |
| With Magda Olivero (soprano) and Margherita Guglielmi (soprano) |
A LETTER TO LEYLA GENCER FROM OPERA MAGAZINE
1972.05.04
A TELEGRAM FROM PASQUALE DI COSTANZO, INTENDANT OF TEATRO SAN CARLO DI NAPOLI TO LEYLA GENCER
1972.08.31
A TELEGRAM FROM PAOLO GRASSI, INTENANT OF TEATRO ALLA SCALA DI MILANI TO LEYLA GENCER
1972.09.01
OPERA SCOTLAND
1972
The Festival's guest company in 1972 was the Teatro Massimo from Palermo. The quality of the productions and performances was mixed, and the reception by the critics was on the whole cool. While orchestra and chorus were not of the first rank, there was still lots to enjoy from the singers, several of the leading Italian performers of the day. It was unfortunate that the Verdi, in particular, was hampered by ill-health on the part of some of some of the stars. Three rarities from the Italian ottocento repertoire were presented. The Rossini was the first of his important Naples commissions, Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra. The Verdi was Attila. It was also essential that this company should feature a work by a Sicilian composer. The obvious candidate, Bellini, was represented by La straniera.
The Rossini had a memorable production, sadly for all the wrong reasons. The bizarre elements of the plot cause this opera enough of a problem for British audiences. This production had such a strangely misconceived design concept that it struggled from the second the familiar Barber of Seville overture ended and the curtain rose. The audiences progressed from stunned shock to fits of giggles as the strange visual interpretation of British history unrolled before them.
The backcloths owed something to Tuscan landscape - those odd-looking hills in old master paintings that seem completely outlandish until you discover that Tuscan hills really do look like that. The costumes were only vaguely period, and some very odd – bright red, almost air stewardess uniforms (with pork pie hats) for Matilda and Enrico.
The musical side of the performance was distinctly mixed. The conductor originally announced, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, had conducted the Palermo revival, which had been well received. However, he withdrew, and Nino Sanzogno, a familiar visitor to Edinburgh, who was already coming to conduct La straniera, must have learned this extra score in a hurry. The playing was all a bit scrappy. Sadly, the star soprano in the title role was in very edgy voice and she struggled throughout the evening. The role did lie low for Leyla Gencer in any case, and her chest register seemed distinctly rough. Her opening aria, later remodelled for The Barber of Seville, required a coloratura mezzo, which Gencer never was. The famously glorious upper reaches of her voice were hardly required.
Otherwise things sounded better. The two principal tenor voices were cleverly differentiated in tone - extremely bright for the villainous Norfolk, a mellower sound for the more sympathetic Leicester - both fiendishly difficult parts, convincingly delivered, given that the modern revival of Neapolitan Rossini was still in its infancy. The lighter soprano and the mezzo 'trouser role' were both well sung, but suffered most from the difficulties of a plot that required us to believe that they were the children of Mary Queen of Scots.
In those days we knew very little about the ground-breaking experiments of Rossini in Naples, and this did little to advance the cause. Two studio recordings made available since this time actually show the strengths of the work, at least in terms of music. And other examples of the genre have since been given very successfully at the Festival, even if only in concert.
http://www.operascotland.org/tour/448/Elisabetta%2C-Regina-d%27-Inghilterra-1972
L'UNITA
1972.01.29
OPERA MAGAZINE
1972 March
AVANTI
1972.04.19
THE GLASGOW HERALD
1972.04.20
IL PICCOLO
1972.04.28
L'UNITA
1972.04.29
THE GLASGOW HERALD
1972.05.06
THE TIMES
1972.05.06
THE OBSERVER
1972.05.07
OPERA MAGAZINE
1972 August
Rossini's 'Queen Elizabeth'
-its style and originality
Luigi Bellingardi
'Like a good strategist, immediately upon arrival in Naples, Rossini took stock of the theatre's capacity and acoustics, the strength of the orchestra, the quality of voices available and public taste. Having ascertained that he was having to compose not only for the most spacious theatre in Europe but for an audience thirsty for novelty and virtuoso singing; and with a magnificent orchestra at his disposal, a large and well-trained chorus and singers with vocal cords of steel and voices of extraordinary agility and range, he determined his plan of campaign. In order to silence the envious and those who wished him ill, the need was clearly to compose something in a vigorous and lively vein, rather than repeat the delicate and tender music of Tancredi; and to produce richly florid vocal writing rather than simple open melody. Rossini was going to have to surprise rather than move, with thematic exuberance, melodic brilliance, variety and daring modulation, and orchestral splendour. He was going to have to provide a profusion of elegant trills and technical difficulties in the vocal parts, some masterfully engineered and clamorous finales, and the infallibly successful crescendi".
