L E Y L A G E N
C E R & I
2021.05.20
© Ahmet Etem Erenli
My first encounter with Leyla
Gencer was in 1986 at the “Tower Records” which was London’s biggest record
store in that period.
Considering that the national
press often exaggerated the international reputation levels of the Turkish
artists, I wasn’t very much interested in Gencer at that time, and I hadn’t
listened to any of her recordings. I wasn’t even aware that there were records
of Leyla Gencer until that very day. Seeing numerous long plays of Gencer at
the opera section of Tower Records caught my attention.
Initially, I bought two of her
records. One of them was Rigoletto and the other one was Simon
Boccanegra. Since I had just begun listening to opera just a few years
before, I found Simon Boccanegra rather intense, dark, and
boring. So, I quit listening to Boccanegra and began listening
to Rigoletto. When I first listened, it didn’t quite inspire me, so
I didn’t pay much attention to it. I can now say that it was the second
time that I’d made a similar mistake. I’d found Callas “extravagant” in Lucia
di Lammermoor and quit listening to it. But then I kept hearing her
voice in my head for many days and eventually I became a true Callas fan.
Exactly like how I couldn’t get Gencer out of my head and how Simon
Boccanegra became one of my favourite operas in the following years.
In the course of time, I
collected all official and pirate recordings of Gencer and Callas and I’ve
achieved a quiet prominent collection. But being somehow addicted to these two
artists and “as a third artist I may also add Caballé to the ensemble”, I’ve
not been much sympathetic towards the contemporary opera artists. I still
prefer listening to the exciting live recordings of these three artists rather
than listening to the contemporary recordings that are realized with optimum
technical equipment.
I have never loved the
perfection. Meanwhile, the world is filled with perfect singers. Yet rather
than listening to those perfect voices, I have always prefered listening to
singers who made perfect impacts. An effective accentuation of maybe just
one word in the libretto is enough to take me to a whole different world. Who
can easily forget Figlia impura di Bolena (Maria Stuarda /
Florence)? What about Vivi ingrato, Quel sangue versato (Roberto
Devereux)? I guess a very few people have
the record of her recital in Naples (1984) where she sang Tu che voli già spirto beato...No, qui morir
degg’io from Donizetti’s opera Fausta as an encore.
The aria was interrupted in the middle by applauses and its finale was cheered
with enthusiastic shouts and ovation.
Just like Callas, Gencer is
also one of the artists who possessed the perfect imperfection. She
had many flaws, but she had the ability to embrace and invade you with her
voice and never let you go. But it’s not easy to like her either. You must know
well the opera that you’re listening to. You must know the libretto, you must
read it and you should also be informed about the history of it a little bit,
if the opera is based on historical events. And of course, you must be a fan of
the Italian opera too. Neither Callas’, nor Gencer’s voices were suitable for
the German operas. But one must definitely mention Gencer’s interpretation of
Mozart operas. Idomeneo, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni (Donna
Anna and Donna Elvira) are the operas where she stood up for her interpretation
of Mozart; especially as Contessa, Elettra and Donna Elvira. I also believe
that she was unopposed as Elettra in Idomeneo. Her interpretation
of the Contessa at Glyndebourne in 1962 is also one of the performances that
impressed me the most. Although she sang only one aria of Konstanze from Die
Entführung aus dem Serail which was in Italian, I still find it rather
fabulous.
Since I have started
mentioning Gencer’s opera interpretations, I would also like to write my
opinions of some of the operas that she sang: Aida is one of the
operas that Gencer recorded the most. It was recorded and broadcasted three
different times on television. Today we have two TV recordings from Verona.
Unfortunately, the recording of her performance at Caracalla (1970) isn’t
available in video form, but it’s available as an audio record. In 1966, the
audio recording of the La Scala production was criticised rather harsly.
And despite my thorough research, I haven’t been able to find that
recording. It’s interesting that not only Gencer, but all the artists of
the cast were harshly criticised for that production. Frankly, Aida isn’t
among my favourite operas, so I don’t wish to write so much about it, but
Gencer’s interpretation of O Cieli azzurri has always seemed
to me as if it comes from another dimension. Especially, her
extraordinary piannisimos are utterly exquisite.
Now it’s time to write
about Anna Bolena. There are three recordings of Gencer as Anna
Bolena. They are from her young age (1958), Middle age (1965) and Mature Age
(1977) periods; so it’s exciting to witness how her interpretation changed
through the years. The first and the second recordings are exquisite, but I
would like to especially write about her performance in Rome (1977). I think
that Gencer, who was at the age of 58, achieved top class dramaticism in that
production. Although she once personally told me that she wasn’t much pleased
with her performance there and it was recorded when she was seriously sick. Her
best interpretation of Anne Boleyn, who was a very young woman, would be
considered as the one in 1958, “because of the age factor”, but my heart will
always be set on her performance in 1977.
I personally find Belisario as
one of the milestones of the Donizetti Renaissance. It might have affected me
since the story is set in Byzantium, in the terrain of my homeland. I
have all three records of her Belisario performances, and I might say that I’m
very much attached to all three. Although I’m not actually a fan of Donizetti’s
“saving the best for last” habit (apart from some exceptions), Egliè spento is without any doubt, one of
the most impressive arias that Gencer ever sang. Even though the name of the
opera is Belisario, Gencer sings her part with absolute
perfection and makes the opera her own.
And Caterina Cornaro;
it’s another Donizetti opera that I absolutely love. I agree with all
my heart to the New York audience that enthusiastically applauded Gencer’s
triumph. It’s an authentic Donizetti interpretation: from the beginning, until
the end. I think it was a big mistake for MET to have never included her in
their program, even after that amazing performance. They did the same thing to
Piero Cappuccilli who was one of the most important baritones of the 20th century.
Gencer was the most prominent
person of the Donizetti Renaissance, but I think that she was also a major
Verdi interpreter. Since she was an Acting Singer, Verdi’s
operas provided her great opportunities to show all her skills. One of those
operas was Don Carlos. Gencer sang Don Carlos for four seasons at
La Scala (1961, 1963,1964, 1970) and in Vienna, Rome, London, San Francisco,
Los Angeles and Bologna. Corriere della sera defined her performance as a major
triumph but the Opera Magazine called Gencer a wrong
choice for the premiere. This irony also demonstrates perfectly how
Anglo-Saxon preferences differ from the Italian gusto. The British producers
who majorly dominated the recording industry never much appreciated Gencer’s
interpretations. The difference between the interpretative styles of these two
cultures caused a disadvantage for Gencer since the British were the patrons of
the recording industry. As I stated at the “Queen of Pirates” section which you
can find at the first page of the blog, even though a great conductor such as
Tullio Serafin had wanted Leyla Gencer for his recording sessions,
unfortunately the major “labels” of the industry excluded her anyway.
