Q U E E N  O F  P I R A T E S  -  I 

 


Leyla Gencer was asked only twice to record for major recording companies. Both offers came directly from the famous conductor Tullio Serafin. He was planning to make two opera recordings (La Traviata and Simon Boccanegra) for two major recording companies. At first Serafin was planning to work with Maria Callas in La Traviata but since she had recorded the same opera in 1953 for Cetra label, according to her contract she didn’t have the right to record it for another label. Knowing Gencer’s success as Violetta, Serafin wanted to collaborate with Gencer but according to her, both offers were prevented by Callas. In the end Serafin recorded La Traviata with Anonietta Stella for the label Emi in 1956.
Gencer may not be considered one of the recording artists but today her numerous (over 150) opera, concert and recital recordings are available in the music markets on LPs, CDs and DVDs even single vinyl’s. Such high number of recordings gave her the title of “Queen of Pirates”. Here’s a list of her recordings: Macbeth (12 recordings), Lucrezia Borgia (10 recordings), Norma (8 recordings), La Gioconda, Aida, La Forzadel destino (6 recordings), Anna Bolena, Belisario, Simon Boccanegra (5 recordings), Maria Stuarda, Le Martyrs, Alceste, Don Carlo, Don Giovanni, La Battaglia di Legnano, Ernani (4 recordings), Un ballo in maschera, Rigoletto, Gerusalemme, Il trovatore, I vespri Siciliani, Agnese di Hohenstaufen, Elizabetta Regina d’Inghilterra, Medea in Corinto, Caterina Cornaro, Medea, I Puritani (3 recordings), I due Foscari, Attila, Tosca, Les dialogue des Carmelites, Idomeneo, L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Werther, Cavalleria Rusticana, La prova di un’Opera seria, Roberto Devereux, Lucia di Lammermoor, Francesca da Rimini, La Vestal (2 recordings) and single recordings of La Traviata, Pikovaya Dama, Yevgeny Onyegin, La Falena, Guillaume Tell, Monte Ivnor, Turandot, Suor Angelica, madama Butterfly, Il Tabarro, L’ange de feu, Lo Straniero, Lassasinio nella Catedrale, Saffo, Adriana Lecouvreur, Albert Herring, Beatrice di Tenda.
Gencer’s recordings of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Donizetti’s Requiem per Bellini and the recordings of her recitals and concerts, famous for their highly distinguished programs; (1956, 1974 and 1976 in Torino, in 1975 and 1979-Venice, 1975-Spoleto, 1976- Trieste, 1958 and 1978-Milan, 1979-Treviso, 1980, 1981 and 1985-Paris, 1981-Palermo and 1984-Naples) are available on CDs. Her Masterclass Scuola della Regine about Donizetti Queens (Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda ve Roberto Devereux) which she gave for Rai television in 1982 is also available on DVD.
Only a very few of these recordings were made at studios. Most of them so called “pirate recordings” were made under bad circumstances at opera houses where the artists didn’t receive any copyright fees. Rumour has it that, there are many recordings of Gencer such as Manon (1958 San Francisco), Rigoletto (1958 San Francisco/Los Angeles), Lucia di Lammermoor (1957 San Francisco/Los Angeles), Aida (1963, 1966 La Scala Milan), Les Contes d’Hoffmann (1957 Palermo), Mefistofele (1958 La Scala Milan), Tosca (1961 Vienna), La Traviata (1957 Vienna/San Francisco/Los Angeles/San Diego/Sacramento, 1958 Philadelphia), Francesca da Rimini (1956 San Francisco/Los Angeles), Otello (1962 Genova) and La Sonnambula (1959 Naples) which are still hidden in archives. The role of Elsa in Tannhauser is also in Gencer’s repertoire but due to a strike at the opera house, the performances were postponed to further dates on which Gencer had other opera engagements. Consequently, she couldn’t sing the role. BBC Television also broadcast her Glyndebourne Figaro on 29 August 1963.
Despite her declaration of “British and American critics never liked me”, England’s biggest opera festival Glyndebourne released the recording of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro of 1963 through its own record label. Gencer’s brilliant Contessa performance is worth listening. Again, through its own recording label, Covent Garden Opera of London released the recording of the mythical Don Giovanni production conducted by Georg Solti and directed by Franco Zeffirelli in which Gencer sang Donna Anna. Speaking of Mozart, one must mention Idomeneo premiered at La Scala in 1968. Gencer’s performance under the baton of Wolfgang Sawallisch was undoubtedly one of Gencer’s most powerful Mozart interpretations. Gencer’s interpretation of the role Elettra in the Italian style received the best reviews from Italian opera critics. This performance can be found in La Scala’s 1968 recording.
Among Gencer’s recordings there are also DVDs in black and white. Verdi’s Il Trovatore in which she sang with legendary tenor Mario del Monaco is a masterpiece. And two DVDs of Verdi’s Aida recorded in 1963 and 1966 at Arena di Verona are some of Gencer’s best performances. Her interpretation of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni DVD which was recorded for Rai TV in 1960 is remarkable. Despite her great success as Charlotte, Werther was unfortunately performed in Italian as it was very common at that time, but this recording didn’t become popular because of today’s opera standards.