Photo: Cover of the autograph score at Pesaro
-its style and originality
Luigi Bellingardi
'Like a good strategist, immediately upon arrival in Naples, Rossini took stock of the theatre's capacity and acoustics, the strength of the orchestra, the quality of voices available and public taste. Having ascertained that he was having to compose not only for the most spacious theatre in Europe but for an audience thirsty for novelty and virtuoso singing; and with a magnificent orchestra at his disposal, a large and well-trained chorus and singers with vocal cords of steel and voices of extraordinary agility and range, he determined his plan of campaign. In order to silence the envious and those who wished him ill, the need was clearly to compose something in a vigorous and lively vein, rather than repeat the delicate and tender music of Tancredi; and to produce richly florid vocal writing rather than simple open melody. Rossini was going to have to surprise rather than move, with thematic exuberance, melodic brilliance, variety and daring modulation, and orchestral splendour. He was going to have to provide a profusion of elegant trills and technical difficulties in the vocal parts, some masterfully engineered and clamorous finales, and the infallibly successful crescendi".
Photo: Cover of the autograph score at Pesaro
Rossini's major Italian biographer, Giuseppe Radiciotti wrote thus describing the general circumstances which occasioned the creation of Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra. With these words Radiciotti accurately points to certain specific characteristics of the work which, when viewed over the whole span of the composer's output, reveal an insight into dramatic interpretation truly ahead of its time. There is a new depth of meaning in the composition of circumstance, and at the same time we see the survival, in form at least, of 18th-century opera seria. Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra is undoubtedly a cornerstone in Rossini's dramatic output. Today's most perceptive critics are quite correct in likening it to a bridge genially vaulting a whole neo-classic culture and leading directly to the romantic image. Rossini achieves this by the use of a new style, the origins and effect of which are studied with unsuspected daring. Weinstock and Lippman are right when they assert that since Rossini could not avoid writing opera seria, he had no alternative but to go right back to fundamentals and start again. In Italy, around 1810, the form was dustier and more antiquated than anywhere else, and it is due above all to Rossini that not only did it survive but actually gained new influence throughout Europe.
The renewal came about via opera buffa, and principally via its structure. Already in the late 18th century the previous generation of the Neapolitan school had begun to apply the formal elements of opera buffa to opera seria - not just in terms of grand introductory scenes and finales, but in the richer internal articulation of the arias and ensembles. Mayr made some progress in this respect, and Rossini himself made no distinction between the two forms. He achieved, for instance, the greatest degree of fusion of the single parts when, in 1815, in Elisabetta, he abolished the harpsichord-accompanied recitative.
This healthy coming together of forms is not limited to structure alone: it can be found in certain orchestral detail, in climaxes and also in melody. The frequent repetition of the same melodic pattern - a device anticipated in the later works of Paisiello and Cimarosa, became, in Rossini, a staple ingredient. The time of Metastasian conception of opera seria had irretrievably passed, and in order to make dramatic development possible, Rossini had to attack the structure. His methods are well known and are a far cry from contemporary attempts at music drama in other European countries. It is important to remember that Rossini was immersed in a genre fundamentally indifferent to drama, and this is what is especially relevant when examining Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra, the opera that began the composer's Neapolitan career in opera seria.
It was during this career that Rossini was to discover solutions not only to his personal creative problems but also to the problems posed by dramatic opera as a whole. As the informed young scholar Paolo Isotta has recently observed, Rossini's solution followed a very different route from that of the whole of European art of the time. He had exhausted that particular line of thinking, indeed giving it new and unexpected vitality in the process, and also taking it to its ultimate conclusion. During the decades that followed, European opera was to assimilate from his language only the deep sense of drama, while totally ignoring the search for idealized beauty. In this respect it is important to note that one of Rossini's particular characteristics is his habit of overlaying the libretto, the storyline, with a musical structure that only rarely coincides with the sequence of events. Rossini's real miracle was in protracting the life of opera seria for many years to come, giving it a last great flowering, covering at least the whole of his Italian period, right up to Semiramide.
