Leyla Gencer Archive: Press [1965

Press [1965 - 1974]

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OPERA MAGAZINE

1965 February

Glyndebourne. Anna Bolena, Donizetti. With Leyla Gencer, Patricia Johnson, Maureen Morella, Juan Oncina, Carlo Cava, Don Garrard. c. Gianandrea Gavazzeni, p. Franco Enriquez, d. Lorenzo Ghiglia

OPERA MAGAZINE
1965 December

Naples. Teatro San Carlo. Season opens December 11 and continues until the end of May. Dates given below are first nights and are subject to alteration. Works marked are receiving first local performances.

Guillaume Tell. With Leyla Gencer, Anna Maria Rota, Gianni Raimondi, Giangiacomo Guelfi, Paolo Washington, c. Fernando Previtali, p. Sandro Bolchi (December 11) Clitennestra (Pizzetti). With Clara Petrella, Luisa Malagrida, Floriana Cavalli, Nicola Tagger, c. Oliviero De Fabritiis, p. Mario Frigcrio (December 26)
Naples. Teatro San Carlo. Lucrezia Borgia. With Gencer, Rota, Giacomo Aragall, Mario Petri, c. Carlo Franci, p. Margherita Wallmann (January 29)
Naples. Teatro San Carlo. Roberto Devereux (Donizetti) With Leyla Gencer, Giulietta Simionato, Ruggero Bondino, Piero Cappuccilli, Franco Bonanome. c. Mario Rossi, p. Margherita Wallmann, d. Attilio Colonello (February 22, 24, 27, March 1)

JORNAL DO BRASIL
1965.12.14

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OPERA MAGAZINE
1966 January

Naples. 19, Teatro San Carlo. Revival of Lucrezia Borgia, with Leyla Gencer.

DIARIO CRONICA

1966 April

OPERA MAGAZINE
1966 May

Florence. May 21, 24, 26 Alceste. With Leyla Gencer; c. Vittorio Gui.

OPERN WELT
1966 June

Das Porträt

Leyla Gencer

von Giovanna Kessler

Kindheit in einem alten Herrenhaus am Bosporus. Eine unbeschwerte Kindheit im Haus des Vaters aus alter osmanischer Adelsfamilie, der mit einer Polin verheiratet ist, dazu eine französische Gouvernante und Besuch der italienischen Schule von Istanbul, klassische Studien und intensive, aktive Beschäftigung mit allen Künsten Tanz, Gesang, Theater und Literatur: das sind die Elemente, die Leyla Gencers Leben bestimmt haben, soweit sie nur zurückdenken kann. Kein Wunder, daß sie in so vielen Sprachen perfekt ist und man ihre Nationalität vom Idiom her nicht ohne weiteres zu bestimmen vermag, umso mehr noch, da sie dem Aussehen nach ebenso gut Spanierin wie Italienerin oder Polin sein könnte.

Ehe andere überhaupt wissen, daß es so etwas gibt, hatte sie schon sämtliche französische Klassiker gelesen und «studiert», und bis zum letzten Gymnasiumsjahr stand für sie fest, Schauspielerin zu werden. Natürlich waren die Eltern dagegen, worauf Leyla vorzog zu heiraten. Damit war der Weg zur ernsthaften künstlerischen Arbeit frei. Am, Istanbuler Konservatorium sang sie, die Klavierstudentin, der zur Zeit Toti Del Montes berühmten Sängerin Gianna Arrangi-Lombardi vor, die die Koinzidenz von stimmlicher und darstellerischer Begabung sofort erkannte und Leyla als Schülerin annahm. 1954 ging die junge Sängerin nach Italien; ein Vorsingen genügte, und sie wurde vom San Carlo Theater in Neapel für die Partie der Tatjana im «Eugen Onegin» engagiert. Diesem Debüt folgte sogleich eine Verpflichtung an die Römische Oper als «Butterfly». Damit war ihre Karriere eigentlich schon gemacht, denn nun kamen nicht nur die Angebote von allen italienischen Opernbühnen, einschließlich der Scala, sondern auch des Auslandes. In den zwölf Jahren, die seither vergingen, hat sie sich ein Repertoire von achtundfünfzig Opern erarbeitet und so ziemlich überall in der Welt gesungen. Seit dem ersten Auslandsgastspiel, der «Francesca da Rimini» in San Francisco (1956), sang sie u. a. in New York und Moskau, in Los Angeles und Warschau, in Glyndebourne und Leningrad, in Verona, beim Maggio Musicale Fiorentino und in Salzburg, überall gefeierte Protagonistin eines Rollengebietes, das von Glucks «Alceste» und der Gräfin Almaviva bis zu Poulencs «Karmeliterinnen» und Prokofievs «Feurigem Engel» reicht.

Innerhalb dieses Bogens aber ist ihr Spezialgebiet das der vier großen Italiener Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti und Verdi. Ohne Frage ist sie ein Stimmphänomen wie die Callas und die Sutherland und begabt mit einem gleichsam vulkanischen darstellerischen Temperament. Sie nennt sich selbst «eklektisch» und hat damit nicht unrecht. Das gesunde Stimmmaterial und ihr von so verschiedenen Nationalitäten genährtes Wesen erlauben ihr, sich mit den differenzierten Charakteren wie mit den stilistischen Forderungen, die die verschiedensten Komponisten stellen, intuitiv zu identifizieren. Das erspart ihr selbstverständlich nicht etwa die harte, unermüdliche Arbeit, im Gegenteil, sie schafft sich selbst immer ein «allround»-Programm an Arbeit, wie es nicht allzu viele Sänger tun. Auch die gesangstechnischen Finessen erarbeiten sich leichter, wenn man sich nicht nur mit den Grundzügen einer darzustellenden Gestalt beschäftigt, sondern sie im Zusammenhang mit der Epoche, in der das Werk entstand, mit dem historischen Rahmen usw. intensiver klärt und sich zu eigen macht. Leyla Gencer genügen Partitur und Libretto und vielleicht ein bißchen «einschlägige Literatur» niemals. Für jede neue Partie, die sie studiert, durchforscht sie das vorhandene literarische und geschichtliche Material, um aus den widersprüchlichsten Dokumentationen das lebendige Wesen mit seinen verborgensten Wesenszügen in Einklang zu bringen mit der vom Komponisten konzipierten Gestalt. So gibt es z. B. heute kaum einen anderen Bühnenkünstler, der soviel über Elisabeth I. von England gelesen hat wie sie: als ihr angetragen wurde, diese Rolle in der wiederausgegrabenen Oper «Roberto Devereux» von Donizetti zu singen, begann sie ein regelrechtes Studium dieser Gestalt. Und dennoch ist sie nicht etwa eine «intellektuelle» Sängerin! Mit weiblich-künstlerischer Klugheit adaptiert sie aus dem Gelesenen das, was sie einer Rolle an unaufdringlich vervollkommnenden Charakteristika hinzugewinnen kann, ohne etwa die Konzeption des Komponisten zu verfälschen, oder die des Regisseurs zu durchkreuzen. Doch hilft ihr diese «Randarbeit», so tief in eine Rolle einzudringen, daß sie deren Kern auch in den verschiedensten Inszenierungen der gleichen Oper wahren und sich dennoch assimilieren kann.

Ihre glänzend geschulte und gepflegte Stimme gehorcht ihr immer und überall, ohne je «artifiziell» eingesetzt zu werden. Bisweilen - vor allem in den großen Ausbrüchen, an denen ihr Fach so reich ist - ist man beim ersten Hören fast düpiert durch die Emotion absolut adäquaten gutturalen Ansätze, die aber im Verein mit den wunderbaren Pianissimi und den klaren Koloraturen ein besonders reizvolles Stimmtimbre ergeben. Diese «gutturali» sind von den Registern völlig unabhängig, sind - so scheint es mir wenigstens - nur ein Zeichen, wie sehr Leyla Geschöpf jener europäisch-asiatischen Völkerscheide, die ihre Heimat ist, blieb. Das Intuitive - Kennzeichen aller «Mischungen» - verbindet sich mit der geistigen Durchdringung zum eigenen Stil.