Q U E E N  O F  P I R A T E S  -  II

Renato Caccamo: A judge, a music lover, a collector, or a pirate?
Renato Caccamo, Leyla Gencer, Pier Luigi Pizzi, n/a

If you’re not interested in the Italian politics, you haven’t probably heard of Renato Caccamo. Apart from being a serious prosecutor, he’s also a great music lover, a collector who possesses thousands of records, but he’s also a person that made pirate recordings. But he never sold any of those recordings; he just gave them to his friends and companions as gifts.

I first heard of Renato Caccamo from Leyla Gencer during one of our conversations in the 90’s when I met her. She hadn’t said his name, she’d just mentioned that the “Milan Prosecutor” was a fan of hers.  And after many years, I found out about the importance of the Prosecutor Renato Caccamo on Leyla Gencer’s career.

As far as I remember, I first met Renato Caccamo in Istanbul, when we were at Leyla Gencer’s apartment (I guess it was in 2006) and when he found out that I was a fan of hers as well, he took a DVD out of his pocket and gave it to me hastily. It was the video recording of Gencer’s Paris recital in 1985 (cover on the left) and I was extremely happy about acquiring that record which was rare. 
Gencer had mentioned Caccamo only a few times as “The Milan Prosecutor” but she’d never talked about their friendship or shared information about him. As I later found out from Gencer’s friends, Caccamo had a major importance on Leyla Gencer’s career. 
Caccamo recorded all Gencer’s performances. By the way, Renato Caccamo didn’t record only Gencer’s concerts; his hobby was to record almost all the concerts that he attended, make collections, and then give those recordings to his friends as gifts. Thereby, most of Leyla Gencer’s concerts that weren’t broadcasted in radio or television were somehow passed on and consequently, those recordings were released by the labels, later giving Leyla Gencer the nickname: “The Queen of the Pirates”. 
Certainly, the mentioned pirate recordings have poor sound quality, but they are critically important since they’re the evidence of Gencer’s long and successful career. 
Recently, I saw this recording in Youtube whilst doing research on Gencer, which I’m also sharing in the below.
It’s an extremely interesting recording and it also contains information about Leyla Gencer.  Especially, it’s thrilling to know that Domingo, Gencer, Caccamo, Pollini and Dino Ciani interpreted the whole La Traviata all together after a concert, until morning. There’s also a short audio recording available. Of course, I suggest you listen to it considering that it was recorded after midnight.
Apart from his relationship with Leyla Gencer, I find Renato Caccamo’s life and personality quite interesting, and I suggest you watch the related Youtube link that I’m sharing with you. 