I don’t know if you’ve ever
listened to Rossini’s Elisabetta Regina d’Inghilterra.
Unfortunately, there are so few of its recordings. But it’s an exquisite opera.
There are three recordings of this opera sung by Gencer. But the British
critics didn’t like her performance at Edinburgh either. Nevertheless, this
opera is a real miracle where we can hear Gencer’s strong interpretation when
her voice was at its peak. This opera requires strength, sensibility, and
flawless pianissimos, which Gencer delivers even better than expected. After
her performance in Milan, Le Monde wrote: The Miracle of Palermo.
I Lombardi (Verdi) was overshadowed by other Verdi operas
of that era such as: Nabucco, Ernani and I due
Foscari, so it wasn’t performed much. There’s a second version of this
opera called Jérusaleme, which was written for the audience of
Paris. And its Italian name is Gerusalemme. Although it’s almost
unknown, it’s still a very powerful opera. Gencer sang this opera in Venice
(1963) for the first time, and it was so successful that, the following year
the opera was once again included in the seasonal program. In 1965, the same
production was also staged in Münich and then in Wiesbaden (1965).
One of my favourite
interpretations of Gencer is undoubtedly Il Trovatore, the one
which was recorded for RAI in 1957. It’s still one of the recordings that I
listen to the most and which I still haven’t got tired of. Even del Monaco
wasn’t at his best and I would have preferred Corelli instead of him; but
Ettore Bastianini and Fedora Barbieri were fabulous. Gencer’s interpretation
of D'amor sull'ali rosee...Miserere is peerless.
During some of my
conversations with Gencer, she often mentioned that she’d sung La
Traviata perfectly at Moskow’s Bolshoi Theatre and even though she’d
searched for a recording of it, she wasn’t able to find one. Her performance
of La Traviata that was recorded in Rio wasn’t perfect, but I
personally think that it’s much better than many studio recordings of the
opera. Especially her impaccable interpretation of the aria Addio del
passato and the reaction of the audience after the executions of both
Addio del passato and Amami Alfredo contradict with the
opinions of the critics of that era. Even though Gencer sang in many
productions of La Traviata, unfortunately it’s an opera of
which we have the least recordings. We only have the recording from Rio de
Janeiro.
Hereby, I would like to take a
break from writing my opinions of Gencer’s opera performances and I’d like to
share some personal information about her.
Having lived mostly abroad;
one of the things that Leyla Gencer missed the most was the Turkish cuisine;
especially the vegetable dishes. Therefore, every time that she visited
Istanbul, Mr. Şakir Eczacıbaşı; the President of the Istanbul Foundation of Culture
and Arts, invited her to his house where he served extremely delicious Aegean
vegetable dishes. Here you can find some photos taken during some one of those
dinners.
Yekta Kara, me and Gencer;
looking at something, but I currently don’t remember what it was. The
photos were of course taken by Şakir Eczacıbaşı. The other dinner guests were
Görgün Taner and Ömür Bozkurt.
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2006 Ahmet Erenli, Leyla Gencer, Yekta Kara Photo © Şakir Eczacıbaşı, Istanbul |
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2006 Ahmet Erenli, Leyla Gencer, Yekta Kara Photo © Şakir Eczacıbaşı, Istanbul |
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2006 Leyla Gencer, Yekta Kara Photo © Şakir Eczacıbaşı, Istanbul |
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2005 Ahmet Erenli, Leyla Gencer, Görgün Taner Photo © Ömür Bozkurt, Milano |
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2005 Ahmet Erenli, Leyla Gencer, Yeşim Gürer Oymak Photo © Ömür Bozkurt, Milano |
Another photograph; taken at
Leyla Gencer’s apartment in Milan. I was there with Görgün Taner, Yeşim Gürer
and Ömür Bozkurt. I guess the photo was taken by Ömür Bozkurt. During one of
our gatherings in Milan, she told me a noteworthy memoir: Gencer and Mr. Lissner who was the Artistic Director of La Scala in that
period, were at a table during a reception at La Scala. Angela Gheorghiu and
Roberto Alagna; the most admired opera couple of that era, were also among the
guests. The famous couple came to Gencer’s table and Roberto
said: Signora, I would like to introduce you, my wife. Gencer
looked at Angela and said: young lady, you are very pretty. Are you
also a singer? Of course, her question was followed by a moment of
silence. I asked her Signora, why did you ask him such thing? Didn’t
you know that Gheorghiu was a very famous soprano? And her answer was
phenomenal: Ahmet, my dear, as sopranos we sometimes do things like
this.
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2008.01.20 Gencer with her close friend and Ambassador Şule Soysal
Photo © Teatro alla Scala |
In 1995, Yapı Kredi Bank used
to organize a festival like Istanbul Music Festival, for some reason named “The
Youth Festival” in the months of May and June. The organization of two very
similar festivals at the same time was very challenging for both parties. The
classical music audience was divided in half and both festivals were negatively
affected by the consequences. That year Mr. Aydın Gün, who was the Artistic
Director of the Yapı Kredi Festival announced that they were going to organize
a voice competition named after Leyla Gencer. I was working at the Istanbul
Music Festival in that period, and I remember very well that I was very upset
by that news. Sure, it was a well-intentioned initiative, but I believed that
the corporations that weren’t originally oriented towards art, could only
support that kind of demanding projects only for a limited period and the
project should have been realized by IKSV. And in time, my idea was
proven to be right. The management changed, budget cuts were made, and the first
cut was in culture & arts. So, the Leyla Gencer Voice Competition was
annulled only after three editions.
Yapı Kredi organized the
competition for the last time in 2000 and finally in 2004 it was transferred to
IKSV thanks to the major efforts of the Ambassadress Şule Soysal who was the
head of the Department of Cultural Affairs within the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. That transfer made us think that the competition finally came
to its home, but it also came with its challenges because it was
organized in the name of a living person. As I was the Director of the Music
Festival in that period, I was put in charge for the competition’s
organization, and I became the Director of the Competition also.
From that day and on, the
phone calls between Milan and Istanbul never stopped. The competition was
scheduled for 2006, and Leyla Gencer was following every step of it. She
sometimes complained in ways that demoralized some of the people who were
working for the competition. And since Accademia della Scala was also one of
the partners, she was concerned even more. She wasn’t happy about almost
anything and kept saying that the organization would fail. Meanwhile the
Festival was being held, the date of the competition was approaching and
Signora Leyla whom I was always supposed to calm down, kept on calling me. I
was also in my last three-month period at IKSV, and I would later become the
General Manager of Borusan Sanat in September-2006.