Historians give great importance to two formal innovations in Elisabetta: the total adoption of orchestra-accompanied recitative, and the removal from the singers of their freedom to improvise, forcing them to sing exactly, and only, the notes as written down by the composer (as opposed to Tancredi, the ornaments in Elisabetta are scored note for note). He completely eliminated the harpsichord in the recitatives, and although the figured bass is occasionally to be found, particularly at the beginning, its role is taken by the orchestra. Later on, as the recitatives become more dramatic, there is a truly orchestral accompaniment.
Another interesting feature of Elisabetta is in the vocal writing itself. Two rival tenors (Leicester and Norfolk) are set against two sopranos (the Queen and Mathilde). Immediately we find the tensions reflected in the timbres: both tenors are baritone in quality; while Norfolk is a virtuoso part, that of Leicester's is more expressive. Of the ladies, Mathilde is a light soprano, while Elizabeth is a dramatic coloratura, with a tessitura bordering on the mezzo. No doubt, as Rodolfo Celletti has pointed out, Isabella Colbran was a key influence in the evolution of Rossini's writing; and Stendhal wrote that at the time of the Spanish singer's encounter with Rossini, her voice was in the process of changing from its earlier contralto range.
But while reserving for Colbran a part of great prestige, Rossini had also to consider the other stars in his cast: the tenors Nozzari and Manuel Garcia, and the soprano Girolama Dardanelli. On the evening of 4 October 1815, at the San Carlo in Naples, he did indeed serve them well. In a programme note for the recent Palermo revival (Teatro Massimo), Massimo Mila remarked significantly that 'in Elisabetta there is an air that is almost romantic, far removed from the classicism of ancient themes. The libretto, written by the court-poet Giovanni Schmidt, based on the drama by Carlo Federici, bears a close affinity with the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott. This was certainly a consequence of England's role in the war against Napoleon (Elisabetta opened only a few months after the battle of Waterloo). In the history of Rossini's parsimonious relations with romanticism, first claim must not only go to La Donna del Lago but also to the earlier Elisabetta. The difference being that while in the former we have the first intimations of a naturally romantic expression of nature - later to unfold grandiosely in William Tell, in Elisabetta we find the beginnings of a romanticism, the soul of which was subsequently to nourish the melodramas of Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi. This is particularly apparent in the most unusual abundance of minor keys.
Among the most interesting examples of dramatic writing are the vividly realistic duet 'Incauta, che festi', Mathilde's aria 'Sento un'interna voce' and even more in the second act, in the duet between Elizabeth and Mathilde. Mila again points out: 'From that two-part andante "Non bastan quelle lagrime”, many glorious melodies have derived, among them "Mira, o Norma" and "Ah! morir potessi adesso" in Ernani'. Most interesting in the same vein is the trio, which includes Leicester's intervention 'Sconsigliata che facesti', and the aria 'Bell'alme generose' in the finale.
Photo: A scene from the recent Palermo production to be seen at Edinburgh this month
The two-volume manuscript of Elisabetta is kept at the 'Fondazione Rossini' in Pesaro, the composer's birthplace. Apart from some amendments to Norfolk's aria 'Deh troncate i ceppi suoi', it is entirely in Rossini's own hand. For the recent Palermo revival, Gianandrea Gavazzeni told me that:
'The score was a non-autograph copy to be found in the Naples Conservatory library, a score also recently adopted by Italian Radio. But I [Gavazzeni] checked it thoroughly with the autograph manuscript in Pesaro and found that any differences were minimal and almost entirely concerned with details in recitative. I myself adopted very few and irrelevant cadential variations, because of the inherent vocal characteristics of the singers at my disposal. Apart from very few phrases of recitative, the first Ricordi voice and piano reduction corresponds correctly with both autograph manuscript and copy. This is, in fact, one of the least problematic of Rossini texts. In conducting the work in Palermo I tried to achieve maximum integrity, to present the formal qualities: in which the opera is so abundant, the unusual rapport of dimensions, the whole interplay of measure and space, quite miraculously varied and creative. In a critical attempt to display the work's true dimensions, I cut only a very few bars of cadences, nearly always preserving the strophic repeats. The recitatives were also left virtually intact. As a matter of fact, these are particularly fascinating in terms of psychological tension; the placing of stress and, in narrative, meaning where there is a dialogue between two characters. This gives the action a most singular quality and markedly distinguishes it from Rossini's other dramatic operas.