JEFFREY SWAN REMEMBERS RENATO CACCAMO

2018.01.18
Presented by Jeffrey Swann
ARSC New York / Chapter January Meeting



The New York Chapter of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections presents its January 2018 program:
Renato Caccamo was born 26 August 1934 in Siderno, Calabria in Italy's deep South. His love of music began early and was centred on the piano. In Rome, he studied Law and studied piano at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. He was he was in his mid-20's when he moved to Milan in the late 50s. He became both a criminal judge and a devotee of that city’s concert life, his interest focused on the Teatro alla Scala. Because of unique opportunities stemming from his important social position, his persistence, and an indefatigable energy, he became La Scala's de facto archivist in the early 60s. For the next 20 years he recorded (or had recorded for him on first class sound equipment) not only everything at La Scala — operas and concerts — but also virtually everything of substance in all of Italy's major venues: RAI, Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, various festivals, etc. He recorded almost everything, but his chief interests were opera (originally Wagner) and piano, his own instrument. He became close friends with many major musical celebrities during this period, e.g., Abbado, Pollini, Muti, Weissenberg, Leyla Gencer, Nikita Magaloff, Dino Ciani, and many others, due, at least in part, because he was so useful to them in making copies of performances from his ever-growing collection. I became his friend in 1975 when I won the first Dino Ciani piano competition at La Scala. Ciani had tragically died in an auto accident the year before at the age of 32, and for the next 36 years Renato's apartment in Piazza Borromeo was my chief European residence. During the first part of this period, hardly a day passed without a call from someone such as Abbado or Muti or Pollini or Accardo to request a copy of some specific performance. And everyday recordings from Europe and America and, occasionally, Japan would arrive in exchange for recordings that he had made. So, the collection became gigantic (and rather out of control). In the meantime, Renato had become an increasingly powerful and important judge. His position at retirement was President of the Court of Appeals, Fourth District (Milan). Due to the temporary liberalization of piracy laws in the late 80s, many of Renato's tapes were becoming commercial records. With the loss of exclusivity, Renato’s zeal to record substantially diminished. By the mid 90's his passion for collecting was mostly in the realm of books, of which he possessed 80-90,000 volumes. At his death, on 6 September 2011, Renato's collection of recordings was in a sadly confused state. The catalogues were long out of date, and not all the older recordings had been migrated to more durable formats. The entire collection is now housed at La Scala, but inaccessible because the lack of resolution of privacy and copyright issues. The collection also includes something like 10,000 hours of video recordings (many informal) made between 1995 and his death. There are extraordinary treasures buried there, some of which I will describe.

 

Jeffrey Swann (winner of 1° Premio Dino Ciani 1975)
Photo © Teatro alla Scala / ERIO PICCAGLIANI, Milano

Jeffrey Swann is currently Artistic Director of the Dino Ciani Festival & Academy in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy; Professor of Piano at New York University; and the President’s Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at Northern Arizona University. Himself a native of Northern Arizona, he studied with Alexander Uninsky at Southern Methodist University, and with Beveridge Webster and Adele Marcus at The Juilliard School, where he received the B.M., M.M. and D.M.A. Degrees. He won first prize in the Dino Ciani Competition sponsored by Milan’s La Scala; a gold medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels; and top honours at the Warsaw Chopin, Van Cliburn, Vianna da Motta and Montreal Competitions, as well as the Young Concert Artists auditions in New York City. His large and varied repertoire embraces more than 60 concertos and solo works ranging from Bach to Boulez. His performing career has taken him throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia, appearing with major orchestras and conductors. He lectures regularly at the Bayreuth Festival, and at Wagner Societies in the United States and Italy and is a frequent judge at competitions. He has recorded for DG, RCA Italiana, Fonit-Cetra, Replica, Agorà, and Music and Arts.