In such a chaotic environment,
it was actually very challenging to work with Leyla Gencer but strangely, I
enjoyed talking to her on the phone too; especially when we were talking about
opera and her personal life. She had such beautiful anecdotes. Of course, it
wouldn’t be appropriate to share each of them in this blog. Nevertheless, all
her difficulties, Leyla Gencer knew very well how to make amends. One sentence
of her was enough to melt our hearts and forget about her past caprices; so, we
could keep on working. During our visits to her apartments both in
Istanbul and Milan, she served us exquisite food and sometimes we just enjoyed
eating ham sandwiches together...
Down below, you can find some
of the photos that were taken before and after the competition. The final date
of the competition was on August 30th which is also my
birthday.
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Şakir Eczacıbaşı, Leyla Gencer, Ahmet Erenli, Stephen Lissner, Yekta Kara 2006.08.30 Hotel Armada, Istanbul Photo © IFCA / Ilgın Eraslan, Istanbul |
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Leyla Gencer, Ahmet Erenli, Stephen Lissner 2006.08.30 Hotel Armada, Istanbul Photo © IFCA / Ilgın Eraslan, Istanbul |
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Leyla Gencer, Ahmet Erenli, Stephen Lissner 2006.08.30 Hotel Armada, Istanbul Photo © IFCA / Ilgın Eraslan, Istanbul |
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Leyla Gencer, Ahmet Erenli, Stephen Lissner 2006.08.30 Hotel Armada, Istanbul Photo © IFCA / Ilgın Eraslan, Istanbul |
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Leyla Gencer, Ahmet Erenli, Stephen Lissner 2006.08.30 Hotel Armada, Istanbul Photo © IFCA / Ilgın Eraslan, Istanbul |
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Leyla Gencer, Ahmet Erenli, Stephen Lissner 2006.08.30 Hotel Armada, Istanbul Photo © IFCA / Ilgın Eraslan, Istanbul |
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Ahmet Erenli, Leyla Gencer, Melahat Behlil Arrival to the Competition Finale 2006.08.30 Hagia Irene Museum, Istanbul Photo © IFCA / Ilgın Eraslan, Istanbul |
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Görgün Taner, Stephen Lissner, Leyla Gencer, Ahmet Erenli 2006.08.30 Hagia Irene Museum, Istanbul Photo © IFCA / Ilgın Eraslan, Istanbul |
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Ahmet Erenli, Leyla Gencer, Melahat Behlil Arrival to the Reception 2006.08.30 Hotel Armada, Istanbul Photo © IFCA / Ilgın Eraslan, Istanbul |
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My birthday celebration 2006.08.30 Hotel Armada, Istanbul Melahat Behlil, Melis Behlil, Yeşim Gürer Oymak, Nilgün Mirze, Görgün Taner, Üstüngel İnanç Photo © IFCA / Ilgın Eraslan, Istanbul |
Now I would like to take a
break from writing my souvenirs and I’ll continue from where I’d left. If you
ask me what my least favourite opera interpretation of Gencer is, I’d briefly
say that it’s Werther. I don’t know if my dislike is
caused by my antipathy towards this opera in general, or because it wasn’t sung
in its original language. Or maybe just because Gencer didn’t much like this
opera either. Contrary to Manon, Werther always
seemed dull, stagnant, and boring to me. When Gencer was asked to sing Werther,
she wanted to reject it at first, but Tullio Serafin told her to sing it and
said You should definitely sing this opera. It’s a very important step
for your career and you must learn it. Consequently, Gencer sang it in
Italian first for RAI in 1955 and in 1959 she sang it again in Trieste.
I may say that the other
Donizetti Queens (apart from Anna Bolena) have now become Gencer’s
brands. Her interpretations of Maria Stuarda and Queen
Elizabeth in Roberto Devereux are still appraised by the opera
fans of Florence and Naples although it’s been almost 50 years since she
performed them. Although the production of Maria Stuarda was
enthusiastically cheered and applauded in Florence, when the same cast
performed the opera in Edinburgh (1969), Gencer still wasn’t appreciated by the
British critics. Gencer has a major dominance over Roberto Devereux.
She easily delivers all the challenging vocal acquirements that the role of
Elisabeth demands. She reaches the peak of perfection in all arias. She’s the
only one ruling the opera. There’s Queen Elizabeth; a woman torn between love,
vengeance, and duty, yet Gencer revives her every word: Quel sangue
versato… al cielo s’innalza… giustizia domanda…. reclama vendetta and
the cheering of the audience is indescribable.
In 1960, Gencer was cast along
with Maria Callas for the production Poliuto at La Scala.
Callas sang in the first five performances and Gencer sang in the following
three. Both sopranos sang with the tenor Franco Corelli. Unfortunately, we
don’t have a recording of that production, but we have the record of Poliuto that
was performed in Barcelona (1975). Les Martyrs; which is the French
version of this opera was wonderfully staged at La Fenice in 1977. Gencer sang
both operas at a very mature age, but they are critically important because
these operas were therefore revived in the opera repertoire.
Some people who believe that
Gencer was born in 1928 may be surprised whilst reading the sentence above
“Gencer was at a mature age”. As stated in the book “I, Leyla Gencer” written
by Evin İlyasoğlu in 2018, according to the records of Liceo Italiano; Gencer
was born in 1919. Considering the accuracy of the high school documents, we can
clearly say that Gencer had a very long career.
And now, one of my favourite
operas: Attila. Gencer was a perfect Odabella. There are 3
recordings of this opera: The ones made in Florence on 19th and
31st of December 1972 and the one that was recorded in New
Jersey. I like the recording of Attila that was performed on December 19th,
1972, and released by Maggio Musicale in 2019. There you can hear the perfect
syntony achieved by young Riccardo Muti, Gencer and Ghiaurov. Since this record
is rather new, it’s not available on Youtube yet. I can say that it’s the
best Attila recording ever made.
The first La Gioconda performance
of Gencer that I listened was the record of her performance in Rome (1971).
After that, I acquired the recordings made at La Fenice, Palermo, San
Francisco, and Macerata. And every time I listened to them, I found Gencer very
suitable for this opera no matter what the critics said. Some say that this
opera is a bit too dramatic for Gencer’s voice, but I disagree with them. If
you compare her performance with some artists who recorded it in the studio,
you’ll easily see the difference. That includes Tebaldi’s recording of the
opera too. Hereby, I would like to write another opinion of mine; frankly, I
prefer comparing artists based on their live performances. You can feel their
true energy in the live recordings. Meanwhile, the studio recordings are
repeated many times, among which the best takes are chosen. So, they don’t
reflect the opera’s natural flow.