Leyla Gencers besondere Leidenschaft gehört den «vergessenen Opern» vor allem Rossinis und Donizettis, deren Wiedererscheinen teilweise zunächst mit ihrem Namen verknüpft bleiben werden (wie sie einst mit den Namen der Primadonnen verknüpft waren, für die sie geschrieben wurden). Sie fordern außer der enormen stimmlichen Kapazität auch Sängerdarstellerinnen von besonderer Spannweite und Expressivität, und mit dieser Ausdrucksmacht rehabilitiert Leyla Gencer die Opern jener Epoche. Ob Repertoireoper oder wiederentdeckte: sie erfüllt die «Form» mit einer direkten, vitalen Strahlkraft und gibt damit auch dem sogenannten «Veralteten» Gegenwart und menschliche wie künstlerische Überzeugungskraft.

In manchen «Callas-Metropolen» erschwert ihr bisweilen der Ruf, «authentische Callas-Nachfolgerin» zu sein, das Echo, doch das kritische Opernpublikum applaudiert ihr überall begeistert, und die versierten Opernfans schreiben ihr, wenn sie eine Weile nicht in deren Stadt sang: «Was ist unsere Oper ohne Sie?» Doch Leyla Gencer ist, trotz aller Besessenheit, klug. Sie will die Gabe, die die Natur ihr schenkte, nicht durch Hast und Übermaß verschleudern, sondern ökonomisch damit umgehen. Da sie das lyrische, wie das dramatische Fach beherrscht, kommen sowieso mehr Angebote, als sie bewältigen kann. Und zwischendurch braucht sie immer wieder die Einkehr im Haus am Bosporus, um sich dort für die neuen, anstrengenden Aufgaben «aufzuladen».

Top page.: Privatfoto, Elisabeth in Verdis «Don Carlos», Titelpartie in Verdis «Aida»

Below: Leyla Gencer als Aida,

unten: in der Titelrolle von Bellinis «Norma»

Fotos Piccagliani

…. taumelt und in die Grabestiefe hinabfährt: eine viel eindeutigere Demonstrierung der Endgültigkeit, als es ein noch so gekonntes Höllenfeuer vermöchte.

Auch René Allios Bühnenbilder spielten mit: die von brütender Sonne gefilterten Farben, flirrendes Tageslicht, Nachthimmel, dunkel von Traum und Unheil, die Verwandlungen bei offener Szene: Palastfront, Landsitz oder Saal, immer nur gerade soviel, daß man den «Duft» einer Umgebung, einer Atmosphäre verspürt. Lorin Maazel dirigierte einen Orchesterpart von stupender Farbigkeit, wie hingetupft und dennoch von nie nachlassen- der Dynamik, die konsequent auf den Schluß zusteuert. Dazu die Sänger: Nicolai Gjaurov: souverän in jeder Nuance des Spiels und der herrlichen Stimme; Wladimiro Ganzarolli: ein Leporello von tänzerischer Grazie, Charme und Verschmitztheit, dessen voluminöse Stimme der seines Herren absolut pari ist; Joan Sutherland: eine Donna Anna von transparenter, kühler Glut; Mirella Freni: als Zerline in jeder Hinsicht bezaubernd. Zwi- schen diesen beiden Frauen wirkte Pilar Lorengar etwas blaß und stimmlich nicht ganz frei; Luigi Alva dagegen untadelig und über- zeugend wie immer als Don Ottavio.

In der Wiederaufnahme des «Simone Boccanegra» (Regie: Margherita Wallmann, Dirigent Gianandrea Gavazzeni) stand neben dem unübertrefflichen Giangiacomo Guelfi (Simone) anstelle von Gjaurov dieses Mal Ivo Vinco als Fiesco: ein kluger Sänger, der seine naturgegebenen vokalen Mittel kontinuierlich kultiviert und im besten Einklang mit der Profilierung der Rolle zu halten weiß. Neu war auch die Amelia: Leyla Gencer, die Türkin mit dem expressiven Sopran und dem leidenschaftlichen Temperament.

Sie singt jetzt auch die Titelpartie in der Wiederaufnahme der von Zeffirelli vor drei Jahren besorgten «Aida»-Inszenierung, deren farbiger Reiz inzwischen nicht verstaubte. Interessant, die beiden Verdi-Partien (Amelia und Aida), von der Gencer interpretiert, so kurz nacheinander zu erleben: wie sie die verschiedenen Charaktere von innen her, im Spiel und in der inzwischen voll ausgereiften, phänomenalen Stimme variiert - zwei gleichwertige, großartige Leistungen. Der Radames ist diesmal mit Gianfranco Cecchele besetzt, dessen metallischer, mühelos geschmeidiger Tenor ebenfalls Beifallsstürme entfesselte.

LA STAMPA
1966.09.22

OPERA MAGAZINE
1966 October

Lausanne. The annual autumn festival of Italian opera at the Theatre de Beaulieu will open on October 6 with Norma with Leyla Gencer, Fiorenza Cossotto, Gastone Limarilli, Ivo Vince, c. Oliviero De Fabritiis, p. Enrico Frigerio (repeat performance on October 8).

NORDLANDPOSTEN

1966.10.30

THE PATRIOT NEWS

1966.11.11

ABILENE REPORTER-NEWS

1966.11.17

ANDERSON HERALD

1966.11.17

DAILY KENNEBEC JOURNAL

1966.11.17

DANVILLE REGISTER

1966.11.17

DAYTON BEACH MORNING JOURNAL

1966.11.17

DES MOINES REGISTER

1966.11.17

HUTCHINSON NEWS

1966.11.17

JOPLIN GLOBE

1966.11.17

MORNING PIONEER

1966.11.17

PORTLAND PRESS

1966.11.17

SARASOTA HERALD TRIBUNE

1966.11.17

SOMERSET DAILY AMERICAN

1966.11.17

SYRACUSE POST STANDARD

1966.11.17

THE DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE

1966.11.17

THE FRESNO BEE

1966.11.17

THE HERALD NEWS

1966.11.17

THE MORNING UNION

1966.11.17

THE MUSKEGON CHRONICLE

1966.11.17

THE PLAIN DEALER

1966.11.17

THE POST STANDARD

1966.11.17

THE STAR LEDGER

1966.11.17

THE STATE

1966.11.17

BRADFORD ERA

1966.11.18

CUMBERLAND NEWS

1966.11.18

OIL CITY DERRICK

1966.11.18

THE FORUM

1966.11.18

THE FREDERICK NEWS

1966.11.18

MADISON WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL

1966.11.19

THE REGISTER GUARD

1966.11.20

CORRIERE DELLA SERA
1966.11.28

OPERA MAGAZINE
1966 December

Napoli. Adriana Lecouvreur. With Leyla Gencer, Adriana Lazzarini, Amedeo Zambon, Enzo Sordello, Plinio Clabassi, c. Oliviero De Fabritiis, p. Attilio Colonnello, d. Camillo Parravacini (December 17)
Napoli. Saffo (Pacini). With Leyla Gencer, Franca Mattiucci, Del Bianco, Louis Quilico, c. Capuana, p. Margherita Wallmann, d. Attilio Collonello
Firenze. Alceste. With Leyla Gencer, Mirto Picchi, Attilio D'Orazi, c. Vittorio Gui, p. Giorgio Di Lullo, d. Pier Luigi Pizzi (March 7)
Napoli. Lucrezia Borgia. With Gencer, Anna Maria Rota, Renato Cioni, Ruggero Raimondi, c. Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, p. Carlo Piccinato, d. Orlando Di Collalto (June 3)

LOFOTPOSTEN

1966.12.03

IL PICCOLO

1966.12.30

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OPERA MAGAZINE
1967 February

Turin, Teatro Regio will continue with the following: Norma. With Leyla Gencer, Fiorenza Cossotto, Bruno Prevedi, Ivo Vince, c. Oliviero De Fabritiis, p. Margherita Wallmann

DIARIO DE PAMAMBUCO
1967.03.05

OPERA MAGAZINE
1967 May

Florence. May 2 Teatro Comunale. May Festival opens with Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, with Leyla Gencer in the title-role.