By presenting Elisabetta to the public Palermo is contributing greatly to the study of the serious Rossini; the roots of Guillaume Tell are to be found here. It is far from being a work of circumstance, as historians in the past have maintained, written speculatively in order to conquer the Neapolitan public - and simply making use of orchestra and singers to hand. In the annals of dramatic opera, it stands as a watershed between the 18th and 19th centuries. The lively innovations in musical language are intimations of things to come. As ever, Rossini is the fascinating creator of harmonious equilibrium - of order born from uninhibited spontaneity.
Bibliography
Giuseppe Radiciotti Gioacchino Rossini, vita doumentata, 3 Vols.,
Herbert Weinstock Tivoli 1927. Rossini, a Biography, London 1968.
Paolo Isotta Sull'opera seria, da Moise a Mosè, Pesaro 1972.
Friedrich Lippmann Per un'esegesi dello stile rossiniano, NRMI, Rome 1968.
Rodolfo Celletti Origine a sviluppi della coloratura rossiniana.
Philip Gossett Autograph sources of Rossini's works.
Henry Beyle Stendhal Vie de Rossini, Paris 1828.
Leyla Gencer
Rodolfo Celletti
It is not that I had forgotten - I just never think of it; I cannot even conceive of Leyla Gencer that way. And yet this is precisely what she is. Born in Istanbul, she lived in Turkey until 1953, and she is, 'in theory, anyway', as she puts it, a Moslem. Her name means 'Young night' - and that's another thing she says I always forget. She maintains that whenever writing or speaking about her I constantly refer as if to an older person, something not at all consonants with a 'Young night'. The point on which perhaps we disagree most is that of her oriental origin. 'Like all Orientals', she loves to say, 'and like all Moslems, I am lazy and a fatalist. I am instantly resigned to adversity, my temperament is gentle, and I am quite incapable of putting up a fight for anything. Anybody who says anything different is a liar'. Unfortunately, I am one of those who do think differently. To my way of thinking, she is neither lazy nor a fatalist, and she has always fought tooth and nail, first in order to survive and then to achieve success.
When she came to Italy in 1953, she had four very strong points in her favour: she spoke fluent Italian (having attended the Italian high school and Liceo in Istanbul); she possessed a general knowledge unusual for an opera singer; she was by instinct a good actress; and she already had a considerable technique, partly because she had been taught by Giannina Arangi-Lombardi in Turkey. These qualities, however, were offset by other, not too impressive vocal connotations. The voice was indeed agile, pliable and extended, but it was of small calibre, especially in the lower register; it lacked sheen - it was neither bright, nor brilliant, nor sensual - and although the timbre was pleasant enough (her delivery was particularly good), one detected here and there a certain opaqueness and unevenness.
With this type of voice, anyone else would have been content to be a tolerable coloratura. But in July 1953 Gencer ventured into the popular open-air Arena Flegrea in Naples, singing Cavalleria Rusticana, which among other things requires a robust and intense middle register. This, her debut, was followed in February 1954 - again in Naples at the San Carlo - by some performances of Madama Butterfly. The following year she was already in Munich (Tosca); in 1956 she was singing Francesca da Rimini in San Francisco; in 1957 she made her debut at the Scala (première of Dialogues des Carmélites) and immediately afterwards was singing Violetta at the Vienna State Opera conducted by Karajan. That was a rapid and impressive rise, brought about more by intense musicality, acting ability and varied, sensitive phrasing than by actual vocal quality. Then came the decisive turning point in her career with Anna Bolena for Italian Radio and La Battaglia di Legnano at Florence in 1958-9. Gencer was here following in the wake of Callas who over the previous decade had relaunched the repertory of the socalled soprani d'agilità of the early 19th century. That was not all. The desire to emulate Callas found Gencer also tackling, and successfully, the pure coloratura parts, such as Lucia (San Francisco, 1957), Amina (Naples, 1959), Gilda (San Francisco, 1959 and Buenos Aires, 1961). Even this did not prevent her from simultaneously appearing in Verdi's more popular operas (from Un Ballo in Maschera to La Forza del Destino and Don Carlos) and even venturing into Mozart. For example, for her Glyndebourne debut in 1962 she sang in Le nozze di Figaro, followed by a concert performance of the same opera at the Albert Hall.