For people who would like to
listen to a very good Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, I’d
primarily suggest them to buy the record of Gencer that she sang fabulously at
Bologna Theatre (1961). After that performance, the British Opera Magazine
wrote: A first-class Amelia. They somehow appreciated her finally.
In my opinion, Callas and Gencer were the best Amelias.
Gencer sang Norma in
8 different productions and fortunately we have almost all the recordings of
them. And of course, the La Scala production of Norma had a
unique importance since it was the first Norma interpretation there after
Callas’ absence. When I asked Leyla Gencer about its premiere, she said they
didn’t do much, they complained a little bit at first but in the end, everybody
was giving me a standing ovation. She was talking about the fanatic
opera audience so called I Loggionisti; who watched every
opera performance in the gallery and who booed severely when they disliked a
singer. But when Deh! Non volerli vittime ended, they were all
giving a standing ovation. Below, I’ve attached the mentioned aria: you can
listen and witness the emotions that she brings out while singing it:
RECORDING EXCERPT
Deh! Non voleri vittime from Norma
Selçuk Metin’s Doumentary © “La Diva Turca”
La Stampa: Leyla
Gencer: Ah, that voice!
Il Giorno Newspaper: A voice that makes the choir cry.
Journal d’Orient: A very big success.
L’Avanti: The strongest part of the night was Gencer.
Il Seccolo: Endless ovation clearly proved
Gencer’s and Gui’s success.
L’Unita: It’s
impossible to imagine anybody else rather than Leyla Gencer to portrait Alceste
more majestically.
All these praiseful articles were about Gencer’s
interpretation of Alceste. In 2003 Cecilia Bartoli was in Istanbul
to give a concert and she was accompanied by her mother Silvana Bazzoni
who’s also her voice teacher. During one of our conversations, she talked
enthusiastically how magnificent Gencer’s performance as Alceste in
Rome was.
I saved my favourite Gencer interpretation for last: Macbeth. She
sang this opera at 13 different theatres. Lady Macbeth, who’s one of the two
main characters of the opera can’t get any more impressive than that. Gencer
was awarded with endless applauses when she sang the opera at the age of 56 at
the Theatre of Florence in 1975 under the baton of Muti. Her voice was an
absolute match for this opera. When compared to Gencer’s Lady Macbeth, Birgit
Nilsson’s interpretation of the opera, that she’d sung and recorded
by the persuasion of the record labels, seems like a joke. It was a major
mistake for such an important singer. Ghena Dimitrova and Maria Guleghina who
stood out as Lady Macbeth in the 80’s can’t fulfil this role’s acquirements
either. But in 1980, Leyla Gencer overconfidently sang Macbeth, which
was a thing that she shouldn’t have done. One of Gencer’s close friends, Baritone
Renato Bruson with whom she shared the stage numerous times and who can be
called as the best Macbeth of the 20th century,
once told me that he forgot to enter the stage whilst watching Gencer during
a Macbeth performance. And in one of his interviews with Corriere
della sera, he said that Leyla Gencer was the best Lady Macbeth that
he’d sung with. The great opera and theatre director Giorgio Strehler wished to
stage Macbeth for Leyla Gencer, but unfortunately that project wasn’t realized.
She did performances of Cosi
fan tutte, Tosca, The Consul, Un ballo in maschera, Cavalleria Rusticana, Don
Giovanni, Madama Butterfly, La Traviata, Kerem ile Aslı and numerous
recitals, concerts. However, we have the
recordings of the recitals and the concerts that she gave at the Istanbul Music
Festival from 1974 and on. TRT (Turkish Radio and Television) has these
recordings in its archive and occasionally broadcasts them. I could only listen
to her once in the recital that she gave in 1989, when she was in her
seventies. I’d heard about her successful performances of Tosca and The Counsul
from my family members.
In the paragraphs above, I’ve
written about some of the operas that Gencer sang. I would like you to know
that when this blog is complete, you’re going to find all of my notes about
each opera that she performed.
SOME OF MY ARTICLES ABOUT LEYLA GENCER
2006 June
Ahmet Etem Erenli © [Borusan Sanat]
Last of the Divas
Leyla Gencer is certainly one of the greatest divas of the 20th century, and
the last one…. Not only did she endow and entirely new and different air to the
characters of the classical opera, but also dewed into a search for the
unknown, unearthed them and subscribed her presence as a performer and a
researcher on many works which are include in today’s opera repertoire.
People learned and loved Beatrice
di Tenda, Belisario, Lucrezia Borgia, Roberto Devereux, Maria Stuarda with
Gencer, thanks to whom these works have become a part of today’s opera. It is
her who sang Anna Bolena for long years after Maria Callas. Her
performance of Lady in Macbeth marks one of the many zeniths in her career
which also extended towards Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux,
Alceste and Norma. Singing Norma nine
times in a season at the La Scala alone is a phenomenon. Should one speak
romantic Italian repertoire’s shift from oblivion to stages, her extraordinary
musical intelligence and full control of her instrument needs to be justifiably
mentioned.
More than fifty of her
opera performances exceeding eighty in number have taken their places on the
music market thanks, strangely, to pirate recordings and are in extremely high
demand. Gencer’s unparalleled charisma and stage presence is instantly felt
even in these recordings.
She has pioneered in the
staging of Vivaldi’s Bajazed at the 27th Istanbul Music
Festival for the first time since 1735. Recorded afterwards by Europa Galante
and Fabio Biondi, the opera received great critical acclaim.
Following her performance at
the famous Athénée Theatre of Paris on October 20, 1980, music critic Sergio
Segalini wrote People were bent on their knees, watching her lips. Opera has
never been as impressive as it was in her time, and it shall never be so.
2011.01.12
Ahmet
Etem Erenli © [Borusan Sanat]
Commemorating the Great Diva
As soon as she set foot in
Italy with the determination to perform at the stage of La Scala, she adorned
the European stages, thanks to her voice, dramatic power, and true diva like
manners. She reached even beyond her dreams; became a primadonna of La Scala
where she sang for thirty years and engraved her name in the 20thcentury’s
opera history as a pioneer artist. She quit singing when she was at the peak of
her career, but since she’s always felt responsible, she continued working for
many years as a teacher to train young opera singers for the opera
stages. The world acknowledged her as La Diva Turca. Italy,
the core of opera accepted and appreciated her as a queen, but she never forgot
her homeland. And when she passed away, according to her will, her ashes
reunited with the waters of the Bosphorus which she loved. And we commemorated
her as well as we were supposed to. Borusan Culture and Arts, has also been and
will go on commemorating the great diva with the concerts where the young opera
stars meet the classical music audience...