OPERA MAGAZINE
1967 June

Verona Arena, July 16 to August 15 La Forza del Destino. With Leyla Gencer, Adriana Lazzarini, Gianfranco Cecchele, Piero Cappuccilli, Ivo Vince, Renato Capecchi, c. Franco Capuana, p. Herbert Graf, d. Attilio Colonnello. July 15, 20, 23, 30, August 3, 6, 10

OPERA MAGAZINE
1967 September

San Francisco, War Memorial Opera House. Season opens with La Gioconda with Leyla Gencer and Grace Bumbry

LA STAMPA
1967.09.23

TIME MAGAZINE
1967.09.29

OPERA MAGAZINE
1967 December

Milan. Teatro alla Scala The details of the 1967-8 season were announced by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, the theatre's artistic director, and are as follows: Idomeneo. With Leyla Gencer, Margherita Rinaldi, Peter Schreier, Domenico Trimarchi, Nicola Zaccaria, c. Wolfgang Sawallisch, p. Oscar Fritz Schuh.
Roma. The 1967-8 season at the Teatro dell’Opera, Don Carlo. With Leyla Gencer, Fiorenza Cossotto, Bruno Prevedi, Bruscantini, Nicolai Giaurov, Luigi Roni, c. Fernando Previtali, p. & d. Luchino Visconti. April 22, 24, 28, 30, May 2

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THE MIRACLE OF THE MET 1883 – 1967

1968

QUAITANCE EATON

SOME WERE METEORITES

The night shows stars and women in a better light.
- LORD BYRON, Don Juan

Rudolf Bing's aspiration to an "ensemble system," which he later modified to an "ensemble of stars," sometimes is thwarted by what actually happens on the Metropolitan Opera stage. The General Manager all too frequently winds up with neither star nor ensemble. Rare is that happy night when all of "Heaven's eyes" sing together in Heaven.

Bing's attitude toward singers seems as arbitrary and inspired by prejudice as that of most other managers, and he is sometimes less shrewd in anticipating public reaction than many. He is of course beset by the built-in difficulties of a mixed operation that veers between the stagione and repertoire systems. The first, practiced largely in Italy, gives a run to a single opera of as many performances as the traffic will bear (keeping the cast intact if possible), then drops it for the next work. The second displays a different opera every night. The American practice leans less to stagione (an Italian word meaning literally "season") and more to repertoire, but with occasional modifications. For example, Bing's plan for the 1966-67 season introduced four new productions repeated with casts nearly intact over the first half of the season, adding one or more revivals at intervals. But there is still a different opera every night.

There are two ways of hiring singers: one is to set the repertoire and try to find singers to fit; the other is to get singers and let repertoire fall where it may. Bing would like to adhere to the former plan but finds it necessary to compromise because of the outside pressure to present reigning stars. So, he ends up with a sort of star system in spite of himself. And audiences hear many singers in familiar roles and play the old game of comparing their virtues and faults. But then, as Irving Kolodin says in the new edition of his history of the Metropolitan, there is nothing wrong with the star system if you use some system in hiring the stars.

The number of singers who have come and gone in Bing's seventeen years greatly outranks those who have come and stayed. Newcomers have averaged about nineteen a season. It must seem to Bing (as to others before him) that the public demands fresh voices and unfamiliar faces constantly; there has never been a Met season when a few hitherto unknown names didn't turn up on the list-even when only a few or none of the old ones departed. Bing has engaged in this reinforcement procedure rather less than Gatti, rather more than Johnson; we must remember, however, that the latter's freedom was hampered by war and depression, which deeply affected the Met's operations. Circumstances in the other opera houses of the world seem to play a lesser part in Bing's calculations than might be expected, as new operas and singers crop up steadily on the Continent and in England, but never cross the Atlantic to the Met. Furthermore, Bing-and his European scouts-often exhibit questionable taste in the choice of some European singers, considering what they have to pick from. Really great ones escape entirely sometimes or come to the sacred New York portals with their bills of lading marked "Past Prime."

Opera buffs in New York frequently torture themselves with a parlor game: casting from among Metropolitan absentees. They want Rita Streich as Queen of the Night, Zerbinetta and Sophie (she sang the last two in San Francisco); Leyla Gencer from La Scala in Norma, and perhaps some old Verdi and late Prokofiev. She was the one who stepped in for Callas as Lucia in San Francisco and also sang Francesca da Rimini, Elisabetta (Carlos), and Manon. They wanted Anita Cerquetti in almost anything in her heyday (she was Chicago's Amelia and Elisabetta).

New Yorkers would have given a good deal to see and hear Sena Jurinac in Mozart and Strauss. She was scheduled for the Met (Vanessa and Mimi) in 1957-58 but never made it because of illness; then in 1961 when the season was cancelled in advance, she had made other plans before the emergency was settled. San Francisco, however, welcomed her as the Composer, Donna Anna, Butterfly, and Eva. All of America may feel deprived at not experiencing what even one supposedly impartial dictionary called "the finest Octavian of the century," though she has since dropped that role in favour of the Marschallin. Perhaps New Yorkers don't miss Nan Merriman as Dorabella, but →

AVANTI
1968.04.28

RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1968.04.28

OPERA MAGAZINE
1968 June

Verona Arena: July 20, 25, 28, August 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16 II Trovatore. With Leyla Gencer, Adriana Lazzarini, Carlo Bergonzi, Piero Cappuccilli, Paolo Washington, c. Franco Capuana.

OPERA MAGAZINE
1968 July

Verona, Arena. 1968 season opens with Aida with Leyla Gencer in the title-

OPERA MAGAZINE
1968 August

Bilbao. The Seventh Festival of Opera will take place at the Coliseo Albia from September 3 to 13 and will consist of performances of: Ernani. With Leyla Gencer, Gianfranco Cecchele, Piero Cappuccilli, Ruggero Raimondi, c. Manno Wolf-Ferrari.
Miami. The Opera Guild of Greater Miami. La Forza del Destino with Leyla Gencer, Jane Berbie, Bruno Prevedi, Manuel Ausensi, Ruggero Raimondi, Andrew Foldi, and Voketaitis on March 17, 19, 22. Emerson Buckley will conduct all three operas and the producer will be Anthony Stivanello.

OPERA MAGAZINE
1968 September

Naples. We hear that... Leyla Gencer will sing the title-role in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, next season

DINO CIANI CD / LP ALBUMS Album de chaumiere ROSSINI

1968 September

OPERA MAGAZINE
1968 December

Roma. Macbeth. With Leyla Gencer, Giorgio Casellato Lamberti, Iacopucci, Mario Zanasi, Lotenzo Gaetani, Colella, c. Bruno Barcoletti, p. Giorgio De Lullo, d. Pier Luigi Pizzi. April 2, 5, 8, 10, 13, 16
Florence. The season at the Teatro Comunale is as follows: Macbeth. With Leyla Gencer, Angelo Mori, Cornell MacNeil, Luigi Roni, c. Bartoletti, p. Aldo Mirabella Vassallo, d. Mischia Scandella. January 12, 15, 19

Naples. The 1968/9 season at the Teatro San Carlo will consist of the following operas: Maria Stuarda. With Leyla Gencer, Shirley Verrett, Juan Oncina, Giulio Fioravanti, Plinio Clabassi, c. Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, p. Franco De Lullo. December 29, January 2 1

RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1968.12.01

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BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY
1969