This specifically Callas-like eclecticism not unnaturally caused doubt and criticism. The comparison after all was not very favourable to Gencer since her voice was less personal than Callas's, the timbre not so unique or penetrating, the volume itself much slimmer, and the virtuosity not nearly so spectacular. Even her stage presence was nothing like so magnetic and riveting. So ten years ago, in Italy at least, there was talk of imitation, of plagiarism. I believe this was unjust. It is true that in her phrasing, accents and gesture, she had assimilated certain of Callas's particular interpretative formulas, but she always showed sufficient awareness and good taste to adapt these to her own voice and conception of the various parts. She could never, in other words, be a servile imitator of anyone for her own personality was too strong.
TWO DONIZETTI QUEENS
Anne Boleyn at Glyndebourne, 1965
Mary Stuart at Edinburgh, 1969
Possibly Leyla Gencer is not a great singer in the traditional sense of the word. But she has something more than a great voice, she has intelligence. She was the first, about 12 years ago, to realize that from Callas's success would follow revivals of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and early Verdi. And meticulously, with great patience and a will of iron - talk about oriental laziness and fatalism! - Gencer year after year built up her own position and reputation.
With a basically lirico leggero voice, more inclined to slender, fluty high notes than to violent, lightning delivery, Gencer undertook Norma, Lucrezia Borgia, Lady Macbeth, Antonina (Donizetti's Belisario) - all aggressive, passionate, often cruel and even satanic ladies, demanding explosive top notes, and broad and intense middle and low ones. Gencer clearly is drawn to these parts by her cultural background and temperament. She has such an accurate conception of melodramatic regality, such an innate, spontaneous feeling for authority, from heraldic gesture to outbursts of supreme indignation, that her best portrayals are those of queens, her best scenes those in which she condemns to death some treacherous courtier or faithless lover, parts such as Elizabeth in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, or in Rossini's Tudor opera.
I often ask how all this ties up with the image of a mild, gentle oriental Moslem. All I have ever got in reply has been either a mischievous smile or a burst of rippling laughter. As to the fairly rampant rumour going around that the sweet, docile Leyla is actually rather resolute and quick to solve stage conflicts, I really do not know what to say. I can only suppose that here too, Gencer uses her favourite weapon - intelligence. From a professional point of view, she is undoubtedly extremely astute. Her technique moves basically on three levels: agility, an extraordinarily subtle use of piano and pianissimo, and the employment of certain emergency measures when the texture demands maximum dramatic tension.
With Gencer, agility follows the virtuoso tradition, of Rossinian origin, which gives vehemence and aggression to ornamentation and runs. Her piani and pianissimi are particularly unique in melancholy, intimate passages, although they frequently also acquire special dramatic significance. Gencer's ability here is quite astounding. With merely a thread of voice she is able to convey what others could not even with plenty of volume. When it comes to the need for sheer declamatory power, for swooping from low to high and straight back, for breadth of volume of middle register, then she is definitely in dangerous country and frequently one can detect the strain - the variations in colour and vibration. Yet even here Gencer is able to extract something personal. When for instance she has to move from the slender white timbre of her middle notes to the dark colour of the lower, even if the voice is not beautiful and seems suddenly to be coming from another throat, it can become, in certain scenes in particular, warm, tender and above all unbelievably moving.
Leyla Gencer is really an actress-singer, by which I mean the voice is at all times totally allied to stage presentation and interpretation. With her mobile and expressive features, Gencer's stage manner is not generally detailed or analytical.