2013.03.28
Ahmet
Etem Erenli © [Borusan Sanat]
She was given so many names:
La Diva Turca, The Queen Leyla, The Fiancée of the Pirates...but she was
undoubtedly one of the revolutionary divas of the opera world. She was
different. Many operas which are staged today were brought back to the opera
repertoire because of her efforts. She wasn’t just an artist with a beautiful
voice but an artist who could act with her voice; she could revive and give meaning
to every word that she said. She maybe didn’t possess a big voice, but she sang
magnificently both coloratura and dramatic roles thanks to her perfect vocal
technique. I believe that it’s not easy to find a singer today who could sing
Lucia and Lady Macbeth one night after another.
Today, there are over 120 live
opera records of Gencer which are available in music stores, and she is still
one of the bestselling artists of the pirate recording music industry.
Why do opera fans still mostly
prefer buying the poorly recorded, scratchy CDs of Gencer instead of the DDDs
that are the current technological miracles? Because she was different! How
come we can easily find five different recordings of Norma and Lady
Macbeth? Because each time she sang them, she’d tried to portrait a
different Norma or a Lady Macbeth. She once told
me that she was still learning about opera. And when I asked who she was
learning from, she told me that she was learning from her students to whom she
was teaching. I believe that it’s exactly what made her special: Her passion
for opera.
Leyla Gencer passed away five
years ago. Her death was announced in the newspapers all around the world. She
never performed at MET, but the news of her death was announced at the MET’s
website as Breaking News. The great conductor Lorin Maazel
announced her death right before his performance at La Scala Theatre and there
was a moment of silence in the whole theatre. 50 of the most prestigious
newspapers of the world wrote about her death in their websites and shared
information about her life and career. And of course, the Turkish press wrote
about her too.
Before organizing our first concert dedicated to Leyla Gencer, we discussed for
a long time about how we should commemorate her. Actually, the answer was quite
easy. We decided to commemorate her with opera; to what she was so passionately
dedicated. But which operas would we choose? Would it be appropriate to choose
the operas that she’d made famous, or could we choose any opera from the
repertoire? We chose the second option. And once again one of Leyla Gencer’s
quotes inspired us to do so: “Never be steady, don’t listen to only opera, be
open to all kinds of music. You can listen to classical music, contemporary
music, jazz, folk music or pop. All genres have good and qualified examples
among them, so don’t limit your choices.” So, this quote of hers gave us
courage to not to limit ourselves within the repertoire, but we decided to
commemorate her only with “Opera”.
Leyla Gencer made great
differences in our lives; in the lives of those who loved her. I hope that
tonight’s concert will also remain as a good memory for you...
2014.03.20
Ahmet
Etem Erenli © [Borusan Sanat]
Leyla Gencer sang Tosca in
Ankara...Exactly 62 years ago...Her glamorous career started in the 50’s. And
Gencer reigned in the stages for fourty years. Among her contemporaries, there
have been only a few singers who managed to achieve such long and
active opera careers. Once she quit singing, she dedicated her life to the
education of young talents, almost until the end of her life. Everything she
did was for opera and art. When she passed away, along with numerous
fans, she also left a precious history behind. La Diva Turca, La
Regina, The Fiancée of the Pirates are some of the
nicknames that honoured her. Among everything else, she was an
excellent artist who deservedly engraved her name in the opera history of the
20th century. A true artist finds and reveals the unseen and
revives it in a new environment. I guess the best part is that; as long as the
world keeps turning, she will always be remembered as an artist who was ahead
of her time.
2015.05.14
Ahmet
Etem Erenli © [Borusan Sanat]
Dear Music Lovers
Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic
Orchestra’s tribute concerts dedicated to Leyla Gencer began in 2009 and they
have become annual. And this year’s edition is even more glorious than the
previous years. Along with renowned artists from all over the world who have achieved
major success in Aida productions, tonight we’ll also have the
chance to listen to the Chorus of the National Santa Cecilia Academy from
Italy.
Aida, who is one of Verdi’s masterpieces, was undoubtedly
a very important milesone in Leyla Gencer’s career. Between the years
1963-1973, Gencer sang Aida numerous times; first at Milan’s
La Scala, then at Caracalla Theatre of Rome, Macerata Opera Festival, San Carlo
of Naples and also at Arena di Verona under the baton of the major conductors
of the era, such as Gianandrea Gavazzeni and Tullio Serafin.
As now, there are over 100
pirate recordings of Gencer. Luckily, we also have the DVD recordings of her
most splendid Aida performances (1963 and 1966) that were
recorded by RAI Television. She left a notable mark in the opera history with
the pianissimos that she executed at the end of the famous
aria O cieli azzurri, during one of her rare
studio recordings that she did with Gavazzeni for RAI. A
few years ago, The Opera News Magazine mentioned Gencer among the best sopranos
who sang Aida at the Arena di Verona.
Leyla Gencer’s
first Aida performance was at Milan’s famous La Scala Theatre
on May 3rd, 1963. After 42 years, we commemorate the great diva in
Istanbul with the same opera.
2016.05.12
Ahmet
Etem Erenli © [Borusan Sanat]
Leyla Gencer’s Golden Era
The opera lovers of Istanbul
couldn’t watch performances of Bellini’s masterpiece Norma often. It
wasn’t performed since it was last staged at the Maksim Stage by the Istanbul
State Opera and Ballet in 1972. Finally, after 44 years, Norma will
once again be performed before the Istanbul audience in the memory of Leyla
Gencer.
The role of Norma was one of
the milestones of Gencer’s career and she performed it during the most
triumphant decade of her life. In the 60’s, she went through major changes and
had revelations in her career. She added more than twenty-five operas to
her repertoire between the years 1960-1970 and sang some operas for the first
time such as Roberto Devereux, Maria Stuarda, Lucrezia Borgia, Macbeth,
Belisario, Alceste, Elisabetta, Aida, Norma... which would
soon be remembered along with her name.
Actually, if we examine
Gencer’s repertoire between the years 1960 and 1970, we see that it’s rather
impressive. Poliuto, Un Ballo in Maschera, I
Puritani, Pique Dame, Otello, Le nozze di Figaro, Gerusalemme, Aida, I vespri
Sicilianni, Beatrice di Tenda, Guillaume Tell, Anna Bolena, Lucrezia Borgia,
Idomeneo, L’Incoronazione di Poppea and Medea are
some of the operas that she debuted during that decade. In the same period, she
also sang the leading roles of the major operas such as La Traviata,
Madama Butterfly, Don Giovanni, Tosca, Turandot, Il Trovatore and La forza del
destino.