OPERA MAGAZINE
1969 January

Turin. The season at the Teatro Nuovo will last from January 2 to May 13. The operas and casts are as follows: Alceste. With Leyla Gencer, Mirto Picchi, Attilio D'Orazi, c. Franco Capuana, p. Alessandro Brissoni. March 4, 6, 9
Venezia. The 1968-9 season at the Teatro La Fenice Belisario (Donizetti). With Leyla Gencer, Umberto Grilli, Taddei, Nicola Zaccaria, c. Gianandrea Gavazzeni, p. Alberto Fassmi. May 6, 9, 11, 14, 17

OPERA MAGAZINE
1969 May

Venice. Teatro La Fenice. Revival of Donizetti's Belisario with Leyla Gencer and Giuseppe Taddei
Genoa. The season at the Teatro Margherita, which opened on March 11 with Ernani, followed by May 25, June 1 Medea (Cherubini). With Leyla Gencer, Rita Talarico, Aldo Bottion, Paolo Washington, c. Peloso, p. Alberto Fassini, d. Pier-Luigi Pizzi. June 4, 8, 10

OPERA NEWS MAGAZINE

1969.05.17

OPERA MAGAZINE
1969 August

Florence. Florance Opera opens its season with Donizetti's Maria Stuarda with Leyla Gencer

OPERA MAGAZINE
1969 October

Naples. Teatro San Carlo. Aida with Leyla Gencer, Biserka Cvejic, Flaviano Labe, Giampiero Mastromei, c. Alberto Erode, p. Hans Busch;

RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1969.10.12

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RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1970.07.19

OPERA MAGAZINE
1970 August

Rome. Casts and operas for the remainder of the open-air season at the Terme di Caracalla are as follows: Mefistofele. With Lidia Nerozzi, Margherita Casals-Mantovani, Corinna Vozza, Giorgio Merighi, Gabriele De Julis, Carlo Cava, c. Bruno Bartoletti, p. Giovanni Poli, d. Mischa Scandella. August 1 Aida. With Leyla Gencer/Virginia Zeani, Franca Mattiucci / Mirella Pamtto, Angelo Mori / Amedeo Zambon, Mario Sereni / Walter Monachesi, Ivo Vinco / Mario Rinaudo, Carlo Micalucci / Paolo Dari, c. Francesco Crittofoli / Carlo Franci, p. Bruno Nofri, d. Giovanni Cruciani / Camillo Parravicini. August 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14

OPERA MAGAZINE

1970 September

From Gladiators to Opera

Roger Bramble

Opera festivals throughout the world owe their birth to the inspiration of harmonious architecture, or to some topographical accident. None, perhaps, echoes the characteristics of its sire as clearly as does the Veronese festival. For it was Verona's magnificent Roman Arena which engendered the festival, and which continues to dictate the repertory, the artists and the ethos. Unlike so many other festival cities, Verona has no strong association with any particular composer. Rather, a thriving tradition of theatre (three capable of housing operatic performances is no mean number for a city of this size) and of choral singing forms the background-apart from the Arena itself. It could also be claimed that Verona, lying as it does at the meeting place of Lombardy, the Veneto and the mountainous barrier between Italy and Northern Europe, is the epicenter of Italy's operatic watershed. Monteverdi, Cavalli, Galuppi, Donizetti, Verdi, Ponchielli, Wolf-Ferrari, Zandonai and Pizzetti were all born within a small radius of the city.

No account of the festival (and with engaging modesty it is still called a 'lyric season', not festival) would therefore be balanced without first making an obeisance to this none too inanimate mammoth. Built during the first century of the Christian era, there is ample evidence from funereal inscriptions in the city that the Arena saw the full gamut of gladiatorial mangling. Indeed, the pathos of some inscriptions is so immediate that the Arena must be a major candidate for protagonist in a come-back of the Hollywood epic. On more tenuous evidence we may also suppose that this was the place of gory execution of early Christians. Both forms of entertainment were happily brought to an end in 325 by Constantine's edict: 'crudenta spectacula. . . non placent'. Two centuries later, the German Emperor Theodoric was impressed enough by the structure and braggart enough to claim that he had built it; but after that it suffered the eclipse of all buildings associated with pagan Rome. This fall from public favor, together with a serious earthquake in 1117 that destroyed a large part of the outer wall, brought it to its lowest ebb. Even the Della Scala family, Verona's most enlightened tyrants, failed to halt the use of material wrenched from the Arena for building elsewhere.

RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1970.09.20

RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1970.10.04

IL DRAMMA
1970.10.11

IL TEATRO DELLE NOVITÀ DI BERGAMO:

LORENZINI SONZOGNO SORESINA

Qui sopra, a sinistra: Renato Bruson in « Belisario» di Gaetano Donizetti; a destra, una scena della Taverna del misircles as Antonio Soresina, Sotto:

« Boule de suif » di Giulio C. Sonzogno e « Quattro per cinque » di Danilo Lorenzini. Nella pagina seguente: « Il Barbiere di Siviglia » di Gioacchino Rossini.

Diciotto anni e musica nel solco della tradizione: un bel fatto. Non si può parlare di ri velazione, d'accordo, ma quella di Danilo Lorenzini - ancora studente al Conservatorio di Milano - è l'apertura di un discorso col melodramma. Quattro per cinque, opera buffa in un atto prescelta dall'apposita commissione con altre due (Boule de suif di Giulio C. Sonzogno e Taverna del miracolo di Antonio Soresina), è la settantesima prima assoluta in cartellone al Festival autunnale dell'Opera Lirica Teatro delle Novità di Bergamo. L'accoglienza del pubblico per tutte e tre le nuove opere (andate in scena il 26 otto bre) è stata abbastanza fredda, e non si è certo ripetuta la calorosa partecipazione dell'anno scorso quando si ebbe in scena - anche se come novità solo per Bergamo Amelia al ballo di Giancarlo Menotti, però l'opera del giovanissimo Lorenzini musicalmente presenta spunti lo devoli. Dal punto di vista vo cale, invece, poca l'armonia perché, oltre tutto, le voci singole non hanno mai superato lo sta dio della semplice lettura del testo. E questo vale anche per le opere di Soresina e Sonzogno. La stagione lirica s'era inaugurata il 7 ottobre con la consueta riesumazione donizettiana, in scena il Belisario nell'interpretazione di Renato Bruson, Nicola Zaccaria, Mirna Pecile, Umberto Grilli, e della grande, bravissima Leyla Genger (che il pubblico ha subissato d'applausi e di fiori). Dirigeva Adolfo Camozzo.

E' seguito il 14 ottobre Nabucco di Verdi. L'opera, che era assente da Bergamo da ben novantanove anni, è stata diretta con particolare vivezza da Umberto Cattini. Fra i cantanti notevole Silvano Carroli - Nabucco - che ha riscosso un personale successo.

Molto apprezzato dal pubblico (teatro esaurito in ogni ordine di posti per tutte le repliche) Il barbiere di Siviglia di Rossini (an- dato in scena il 22 ottobre) che è stato uno spettacolo di prima qualità per l'impegno scenico e la regia di Sofia Marasca, anche se non ci si valeva d'un cast del tutto eccezionale né d'un maestro concertatore nel meglio della sua vena. Il capolavoro rossiniano con le sue arie, le romanze, gli andanti luminosi e mossi, i duetti, gli a solo, appartiene a quel tipo di creazioni artistiche di universale gradimento e di intramon tabile modernità.

Bella la voce del tenore Renzo Casellato (che era il conte d'Almaviva), spiritoso e convincente Domenico Trimarchi (Figaro), ec cellente attore Enzo Dara nei panni del dottor Bartolo. Ap plaudita Bianca Maria Casoni (Rosina). Dirigeva Nino Verchi. La serie degli spettacoli lirici è stata conclusa da un avveni- mento eccezionale: la portata in scena dei Maestri Cantori di Norimberga di Riccardo Wagner, protagonisti i cantanti e l'orchestra del Teatro di Stato di Zagabria, un complesso di provata efficienza che una volta di più ha dato dimostrazione della sua valentia. L'edizione dell'opera integrale durata quasi cinque ore è stata accolta dal pubblico con entusiasmo.