Top: Antonina (Belisario'), Violetta, Aida
Middle: Lida (Battaglia di Legnano'), Elena (Vespri Siciliani'), Lady Macbeth Bottom: Pacini's Saffo, Donna Anna, Elisabeth de Valois (Don Carlos')
Mary Stuart at Edinburgh, 1969
Possibly Leyla Gencer is not a great singer in the traditional sense of the word. But she has something more than a great voice, she has intelligence. She was the first, about 12 years ago, to realize that from Callas's success would follow revivals of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and early Verdi. And meticulously, with great patience and a will of iron - talk about oriental laziness and fatalism! - Gencer year after year built up her own position and reputation.
With a basically lirico leggero voice, more inclined to slender, fluty high notes than to violent, lightning delivery, Gencer undertook Norma, Lucrezia Borgia, Lady Macbeth, Antonina (Donizetti's Belisario) - all aggressive, passionate, often cruel and even satanic ladies, demanding explosive top notes, and broad and intense middle and low ones. Gencer clearly is drawn to these parts by her cultural background and temperament. She has such an accurate conception of melodramatic regality, such an innate, spontaneous feeling for authority, from heraldic gesture to outbursts of supreme indignation, that her best portrayals are those of queens, her best scenes those in which she condemns to death some treacherous courtier or faithless lover, parts such as Elizabeth in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, or in Rossini's Tudor opera.
I often ask how all this ties up with the image of a mild, gentle oriental Moslem. All I have ever got in reply has been either a mischievous smile or a burst of rippling laughter. As to the fairly rampant rumour going around that the sweet, docile Leyla is actually rather resolute and quick to solve stage conflicts, I really do not know what to say. I can only suppose that here too, Gencer uses her favourite weapon - intelligence. From a professional point of view, she is undoubtedly extremely astute. Her technique moves basically on three levels: agility, an extraordinarily subtle use of piano and pianissimo, and the employment of certain emergency measures when the texture demands maximum dramatic tension.
With Gencer, agility follows the virtuoso tradition, of Rossinian origin, which gives vehemence and aggression to ornamentation and runs. Her piani and pianissimi are particularly unique in melancholy, intimate passages, although they frequently also acquire special dramatic significance. Gencer's ability here is quite astounding. With merely a thread of voice she is able to convey what others could not even with plenty of volume. When it comes to the need for sheer declamatory power, for swooping from low to high and straight back, for breadth of volume of middle register, then she is definitely in dangerous country and frequently one can detect the strain - the variations in colour and vibration. Yet even here Gencer is able to extract something personal. When for instance she has to move from the slender white timbre of her middle notes to the dark colour of the lower, even if the voice is not beautiful and seems suddenly to be coming from another throat, it can become, in certain scenes in particular, warm, tender and above all unbelievably moving.
Leyla Gencer is really an actress-singer, by which I mean the voice is at all times totally allied to stage presentation and interpretation. With her mobile and expressive features, Gencer's stage manner is not generally detailed or analytical.
Top: Antonina (Belisario'), Violetta, Aida
Middle: Lida (Battaglia di Legnano'), Elena (Vespri Siciliani'), Lady Macbeth Bottom: Pacini's Saffo, Donna Anna, Elisabeth de Valois (Don Carlos')
It is more in keeping with what the French describe as le grand style and is especially suited to the heroic figures of the tragédie chantée: goddesses, queens, princesses. Not for nothing is she a great interpreter of Gluck's Alceste, as has been confirmed by recent performances at the Scala.
Further, her accentuation is exceptionally varied and eloquent. It is entirely through accent that she manages to give her voice colours that are substantially lacking in the basic timbre, or to bind together and make meaningful certain combinations of sound which taken singly would be definitely unpleasant. This is precisely how she is able to be equally a Mary Stuart or a great Elizabeth, a Beatrice di Tenda or a Norma. Her inventiveness in this area would seem to be unlimited. She can produce with equal facility and accuracy the regal accent of a Rossini canto di bravura, the languid caress of a melancholy Donizetti cavatina, the veiled simplicity of a plaintive Bellini flourish, or the inflamed high- sounding assurance of a Verdi cabaletta. She will harangue, rail, suffer, beg, whisper or scream - with arguable sound perhaps, but always with the right expression for the right dramatic moment. At times, driven by the rage, despair or anguish of her favourite heroines, she will arrive at the very edge of melodramatic over-emphasis, only to halt and draw back for she also has a great sense of proportion. On other occasions she may seem inextricably enmeshed in a particularly adventurous and risky bit of vocal acrobatics, when with an impromptu pianissimo, a finely spun note or two, or some other diabolical invention, she gets herself out of it and is off again.