During her career, Gencer sang Norma nearly
fourty times and her first performance was in 1962 at the famous Liceu
Theatre in Barcelona. Thanks to the success that she attained there,
she consequently performed Norma in 1964 at the Teatro Colón
in Buenos Aires under the baton of Bruno Bartoletti. Her performance of Norma at
La Scala Theatre was one of her greatest career achievements. Gencer sang Norma nine
times at La Scala, in 1965 (January and February) under the baton of the great
Italian conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni. She sang Norma the
same year, also at the Verona Opera Festival and at Teatro San Carlo of Naples.
And in 1966, she sang it at the Théâtre de Beaulieu of Lausanne under the baton
of Fernando Previtali, as part of Bologna Opera Company’s tour in Switzerland.
In 1967, Gencer sang Norma for the last time at the Theatre of Torino under the
baton of Oliviero de Fabritiis. Today the CDs of her Norma performances
from Verona, Naples, Milan, Lousanne and Buenos Aires are available.
In some of these annual
tribute concerts that we do to show our respects to Leyla Gencer’s art and
life, we also performed some operas that weren’t from her repertoire. And
actually, she was the reason for that. Because we see these tribute concerts as
a way to celebrate her love towards music and opera. And this year with Norma, which
was one of her signature roles, we think that it will be quite a special way to
commemorate her...
2018.05.17
Ahmet
Etem Erenli © [Borusan Sanat]
In the memory of Leyla Gencer
As Borusan Sanat, we always
spare a special place for Leyla Gencer in our seasonal programs. We’ve been
commemorating her every year since 2009, for all the great things that she did
for the opera and for us. Each year, we celebrate her love for music and opera.
In the past 10 years: we commemorated her with some of her signature operas
such as Tosca, Aida, La Traviata, Norma; and also, with operas
like Salome that hadn’t been performed in Istanbul since long time and last
season; with Der Rosenkavalier of Richard Strauss, which was performed for the
first time in Turkey. We thought that performing these operas before the
Istanbul audience would be a special way of celebrating Gencer’s artistic
career...
In tonight’s concert, we’ll
pay our respects to Leyla Gencer first with Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi which
will be performed by the young singers of Academy BIPO. Academy BIPO was
founded two years ago, and its young members have been trained mainly by Sascha
Goetzel- the chief conductor and Artistic Director of Borusan Philharmonic
Orchestra and director Mrs. Yekta Kara. And they’ve also attended masterclasses
of opera stars such as Luciana Serra, Renato Bruson, Giuseppe Sabbatini and Eva
Mei. During these trainings they were accompanied by pianists such as Vincenzo
Scalera, Fügen Yiğitgil and Barış Büyükyıldırım. As we acknowledge how much
importance Leyla Gencer gave to education, we would like to thank all our
teachers and Academy BIPO members for all their dedicated efforts.
One of the turning points of
Leyla Gencer’career was when she revived Donizetti’s forgotten operas and
rebrought them into the opera repertoire. Gencer sang 10 operas of Donizetti
between the years 1957–1975:
1957-Lucia di Lammermoor, 1958-Anna Bolena, 1960-Poliuto,
1964-Roberto Devereux, 1966-Lucrezia Borgia, 1967-Maria
Stuarda, 1969-Belisario, 1970-Messa di Requiem per Bellini,
1972-Caterina Cornaro and 1975-Les Martyrs...Almost all of
these operas were reincluded in the opera repertoire thanks to the efforts of
Leyla Gencer. Tonight, at the second part of our concert: we’ll
perform excerpts from some of Gencer’s signature operas such as Maria
Stuarda, Roberto Devereux and Anna Bolena with the presence of very
special Turkish opera singers who’ve been singing at theatres all around the
world and that had the chance to work with Leyla Gencer. Whilst we
commemorate Leyla Gencer at the tenth year of her passing by, we also wanted to
share the recordings of these three operas that engraved her name gloriously in
the opera history, with a very special presentation. We’re very happy to
present the new CDs of Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto
Devereux that were prepared through our cooperation with A.K. Müzik.
Of course, that’s not all we did to commemorate Leyla Gencer and to share her
life and art with the upcoming generations.... The book named Romanzo
vero di una primadonna which is based on Leyla Gencer’s life, written
in 1986 by Franca Cella in Italian, will now be published in English thanks to
Borusan Sanat’s contributions. And we’re also happy to announce that through
the cooperation of Borusan Sanat and Yapı Kredi Culture and Arts Publishing,
another book about Leyla Gencer is being written by Evin İlyasoğlu and will be
published soon. The 9th edition of the International Leyla
Gencer Voice Competition organized by the cooperation of Istanbul Foundation of
Culture and Arts, Borusan Sanat and Accademia della Scala, will once again be
held in September to present new stars into the opera world. And we’d be more
than happy, if we can manage to commemorate and honour Leyla Gencer well,
through all these concerts, books, CDs and cooperations.
2018.05.17
Ahmet Etem Erenli © [Three Queens CD Recording]
Remembering Leyla Gencer and The Donizetti Renaissance
2018 marks the tenth anniversary of Leyla
Gencer's passing away; a towering figure of the 20th century opera scenes who
has brought a fresh and innovative interpretation to her roles with her voice,
her dramatic talents and musical intelligence.
Gencer's vast repertoire encompassed more than
seventy operas and Donizetti definitely had a special place in it. In the 50s,
when her international career took off, Donizetti's bel canto operas were far
from their current worldwide popularity. The artist's painstaking and diligent
work on the composer's lesser-known operas, undoubtedly, became a cornerstone
of her illustrious career. Her revival and performance of long-forgotten works
placed them back in the current opera literature and made Gencer one of the few
artists who have contributed to the Donizetti Renaissance.
Leyla Gencer's Donizetti adventure started in
1957 and lasted for twenty years until 1978, during which she performed ten
operas of the composer: Lucia di Lammermoor (1957), Anna Bolena (1958), Poliuto
(1960), Roberto Devereux (1964), Lucrezia Borgia (1966), Maria Stuarda (1967),
Belisario (1969), Messa di Requiem per Bellini (1970), Caterina Cornaro (1972)
and Les Martyrs (1975). She had been particularly influential in the revival of
Caterina Cornaro, Roberto Devereux, Belisario, Maria Stuarda, Poliuto, Lucreiza
Borgia and Anna Bolena. In this daring quest, Gencer took the flag from Maria
Callas and helped Donizetti Renaissance reach its pin- nacle together with
legends like Monserrat Caballé, Beverly Sills, Joan Sutherland and Janet Baker.
However, only some her electrifying and
critically acclaimed performances could see the light of day by way of pirate
recordings, much in demand by opera buffs today, due to the art- ist's
preference of live performances over recordings.