Il capolavoro wagneriano non era mai stato rappresentato a Bergamo. La puntualità della realizzazione, il costante impegno canoro e scenico degli artisti, la regla abilissima e soprattutto la valentia dell'orchestra (dirigeva Niksa Bareza) hanno ininterrottamente tenuto viva l'attenzione e la partecipazione degli spettatori.

Particolarmente applauditi Tomislav Neralic (Hans Sachs), Stefan Stefanoff (von Stolzing), Bozena Rukocic (Eva) e Tugomir Alaupovic (Beckmess).

La domenica successiva al de butto, il Complesso di Zagabria ha offerto un concerto sinfonico vocale con musiche di Glinka, Ciaikovski, Zaic, Smetana, Gotovac, al quale il pubblico è stato ammesso gratuitamente.

La stagione è stata conclusa il 10 e l'11 novembre da due im ponenti concerti dell'Orchestra Filarmonica di Stato di Sofia (maestro concertatore Vassil Stefanov, violino solista Stoika Milanova) con in programma musiche di Rossini, Brahms, Dvorak, Vladigherov, Ciaikovski, Sciostakovic. Costanza Andreucci

OPERA MAGAZINE
1970 December

Napoli. 1970-71 season at the Teatro San Carlo are as follows: February 13 Cavalleria Rusticana. With Leyla Gencer, Amedeo Zambon, Giulio Fioravanti and Gianni Schicchi. With Elvidia Ferracuti, Carlo Frantini, Rolando Panerai, c. and p. to be announced.

Rome. 1970-71 season at the Teatro dell’Opera, are as follows: February 22 La Gioconda. With Leyla Gencer, Mattiucci, Gianni Raimondi, Giangiacomo Guelfi, Ruggero Raimondi, c. Nino Sanzogno, p. Gianrico Becher, d. Veniero Colosanti and John Moore.

RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1970.12.13

Novita e riesumazioni a Palermo, a Napoli, a Firenze e a Venezia

↑ Una scena de «I puritani» con il tenore Nicolai Gedda e il soprano olandese Cristina Deutekom, una Elvira di straordinarie qualità canore. L'opera di Bellini ha inagurato la stagione lirica florentina. Nelle altre due forografie: Luisa Maragliano (sopra) che interpreta al Teatro San Carlo di Napoli il personaggio di Odabella nell'opera giovanile di Verdi « Attila »; Leyla Gencer, protagonista della « Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra » di Rossini, risesumata al teatro Massimo di Palermo con la direzione di Nino Sanzogno.

Quattro teatri

Che non

che non pensano alla crisi

I cartelloni degli

Enti lirici

che inaugurano la loro attività nelle

prime settimane di dicembre

di Leonardo Pinzauti

Roma, dicembre

Da molti anni si parla in Italia della crisi dei maggiori Enti lirici, quelli Sovvenzionati dallo Stato e che hanno una situazione finanziaria disastrosa e «insostenibile», come si continua a ripetere. Nessun dubbio, certo, sul fondamento di questa constatazione: i giornali riportano le cifre di deficit che, in molti maggiori Enti, superano il miliardo, si indicono dibattiti e convegni di studio per la riforma della « legge Corona » (che regola la vita musicale italiana da poco più di due anni) e le previsioni degli ambienti politici e sindacali sono quasi sempre fosche. Eppure, a scorrere i cartelloni di quattro fra i più illustri teatri italiani, si direbbe che nessuna preoccupazione sfiori l'animo dei direttori artistici e dei sovrintendenti. Non che si possa parlare di lusso, s'intende, perché la cultura non è mai tale, anche quando il suo costo obiettivo sembra altissimo; ma parrebbe quasi che nei teatri lirici italiani stesse maturando una specie di reazione biologica, come fanno le piante deboli che, prima di morire, si caricano dei fiori più belli: a Palermo, ad esempio, dove la situazione del Teatro Massimo si è complicata con un'agitazione sindacale proprio alla vigilia della data fissata per la serata inaugurale, è stata scelta un'opera di grande impegno come Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra di Rossini, mai rappresentata nel corso di questo secolo.

In tale opera, come ha scritto Massimo Mila nelle note illustrative stampate per lo spettacolo, « si fa strada un romanticismo delle anime, che alimenterà poi di sé il melodramma di Bellini, Donizetti e Verdi »; e questa ricerca dei precursori dei « grandi », che negli ultimi anni è diventata una delle realtà ricorrenti del nostro costume culturale, ha dunque invogliato anche i dirigenti del Massimo di Palermo ad offrire un'autentica primizia, per la cui realizzazione sono stati impegnati nomi come quello di Leyla Gencer, del regista Mauro Bolognini e del direttore d'orchestra Nino Sanzogno.

E questa dell'opera inaugurale non è certo la sola primizia offerta dal Massimo. Tanto per ricordare gli spettacoli più interessanti è da segnalare una edizione in italiano del Fidelio di Beethoven (direttore Sanzogno, regista Herbert Graf); Sigfrido e Il crepuscolo degli dei di Wagner (direttore Lovro von Matacic); serate di balletto del Grand Théâtre di Ginevra dirette da George Balanchine; Werther di Massenet (direttore Antonino Votto, regista Filippo Crivelli, protagonisti Alfredo Kraus e Ottavio Garaventa); una « prima assoluta » di Michele Lizzi, Sagra del signore della nave, diretta da Ettore Gracis, con le scene e i costumi di Renato Guttuso; una ripresa, insieme con la novità di Lizzi, della Laudes Evangelii di Valentino Bucchi, ecc. E nella primavera del prossimo anno figurano anche una Lucia di Lammermoor con la Scotto e la regia di Zeffirelli, e, sempre con la regia di Zeffirelli, un nuovo allestimento del Don Giovanni di Mozart, sotto la direzione di Peter Maag.

Ma se si passa all'altro capo dell'Italia, al Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, la gara delle « novità » e delle « riesumazioni » non si arresta. Anzi, il maestro Mario Labroca, direttore artistico dell'illustre teatro, ha voluto inserirsi fin dall'inizio della stagione in quell'opera di rivalutazione delle musiche di Saverio Mercadante che ha caratterizzato il centenario della morte del maestro di Altamura. A Venezia, quindi, dopo Il giuramento presentato al Festival di Spoleto e Il reggente realizzato dalla Settimana Musicale Senese, è continuato il discorso su questo musicista dimenticato con la presentazione dell'opera Le due illustri rivali, anch'essa « in prima ripresa nel secolo XX », sotto la direzione di Ettore Gracis, con la regia di Mario Puggelli e una compagnia di canto formata da Claudia Parada, Vasso Papantoniou, George Pappas, Amedeo Zambon, Antonio Liviero, Alessandro Maddalena e Silvana Mazzieri. Non è forse il caso di soffermarci, come si potrà fare in seguito, sui valori emersi in queste « riprese »: il tempo stesso, del resto, continuerà ad essere il migliore arbitro di certe questioni, anche per il perdurare, fra i critici, di atteggiamenti che spesso risentono di ostinate diffidenze o di troppo fiduciose propensioni per le riscoperte di tipo musicologico. E' certo, comunque, che il panorama della prima metà dell'Ottocento si è enormemente chiarito negli ultimi anni; al punto che quasi non suscita più sorpresa il fatto che opere condannate, come ad esempio Attila di Ver di, possano beneficiare di numerosi allestimenti nel giro di pochi anni, e addirittura di due settimane: come è accaduto, appunto, per lo spet tacolo inaugurale della stagione al San Carlo di Napoli, il cui Arrila era stato preceduto da quello realizzato a Roma, in forma di concerto, da Riccardo Muti con l'orchestra e il coro della RAI di Roma.