With a Turkish father, Polish mother and Italian cultural and professional background, Leyla Gencer is truly a mosaic-like artist. Rational and impassioned, tightrope walking and histrionic (in the noblest sense of the word of course), she is infinitely adept at giving expediency the veneer of high-class virtuosity. At the same time, she will give of her voice with a generosity which can seem sheer folly to someone unaware of her technical resources. She has been, for 19 years, infinitely industrious and irrepressible. If we add Gioconda, Cherubini's Medée, Spontini's La Vestale, Ernani, Poliuto, and Pacini's Saffo, we have to arrive at the most extraordinary conclusion: no other soprano in the whole of this century has sustained a repertory so risky, complex and wearing.
UNKNOWN MAGAZINE
1972 August
THE LEADER POST
1972.08.12
MUSICAL TIMES
1972 September
Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra
Rossini's first Naples opera (1815) was designed to conquer a new audience, which it assuredly did. This may account for its somewhat disconcerting mixture of richly inventive music with generalized characterization. It is a polished score; every dramatic point is firmly made, whether by bold harmonic strokes or picturesque scoring (especially for wind) or Rossini's genial resource in working accompaniment figures through a variety of keys and situations, and the vocal writing is as accomplished as ever. For the first time Rossini dropped the keyboard from the recitatives and set them, very effectively, for strings. Yet the characters and their predicaments scarcely move us. We do not bleed when the Queen renounces love for politics. The conjugal affection of Leicester and Matilde is tepid rather than passionate. The conspiratorial Norfolk conveys little venom or menace. To some extent (as Handel remarked in another context) Mr Schmidt is to blame. The librettist, Giovanni Schmidt, produced a piece of flat stage carpentry, endowing Mary Queen of Scots with two supernumerary children (one of them secretly married to Elizabeth's favourite Leicester) but not giving anybody much life. Rossini scarcely deepened the picture. It is significant that not only the overture, but two vocal episodes could be transferred to The Barber of Seville with little sense of incongruity. Unlike some of Rossini's operas Elisabetta bears few signs of romanticism, except perhaps in the copious melodic writing for horns. The lessons of Mozart and Mayr have been well digested but not transfigured. It is an opera that depends more than usual on brilliant singing and a pace that eschews slackness.
These were seldom forthcoming in the Teatro Massimo performance (Sept 4). Leyla Gencer, always an unpredictable artist, delivered her opening and closing cavatinas in mezza voce, very beautifully in 'Bell'alme generose'; but whenever she increased the pressure her tone became shrill and gusty. This was an elderly Queen with little majesty or magnetism and lacking in the fire that Colbran must have commanded. Margherita Guglielmi's Matilde had an unpleasing hard edge. Of the two tenors, Umberto Grilli (Leicester) was competent but a trifle heavy; only Pietro Bottazzo (Norfolk) produced the virile forward tone that the music requires. Neither chorus nor orchestra was outstanding, and Nino Sanzogno's frequent pauses prevented the opera gathering dramatic momentum from scene to scene. Another superfluous interval did not help here. The production was conventional (the raked stage seemed more of a hindrance than a help) and some of the designs were positively ugly. The chorus costumes had the formalized stiffness of chessmen, with an oriental touch more appropriate to The Mikado. The strange emblems that escorted the Scottish hostages suggested a heraldic snail charged with an elephant's head: not at all proper-except perhaps as a symbol of the dragged tempo of the scene for Norfolk and male chorus in Act 2. [Winton Dean]
OPERA MAGAZINE
1972 September
LIVERPOOL DAILY POST
1972.09.06
CORRIERE DELLA SERA
1972.09.09
MİLLİYET ART MAGAZINE
1972.10.06
KOBBE'S COMPLETE OPERA BOOK
1972
COMPLETE RECORDING
1972.09.09