For almost ten years, Borusan Sanat has been
annually commemorating Gencer with op- era-in-concert performances in Borusan
Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra's season programs. However, the tenth
anniversary had to be special and after much deliberation and thinking, we
decided on this CD project of Donizetti works as a fitting tribute to her.
The inspiration for Donizetti Queens came from
the notes of Trieste Seminars-organized by Lorenzo Arruga-published in
September 1982 in the Musica Viva magazine. These notes tran- scribed from
Gencer's speech shed a bright light on the three queens of Donizetti (Anna
Bolena, Elisabetta, Maria Stuarda) and conveniently gave us the idea of
presenting them through Gencer's voice and interpretation. We believe these
notes, also included in this booklet, will be a good reading to grasp the
artist's take on how to perform these psychologically loaded and challenging
characters.
In the seminar, Gencer said, "... It is a
risk for opera us, opera singers, to perform these roles, because it is again
us who could turn them into something ordinary." So we eagerly take the
opportunity to pay our homage to her with this project, which brings together
three "extraor- dinary" interpretations.
We hope these historically significant
recordings, despite their low quality, will offer a pleasurable listening to
everyone.
2018.10.09
Ahmet Etem Erenli © [Borusan Turuncu]
An opera Diva: Leyla Gencer
I met Leyla Gencer in England
for the first time. This encounter wasn’t in person of course. I bought a
record of hers from the Tower Records store in London. It was a long play of
Verdi’s Rigoletto where Gencer was singing the leading soprano
role. That performance, which was recorded live in Buenos Aires (1961), is
still one of my favourite recordings.
I met Gencer in person in the
beginning of the 90s when she became the head of the Board of the Trustees of
the Istanbul Foundation of Culture and Arts, where I used to work. Thanks to my
knowledge of her records also, we became very close in just a few years.
Our close relationship continued until her passing away. We used to make
phone calls between Milan and Istanbul almost every day and we mostly talked
about her recordings that were transferred from LPs to CDs.
Leyla Gencer who was a unique
diva of the 20th century, had a very special place in the opera
history. She performed 74 operas at 66 different theatres. Not only did she
perform more than 800 times and became one of the most active artists of her
time, but she was also known as a pioneer artist thanks to all the operas that
she revived and brought back into the current opera repertoire. Her
interpretation style called “Gencerate” is even more appreciated today than
before.
Leyla Gencer was different
from the other 20th century’s divas, and she held a very
special place among them. She introduced the Gencerate style
to opera interpretation.
Apart from being an excellent
singer, Gencer also had a wonderful ability to act, and she fulfilled all the
requirements of the roles that she played. Since she could easily combine her
great acting skills with her voice and interpretation, she also earned the
title acting singer that had become popular in the 20th century
thanks to the achievements of Maria Callas.
The Unforgettable
Success Stories of Leyla Gencer
Actually the “trend” of
reviving forgotten operas began when Maria Callas’ performance of Anna
Bolena at La Scala attained a sensational success in 1957. During an
interview Gencer said that “It was a trend which I followed”. Gencer was the
person who managed to carry out this trend with great success. Although it was
Callas who revived Anna Bolena at La Scala, it was Gencer who
made the opera popular among greater audiences. During that period which
began with Anna Bolena and so called The Donizetti
Renaissance, Gencer proved herself to be the obvious queen of the
belcanto repertoire, by singing not only Anna Bolena, but also
Donizetti’s forgotten operas such as Maria Stuarda, Poliuto, Les
Martyrs, Lucrezia Borgia, Belisario, Roberto Devereux and Caterina
Cornaro at the major opera houses.
In the 60’, when Gencer was at
the peak of her career, she began singing operas such as Norma,
Macbeth, I Puritani, Gerusalemme, Roberto Devereux, Lucrezia Borgia, Alceste,
Maria Stuarda, Un ballo in maschera, Le nozze di Figaro, Beatrice di Tenda,
Medea, Belisario, La Vestale, La Gioconda and I vespri
Siciliani, so each role that she sang was even more challenging from
the other.
Hereby, we must definitely
mention Macbeth; an opera that was very important in Gencer’s
career. Gencer, who was absolutely the most impressive Lady Macbeth after
Callas, successfully sang the role at the Palermo Theatre for the first time in
1960, which was then followed by performances at La Scala, Venice, Florence,
Rome, Cagliari, Treviso, Montova, Como, Livorno and at the Festival of the
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino where she sang fabulously under the baton of
Riccardo Muti. Although it’s been 50 years since Gencer’s last Lady
Macbeth performance, there hasn’t been another soprano who
could overshadow her in all these years. Unfortunately, Gencer sang this opera
only in Italy; the other European audiences and the American audience couldn’t
witness that magnificent interpretation live.
Probably Gencer’s most loved
and appraised Donizetti performance was Lucrezia Borgia. After
singing it for the first time in Naples (1966) she performed it in Rome (1967),
La Scala-Milan (1970), Bergamo (1971), Dallas (1974) and Florence (1979) and so
once again she managed to introduce a very less known opera to the classical
music audience.
After the success of Lucrezia
Borgia, Gencer attained another sensational success at the opening night of
the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Festival on May 2nd, 1967, with her
performance as Maria Stuarda. Her performance was so powerful that,
the famous phrase Figlia impura di Bolena almost had a
shocking effect on the audience and the whole audience gave her a standing
ovation at the end of the second act. After the successful performance of Maria
Stuarda, she was once again involved in another unknown opera:
Donizetti’s Belisario. By singing the role of Antonia in this
opera, which was almost never performed and is set in Byzantium, she once again
gained another career victory.
Currently, there are over 200 opera, concert and recital recordings of Gencer
in LP, CD and DVD formats. This high number of records brought her the famous
title Queen of Pirates.
In 1957, Gencer first set foot
in La Scala Theatre, which later she would refer as “home”, where she worked
for more than 50 years. She spent the most of those years on stage and she
worked there continuously until May 10th, 2008, the date of her
death. Her last opera performance was Francesco Gnecco’s La Prova d’un
Opera Seria at La Fenice Theatre of Venice in 1985; but she continued to
give recitals until 1992.
In 1982, Gencer focused more
on teaching; she worked as the Artistic Director of As.Li.Co. between the years1983-1989. And in 1997, she became the Artistic Director of
Accademia della Scala where she continued to work until her death.