Ma il panorama delle riesumazioni non è finito. Ancora alla Fenice di Venezia, dove le opere di repertorio si alterneranno con novità come il balletto Doubles II di Franco Donatoni e come l'opera La visita meravigliose di Nino Rota (che approda in laguna dopo il felicissimo esito dello scorso anno a Palermo), avremo la prima ri presa in forma di spettacolo del Corsaro di Verdi, affidato alla direzione di Francesco Molinari Pradelli. E così anche il grande Verdi si troverà coinvolto ancora una volta a mostrare le sue facce minori, per venire incontro al l'inquietudine e alla curiosità della nostra cultura e alle ambizioni dei nostri organizzatori teatrali.

Tutto sommato, soltanto il Teatro Comunale di Firenze, che alle riesumazioni riserba di solito il Maggio Musicale, si presenta ancorato ad un solido repertorio, almeno nella stagione inver nale che si è inaugurata il primo di dicembre con puritani. Per un caso piuttosto singolare, però, una riesumazione ci sarà anche a Fi renze, e davvero sui generis, perché si trat terà nientemeno che della Cavalleria rusticana di Mascagni, assente dalle scene del Comunale da più di venti anni, e dei Pagliacci di Leoncavallo, mai rappresentati nel maggior teatro di Firenze da quando è istituito in Ente autonomo, cioè da più di quarant'anni. Il cartellone presenta tuttavia anche novità di estrema avan guardia, come il mistero coreografico che sarà realizzato su Musica di Sylvano Bussotti da Aurelio Milloss.

Ma già lo spettacolo inaugurale della stagione ha dato la sensazione che anche per Firenze, nonostante il deficit e le ricorrenti polemiche sulla politica del teatro (decentramento regionale, allargamento del pubblico tradizionale, ricerca di nuovi autori e di un più scoperto impegno politico, ecc.), i dirigenti non si arrendono alle prospettive della famigerata crisi de gli Enti lirici italiani. In effetti questi Puritani di Firenze hanno avuto più di una caratteristica capace di far sensazione, a cominciare dalla riconferma del giovane Riccardo Muti (che è il direttore stabile dell'orchestra del Maggio) come uno dei più autorevoli e personali con certatori di cui si possa vantare il teatro musicale italiano.

Muti ha avuto senza dubbio la fortuna di poter disporre di una compagnia di canto di grande prestigio: Cristina Deutekom è stata una Elvira di straordinarie possibilità canore, ed è apparsa come maturata in profondità rispetto alle sue prime, per quanto sensazionali, prove veneziane di regina della notte nel Flauto magico di Mozart e di protagonista nell'Armida di Ros sini. E accanto a lei c'era un tenore della classe di Nicolai Gedda, che ha sfoderato i suoi acuti con la signorilità di un prestigiatore ma anche con un senso musicale che lo ha fatto apparire interprete di eccezione anche in questo reper torio, oltre che in quello mozartiano e francese in cui si è specializzato. Nelle parti più impor tanti figuravano inoltre il basso Agostino Ferrin e il baritono Sesto Bruscantini, di cui è superfluo sottolineare l'intelligenza e la sensibilità musicale.

Ma è indubbio che il giovane Muti, il quale fra poche settimane riprenderà proprio puritani anche alla Scala (con una diversa compagnia e in un diverso allestimento scenico e registico: e poi si dice che in Italia c'è la crisi!), ha co stituito il punto di forza, e per molti di autentica sorpresa, di questo spettacolo: perché Muti, a meno di trent'anni, e con una carriera che di fatto ha meno anni delle dita di una mano, ha già bruciato molte tappe che, ad altri, ap paiono in lontananza soltanto negli anni della piena maturità. E quel che fa sensazione è che egli dirige con la sensibilità dei vecchi di altri tempi e lascia cantare i cantanti, pur avendo come i giovani il gusto di un vigo roso rigore formale e di un appassionato colore orchestrale. Leonardo Plazauti

↑ Un bozzetto per l'opera Le due illustri rivall. di Mercadante, resumata alla Fenice di Venezia nel centenario della morte del compositore di Altamura. Sotto: il basso Boris Christoff, Attila nell'opera verdiana che Inaugura la stagione del San Carlo

1 9 7 1

MORE STORIES OF GREAT OPERAS

1971

OPERA MAGAZINE
1971 January

Milan. Full casts for the current season at La Scala have now been announced, and are as follows: Les Vepres Siciliennes. With Renata Scotto/Leyla Gencer, Gianni Raimondi/ Giorgio Casellato Lamberti, Piero Cappuccilli/Lorenzo Saccomani/Licinio Montefusco, Ruggero Raimondi/Carlo Cava/Paolo Washington, c. Gianandrea Gavazzeni, p. Giorgio Di Lullo, d. Pier Luigi Pizzi

Venezia. Teatro La Fenice: December 11, 13, 14, 17, 19 La Gioconda. With Leyla Gencer, Luisa Bordin Nave, Mirna Pecile, Umberto Grilli, Mario Zanasi, Ruggero Raimondi, c. Antonino Votto, p. Carlo Maestrini, d. Veniero Colasanti and John Moore.

RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1971.01.31

RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1971.07.04

RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1971.10.31

RADIOCORRIERE.TV

1971.11.10

DINO CIANI CD / LP ALBUMS Nocturnes CHOPIN

1971 December

INTERVIEW BY MARCELLO BANDIERAMONTE

1971.12.09, PALERMO

Leyla Gencer Interviewed by Marcello Bandieramonte

We are in the dressing room of Leyla Gencer, the celebrated soprano who has brought to life tonight, after more than a century, the forgotten Rossinian character, Queen Elizabeth of England. Rossini wrote Elizabeth to suit the exceptional gifts of the beautiful Isabella Colbran, who was later to become his wife. The writer, Stendhal, said of her interpretation: 'Everything was reflected in her Spanish eyes, so beautiful, yet at certain moments so fierce." After 137 years, we are again in the presence of another dark Mediterranean beauty, born on the shores of the Bosphorus, the Turkish soprano, Leyla Gencer, interpreter of the role of Elizabeth. We might say that Rossini wrote it also for you, Madame. Musically and visually, the character suits you well—that of Elizabeth.

Certainly. Elizabeth demands unusual vocal efforts. Yes, and I am very happy to perform it for the first time after a century of absolute silence.

Rossini made an innovation in this work by making a point of not leaving anything up to the singers—but by writing all the ornaments and coloratura, especially for your role.

Yes, very difficult.

Then you are one of the great merits of this revival of the Rossini masterpiece, because it is not easy to find a singer who rejects the usual standard roles, a successful artist who will commit herself to such difficult parts.

Truly, since the beginning of my career, I have always preferred to sing these rather rare and difficult operas, and because my curiosity drives me to discover new and difficult works—perhaps because of their difficulty! The difficulty attracts me. Of course, I am also very happy to have performed besides the Elizabeth of Rossini, other English queens of Donizetti, for instance Maria Stuarda, Donizetti's Queen Elizabeth of England, Anna Bolena again by Donizetti, and above all I am satisfied and happy to have contributed a little to the diffusion of these works in the international operatic world. And they have almost become standard repertory works. It is almost a duty for me to discover and sing and launch these rare operas that are very difficult to sing because they really require tremendous vocal work, much greater than the operas that are done regularly.

Let us hope that this Elisabetta will be launched internationally, since we know that it will go to the festival at...

Edinburgh.

Yes, Edinburgh, is it true?

We hope, certainly—this is our wish.

Then, apart from the similarity of the temperaments of the two artists already mentioned at the beginning—that of the artist of yesterday, Colbran, and that of today, Gencer, this is a work which is congenial visually because it is about a regal character, and you listed a while ago many queens, many princesses.

Yes, I have many queens in my repertory.

And even another Queen Elizabeth, it seems to me. Is it so, another Queen Elizabeth?

Yes, of Donizetti, Roberto Devereux, yes, it's called Roberto Devereux because there already existed this Elizabeth of England, already set to music by Rossini.

And where do you reside usually?

In Milan.

In Milan! Artistically, do you feel a little Italian?