 
RECORDING
2018.01.18
Presented by Jeffrey Swann
ARSC New York / Chapter Januaary Meeting

Leyla Gencer Violetta Valery

Placido Domingo Alfredo Germont
Maurizio Pollini Giorgio Germont
Dino Ciani Piano and chorus

Renato Caccamo who was a big fan of Leyla Gencer recorded almost all ll of her performances. In addition to being a prosecuting attorney in Milan, he was also a close friend of renowned artists of that era. In November 1970 (it’s indicated as December 1969 in the video above), the Milan prosecuter Renato Caccamo was at the concert of La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Riccardo Muti along with his friends. Some of those friends were: Leyla Gencer, Placido Domingo and Maurizio Pollini. The pianist Dino Ciani was the soloist of the concert. When the concert ended, Muti left and Gencer, Domingo, Ciani, Pollini, Caccamo got together (probably at Gencer’s apartment) and they sang whole La Traviata from the beginning until the end. And that midnight concert was recorded by Caccamo. You can listen to Gencer’s interpretation Addio del passato in the video above (from 21:30). This video is also very interesting since it also contains some information about Gencer. 

 

 
MORTO CACCAMO, IL MELOMANE CHE CONDANNO CRAXI
2011.09.07

L’uomo che ha condannato Bettino Craxi a un decennio di reclusione nei processi Eni-Sai e per le mazzette della metropolitana milanese si è spento a Milano la mattina di martedì 6 settembre, al termine di una lunga malattia. Renato Caccamo, presidente della quarta sezione della Corte d’Appello di Milano negli anni di Tangentopoli, si era costruito, condanna dopo condanna, una fama di inflessibilità, sempre rivendicata con orgoglio contro il “generale lassismo”. Pochissimo incline a dichiarazioni, Caccamo aveva comunque raccontato alla stampa di aver fatto parte dei giovani socialisti e di aver sempre votato Psi prima di trasformarsi nell’incubo della classe dirigente del partito.

Di lui si diceva che si vantasse di non aver mai assolto nessuno: leggenda smentita dalla discussa sentenza del 2006 sulla strage di Linate a favore dei direttori degli aeroporti milanesi e anche, anni prima, dall’assoluzione di Berlusconi per la compravendita dei terreni di Macherio. Alle costanti, inevitabili critiche di chi gli contestava di ragionare come un pubblico ministero più che come un giudice o lo liquidava come “talebano” opponeva le numerose conferme ottenute in Cassazione e la certezza che nessuno avrebbe mai contestato la limpidezza delle sue motivazioni.
La vita di Caccamo, però, era un’altra. Trascinato da una passione musicale insaziabile, ha frequentato per decenni tutti i concerti e tutte le serate d’opera non solo milanesi stringendo amicizie profonde con gli artisti che spesso, finiti gli applausi, si intrattenevano a cena a casa sua. E lui, un po’ ossessivamente, registrava, riprendeva tutto: la musica, ma anche la calca in camerino, le discussioni. Le sue registrazioni, autorizzate o no (alla Scala era stato Paolo Grassi a fornirgli un lasciapassare), nell’ultimo periodo erano spesso solo un doppione di quelle realizzate dai teatri. Ma in anni non troppo remoti costituivano l’unica documentazione esistente di esecuzioni anche eccelse. Basta ricordare Leyla Gencer, il grande soprano che nessuna major discografica aveva messo sotto contratto.
Anche nella passione e nella sacrosanta partigianeria musicale Caccamo conservava un giudizio indipendente e aggiornato sera per sera: apprezzava una buona esecuzione anche se veniva da un artista di cui aveva poca stima e riservava stroncature sprezzanti alle “serate no” dei suoi prediletti. Vita pubblica e passione musicale si sono intrecciate nel 2004, quando Caccamo ha vigorosamente preso le parti del Sovrintendente scaligero Carlo Fontana nel conflitto con il Direttore musicale Riccardo Muti raccogliendo un dossier sull’operato di Mauro Meli, fortemente voluto dal Maestro alla Sovrintendenza, nelle precedenti esperienze di gestione. Negli ultimi anni la lotta contro la malattia è stata soprattutto una lotta per continuare ad essere ai concerti: nel 2007 a Philadelphia Riccardo Chailly dovette spiegare personalmente alla security della Verizon Hall che “sì, questo signore può registrare”. Solo pochi mesi fa l’ultima trasferta, al Festival Mahler di Lipsia.