While Gencer was teaching at
As.Li.Co. and at Accademia della Scala, she continued working on forgotten
operas. Thanks to her thorough research, Vivaldi’s opera Il
Giustino was staged after so many years. She worked on less popular operas,
and she trained many young singers. As she was the Head of the Board of
Trustees of Istanbul Foundation of Culture and Arts, that organizes Istanbul
Music Festival, she worked as a consultant and the artistic director for
Bertoni’s Orfeo which was conducted by Claudio Scimone and
staged by Pier Luigi Pizzi in 1997 and also for Vivaldi’s Bajazet,
another forgotton opera, which was conducted by Fabio Biondi and staged once
again by Pier Luigi Pizzi in 1999.
Leyla Gencer was an artist who
stood up for her revelations of forgotten operas which were once again included
in the opera repertoire.
Throughout her career, Gencer
also gave many seminars.
Here are some of them:
Gerssan, Aosta (Il Trovatore), Venezia (Donizetti), 1982
Trieste (Donizetti), 1985 Montpellier Singing Academy (Rossini,
Bellini, and Donizetti), 1985 Savona (Donizetti), 1987 Teatro La Fenice
Venezia (İtalian Opera), 1989 Istanbul (Donizetti), 1989 Arenzano (Donizetti),
1990 Istanbul (Rossini)
In 1995, the first edition of
Leyla Gencer Voice Competition was realized in Istanbul thanks to the
initiative and hard work of Mr. Aydın Gün, who was Leyla Gencer’s close friend
and the Artistic Director of Yapı Kredi Festival. The competition was planned
to be biennial but in 1999 its third edition had to be postponed because of the
major earthquake in Turkey and it was then realized in 2000. After that, Yapı
Kredi Bank quit sponsoring the competition and the competition couldn’t be
realized until 2006, when Istanbul Foundation of Culture and Arts took over its
organization in collaboration with Accademia della Scala. Since that year,
Borusan Philharmonic Orchestra also became the resident orchestra of the
competition. Some of the past prize winners such as Pretty Yende, Anita
Rachvelishvili, Nino Machaidze, George Gagnidze, Enkelejda Shkosa and Marcello
Álvarez have become celebrity opera singers.
In Memory of Leyla
Gencer
After Leyla Gencer’s passing away on May 10th, 2008, she was
commemorated every year by Borusan Sanat with a seasonal concert of Borusan
Philharmonic Orchestra (BIPO). Having performed operas such as La
Traviata, Carmen, Salome, Tosca, Aida, Der Rosenkavalier,
Norma and Gianni Schicchi, the orchestra also accompanied
the winners of the Leyla Gencer Voice Competition in various concerts. In
addition to these activities, Borusan Sanat also ordered two books; one in
English and one in Turkish, to be relased in 2018; on the 10th anniversary
of her death. Both books will be released in October 2018. Also, an
exhibition entitled “Primadonna and Solitude” was curated by Yekta Kara in
collaboration with IKSV and it was held at the Borusan Music House between 11
September and 10 October.
There are several books
written for Leyla Gencer: Romanzo vero di una primadonna (Franca
Cella, 1986; English version, 2018), A Gift to Leyla Gencer
Armağan (Zeynep Oral, 1995), Leyla Gencer: A Story of
Passion (Zeynep Oral, 1995; English version, 2008; İtalian version,
2011), Leyla Gencer and the Opera World (Ünal Öziş, 2006), Leyla
Gencer 50 Years at La Scala (Franca Cella, 2008).
https://borusanturuncu.com/opera-sanatinda-bir-diva-leyla-gencer/
2023.05.25
Ahmet Etem Erenli © [Borusan Sanat]
Leyla Gencer Anısına
Değerli Sanatseverler,
Leyla Gencer, 2008 yılındaki vefatından
bu yana yurtiçinde ve yurtdışında çeşitli etkinliklerle anıldı. Başta operanın
başkenti Milano’nun La Scala Operası olmak üzere birçok opera evi,
etkinliklerini ona adadı; kendisinin anısına festivaller gerçekleştirildi ve
bazı kültür kurumları, kütüphanelerinin adını “Leyla Gencer Kütüphanesi” olarak
değiştirdi. Rusya, Brezilya, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, İtalya ve birçok
ülkede adına hazırlanan radyo programları yapıldı.
Bu geçen sürede Borusan Sanat olarak
Gencer’i pek çok etkinlik ile andık. Her yıl bir başka yapıtı programımıza
aldığımız anma konserlerimizde Tudor Kraliçeleri Üçlemesi (Maria Stuarda, Anna
Bolena, Roberto Devereux), Gianni Schicchi, Güllü Şövalye (Der Rosenkavalier),
Norma, Aida, Tosca, Salome ve La Traviata operalarına yer verdik. Borusan Sanat
olarak Gencer’in yaşamöyküsünü okuyucuyla buluşturan Evin İlyasoğlu’nun “Ben,
Leyla Gencer” (Yapı Kredi Yayınları iş birliğiyle), Zeynep Oral’ın “Tutkunun
Romanı” kitabının İngilizce baskısı “A Story of Passion” (İKSV iş birliğiyle),
Franca Cella’nın “The Story of a Primadonna” (Bolis Edizioni iş birliğiyle)
kitaplarına destek olduk.
AK Müzik ile birlikte Donizetti Queens
(Maria Stuarda, Anna Bolena, Roberto Devereux) albümünü CD olarak piyasaya
çıkardık. İKSV, La Scala Akademisi ve Borusan Sanat olarak “Leyla Gencer Şan
Yarışması”nı ortak yapmaya başladık. Bununla birlikte Borusan Müzik Evi olarak,
Yekta Kara’nın küratörlüğünde İKSV tarafından gerçekleştirilen “Leyla Gencer:
Primadonna ve Yalnızlık” adlı serginin mekân sponsoru olduk. Bu yıl ise
kendisini Rossini’nin Stabat Mater’i ile anıyoruz.
Leyla Gencer, kariyerinde Donizetti ve Verdi’nin
Requiem’lerinin yanı sıra Rossini’nin başyapıtlarından biri olarak kabul edilen
Stabat Mater’i de seslendirdi. 15 ve 16 Şubat 1968 tarihinde dünyanın önde
gelen orkestralarından biri olan Bavyera Radyo Senfoni Orkestra ve Korosu ile
gerçekleşen bu konserler, Münih’te Herkulessaal’de seslendirildi. Konseri,
İtalyan şef Mario Rossi yönetti. Konserin diğer solistleri ise Bianca Maria
Casoni (mezzosoprano), Luigi Alva (tenor) ve Forbes Robinson (bas) idi.
Borusan Sanat olarak programlarımızda
Leyla Gencer’e her zaman özel bir yer ayırıyoruz. 2009’dan bu yana Leyla
Gencer’i bize ve opera dünyasına kattığı değerler için anıyor; onun müziğe ve
operaya olan sevgisini her yıl bir kez daha kutluyoruz…