Completely Italian because I have made my entire career in Italy. I made my debut in Italy in 1954.

I recall that last year there was a group of young people who came here specially to hear you.

They will return.

Indeed, they will return.

They are already here.

A group that has made itself known among the general public.

A group that follows me almost everywhere.

Indeed.

To Spain, America, and soon even to Edinburgh.

I thought these youths were all from Genoa.

They are not only from Genoa, but from all over Italy—from Florence, from Milano, from Genoa, from Naples.

And they are all here tonight to applaud in the theatre.

Yes, they are all here.

Thank you, Madame.

Thank you.

1 9 7 2

50 YEARS OF SAN FRANCISCO OPERA
1972 January

ARTHUR BLOOMFIELD

Page 150

If a production can be said to be lovable such was the San Francisco Opera's first Cosi Fan Tutte-until, that is, it became tacky and had to be replaced. It was unveiled October 2, 1956 in George Jenkins' admirably light and tasteful rococo-modern settings and immediately found a place in the hearts of the patrons. The genius of Mozart was well served by an enthusiastic cast consisting of Schwarzkopf, Nell Rankin, Patrice Munsel, Richard Lewis, Frank Guarrera and Alvary, with Hans Schwieger conducting, and Paul Hager in charge of the stage. The comedy of the piece came through with a mixture of laughs and style, and while cuteness had more of an upper hand than Da Pontean cynicism, this was a production that, in total spirit, really clicked-as Mozart productions, it must be said, had not always done in San Francisco. Ticket demand was high enough a third performance was added to the scheduled two.

There was no contemporary opera in 1956, but there were new stagings-controversial ones, too-of Walküre and Boris, plus the first Boccanegra in fifteen years, and the first Falstaff in eight. Not to mention the American debuts of sopranos Leonie Rysanek, Birgit Nilsson and Leyla Gencer mezzo Oralia Dominguez, baritone Anselmo Colzani, bass Boris Christoff and conductor Oliviero De Fabritiis.

Furthermore, soprano Eileen Farrell sang for the first time with a "major" operatic organization, and an expatriate tenor named Richard Martell was given special opportunities to shine. La Scala baritone Rolando Panerai and the Yugoslavian conductor Lovro von Matacic were also supposed to be on the roster but didn't make it to San Francisco. Nor did Cleva, busy at the Met.

Reappearance of The Flying Dutchman served to introduce Vienna's warm-voiced Rysanek in one of her best roles-the one that opens with that haunting pianissimo. Following the Dutchman, which was solidly, perhaps too solidly conducted by Steinberg, she sang Aida and her impassioned Sieglinde, the latter in a Kerz-designed Walküre with Nilsson as Brünnhilde and Hotter as Wotan, Schwieger conducting. Needless……..

Page 152

…….. The Francesca project stemmed from the fact that Tebaldi was learning the role for the Maggio Musicale in Florence. When that festival dropped the work she was less interested in doing it for San Francisco. It was more feasible for Adler to go ahead with a substitute soprano than a substitute opera-the production was already built when the unwooable Tebaldi made her decision-so Leyla Gencer a Turkish soprano with Italian opera experience, was imported. She turned out to be an exceptionally interesting if uneven artist. Her physical beauty at that time was marked, her poise sure, her pianissimi exquisite, and her voice in general, when well- projected, remarkably warm in tone. Whether she made more or less of Francesca than Tebaldi might have done is one of history's little question marks.

In any event, the opera-which dates from 1914 and has not been done at the Met since 1918-was not really worth doing. It has some sweeping love music of a Richard Straussian sort, and the end of the first act, with the solo viola and lute providing a nice medieval color, is especially felicitous. But much of the score, related to Puccini, Giordano, Montemezzi, Wagner, Debussy, is derivative and not very interesting. Zandonai's opera, which might, incidentally, be called L'Amore dei Tre Fratelli, is akin to Montemezzi's L'Amore dei Tre Re in that both are romantic-medieval tales set to music at a time when verismo was at its height in the Italian lyric theater. Colzani and Curzi as the two disagreeable brothers offered particularly vivid portrayals, the uninhibited Colzani almost chewing the scenery in the fiery finale.

Tebaldi's roles for '56 were Tosca, which she sang beautifully, sans encore, and Amelia in Boccanegra, a part she did learn for San Francisco. She sang much of it well, but there was a disconcerting lack of volume control: the tone could get hard and explosive. Martell, an American from Paris, was the Cavaradossi of the first Tosca. His compact voice was not of ideal size for the house, but there was some nice dulcet vocalism along the way, and his handsome appearance and lively acting acility were points in favor. Bjoerling, absent for five years, was the second Mario. Warren and Colzani shared the Scarpias, indicating that the Roman police department was well-staffed.

Eileen Farrell was introduced as Leonora in Trovatore at a……..

Page 156

…….. bula because the cold air in that city, not to mention a bother- some case of nervous exhaustion, was giving her serious trouble. The report in the San Francisco papers on September 17 was this: the diva's husband Meneghini said Madame Callas would be happy to sing four performances with the San Francisco Opera beginning October 15. But her first Lucia was scheduled for September 27, her second October 5, and her first Macbeth October 11!

The report continued with a statement of the position of the San Francisco Opera, which was, not surprisingly, that Madame Callas was fired, and that a complaint, furthermore, was being sent off to the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). The fact that a recording of Cherubini's Medea was on the ailing Callas' September schedule-sessions took place from the 12th to the 19th-did not sit exactly well with Adler and Miller. Nor the fact that she "rested up" by going to an early September ball tossed for her in Venice by Elsa Maxwell. Callas had wired Adler September 1 that he should have a sub on hand "in case." But Callas' logical follow-up, in Adler's estimation, would have been either to come on schedule and try to perform, or to cancel outright, and stay home. Most subscribers felt Adler and Miller were to be commended for their uncompromising action, and after Leonie Rysanek's Lady Macbeth and Leyla Gencer's Lucia- both highly successful-Maria Callas was, if not forgotten, hardly missed.

AGMA ultimately released a reprimand in which it was concluded that Callas was "not wholly justified" in her failure to fulfill the contract. "There is reason to believe," it said, "on the basis of medical statements submitted, that Maria Meneghini Callas would have been justified in not performing because of her physical and emotional condition at the time. But the board further finds that, in fact, Maria Meneghini Callas did not rely entirely upon the medical advice, and, in fact, indicated to the San Francisco Opera Association her willingness to perform during a portion of the period covered by the contract. In view of these circumstances and other incidents testified to before the Board demonstrating that she did not rely entirely upon medical advice, the Board concludes and is of the opinion that she was under an obligation to come to the United States at the time called for by her contract with the San Francisco Opera." ……..

Page 160

…….. was given its first American performance in any guise. There were also revivals of two long withdrawn operas: Bartered Bride, last heard in 1942 and offered in a new production, and Tannhäuser, silent since 1941. In line with the theory that standard rep should be visually freshened, Bohème was given in a new production financed by the Guild.

Singers in American debuts included soprano Eugenia Ratti, tenor Sebastian Feiersinger, baritone Rolando Panerai and basses Giuseppe Modesti and Arnold Van Mill. Conductors new to the U.S. were Leopold Ludwig and Jean Fournet. San Francisco favorites Rysanek, Schwarzkopf, Price and Farrell were on hand, and sopranos Lisa Della Casa and Christel Goltz, and mezzos Grace Hoffman and Irene Dalis- the latter from nearby San Jose-joined the roster.

Dalis appeared first in one of her best roles, Eboli in Don Carlo. She swung into it with a fiery regality and sang it warmly, winning friends who would welcome her back in many seasons to come. She shared top honors in the first two performances with Tozzi, whose limping, swaggering Philip was a stage portrait drawn with great imagination and style, certainly one of the best all-around characterizations he offered through the years of personages more interesting than the stock Ramfis and Zaccaria types. Frank Guarrera was a vivid Rodrigo, Piero Miranda Ferraro a so-so Don Carlo. No soprano has ever known better than Leyla Gencer how to stand about looking noble, but her vocal projection in the role of Elisabetta was spotty. As Molinari-Pradelli was unable to return this particular year-there was illness in his family -George Sebastian was brought back for the Italian wing, 13 In general this proved a mistake-Adler's alternate thought was the well-remembered Perlea, who was not in the best of health-but Sebastian did understand well the somber atmosphere of Don Carlo and put it over with grip and thrust. Especially at the first performance, when tempos were on the slow side, and effective in a brooding sort of way.

There were some interesting additions and subtractions when a new cast took over at an added third performance- proof, this "encore," that the subtleties of Don Carlo can take hold at the box office. Van Mill was a more stolid Philip than Tozzi but his formidable approach made sense. Grace Hoffman sang well as Eboli but didn't provide the electricity ……..

Page 250

…….. club boss; and Jeannette Scovotti's giggly Miss Hampton, that being Carter Jones' rooming house neighbor.

Simon Estes, the young black bass-baritone who played Jones' uncle in Hamburg, had the central role in San Francisco. McHenry Boatwright, Hamburg's Jones, had batted out in a Spring Opera Trovatore (as Di Luna) in 1966 and it was thought wise to use someone else. Estes was not sufficiently experienced and gutsy a performer to make a monumental figure, but he did reasonably well with material which was, in any event, somewhat trying.

Opening Night 1967 brought a revival of Gioconda, not seen in nineteen years. Adler had waited until he had the whopping sort of cast that can make this over-climaxed but irresistible warhorse run. Up through the summer of '67 there were problems, two of his choices agreeing to the job and then backing off. Crespin was to do her first Gioconda, and she had coaching with Zinka Milanov in Yugoslavia on her agenda, but indisposition made it impossible for her to learn the role in time, and Peter Glossop defected from Barnaba for Falstaff with Sarah Caldwell's American National Company which toured the U.S. in the wake of the prematurely-hatcheted Met National troupe.

Crespin was ably enough replaced by Leyla Gencer absent for nearly a decade from the San Francisco scene. For Barnaba there were the parched tones of Chester Ludgin, the man-of-all-work baritone who was encountering vocal problems especially inconvenient for such a draftable singer. With Patane an exceedingly crisp, cultivated man on the podium, Grace Bumbry an ideally handsome, mellifluous Laura, Maureen Forrester (a rare figure on the operatic stage) a plummy Cieca, and Cioni a pingy Enzo, this was, despite problems, a Gioconda lineup not to be dismissed.

Gencer's dramatic handling of the title role made one respect her artistic integrity even as one worried over instances of vocal abandon. Especially after Opening Night, a traditionally troublesome time for voices, she achieved a fairly even effect, always using her voice, according to her habit, as a piece of highly charged equipment. There have been more brilliant-sounding sopranos of the Gioconda type, but none more resourceful. Gioconda being the sort of ……..

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…….. character who turns up from everybody's woodwork, she tends to be more than a bit tiresome, but Gencer put you on her side.

Page 310

…….. charge in each case. A major Adler achievement, of course, was the gradual lengthening of the senior company's seasons to eleven weeks. (In 1923 the season finished in two weeks.)
Plotting an historical chart of San Francisco Opera productions in the standard Verdi-Puccini-Wagner repertoire, the archivist discovers that, in most cases, there existed original "Agnini" sets (generally "old school" and often interchangeable) from the '20's and 30's, these succeeded in Adler's regime by "contemporary" productions. For Verdi, for instance, there was a new Don Carlo and Falstaff in '62, Forza in '63, Ballo in '65, Trovatore in '68, Aida and Traviata in '69, Otello in '70, with Rigoletto momentarily left to Spring Opera Theater ('71) and Adler still dreaming of an eventual Boccanegra. Ernani was once borrowed, and the company has a Nabucco and Macbeth.
A middle chapter, mostly in the '50's and early '60's, finds interim variations being made on pieces from the Agnini warehouse to give shows a more simplified, up-to-date look. By 1972 Adler had achieved a virtually complete scenic over- hauling of essential repertoire, lacking principally a new Lohengrin and Cav and Pag, plus a really workable Don Giovanni.
Adler' initial brisk pace in introducing new voices to the U.S. relented a bit, but not much, after 1960. To the earlier names of sopranos Inge Borkh, Rosanna Carteri, Leyla Gencer, Sena Jurinac, Birgit Nilsson, Leonie Rysanek and Merola's Renata Tebaldi one can add the later ones of the lamented Marie Collier, Pilar Lorengar, Ljiljana Molnar-Talajic, Margaret Price, Graziella Sciutti and Anja Silja. To such earlier tenor debutants from Merola and Adler years as Mario Del Monaco, Sandor Konya, Richard Lewis, Gotthelf Pistor and Cesare Valletti one can add Stuart Burrows, Ryland Davies and Robert Ilosfalvy.
A longer (but incomplete) list of U.S. debuts throughout the half century includes sopranos Janine Micheau and Rosina Torri, mezzos Margarete Klose, Giulietta Simionato and Ebe Stignani, baritones and basses Boris Christoff, Anselmo Colzani, Geraint Evans, Tito Gobbi, Rolando Panerai, Giuseppe Taddei and Ingvar Wixell, not to mention conductor Georg Solti. ……..

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…….. Adler can be credited with making much use of Mary Costa, Reri Grist, Eileen Farrell, Leontyne Price and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, not to mention numerous others, before his New York colleague Rudolf Bing got around to them. And the San Francisco Opera, under Merola and Adler, can pride itself (in most cases) on being the scene of Jeritza's first Salome in America, the first Siegfried Brünnhilde of Flagstad's career, the only Lehmann-Flagstad Walküre, Leontyne Price's first Donna Elvira, Giorgetta and four Verdi heroines (in Forza, Aida, Ballo and Trovatore), Albanese's first Desdemona, Kirsten's first Tosca and Louise, Tebaldi's first Boccanegra, Irene Dalis' first Klytemnestra and only Isolde, Marilyn Horne's first Eboli, Janis Martin's only Ulrica, Marie Collier's first Minnie, Martinelli's first Otello, Bjoerling and Pavarotti's first Riccardos, Vinay's first Tristan and Bartolo, Jess Thomas' first Tristan, James King's first Stolzing, Richard Lewis' first Herod, the first lago of Tibbett, Eberhard Waechter's first Barak, Geraint Evans' first Wozzeck, Pizarro and Kezal, Renato Capecchi's first Sacristan, Giorgio Tozzi's first Don Giovanni, Gurnemanz and King Marke, Pons' first Violetta, Journet's 1000th Mephistopheles, Schorr's 200th Sachs, Lehmann's last Marschallin, and one of the nine Florestans Melchior ever sang (none were at the Met). Other performances reported unavailable in New York include Baccaloni's Falstaff, Lily Djanel's Sieglinde, Sayao's Nedda, etc. etc.
Adler also has a good record of bringing back estimable expatriate American singers like Sylvia Anderson, Thomas Tipton, Judith Beckman and Kieth Engen in leading roles.
As a personality, Kurt Herbert Adler has not achieved the lovability level of his predecessor Merola. A less relaxed but tremendously efficient and marvelously committed general director, he has kept the company in high gear and what might be called a well-functioning fever of activity. Adler has a warm side, but a number of people would rate him as pretty formidable. He does love a good scrap, and he drives a hard bargain, but then again, he balances his budget (or, in operatic parlance, budgeted deficit), putting on a high level quality of opera at a cost somewhat less than that run up for a similar amount of operatic activity by other American companies employing numerous stars.' ……..

DISCOTECA ALTA FEDELTA'
1972 January - February

↑ Leyla Gencer, Elisabetta nel Don Carlos [Milano Teatro alla Scala, 1970]

IL TRONO

SI ADDICE ALLA GENCER

di Rodolfo Celletti

Si racconta, di Leyla Gencer, che disponga di duecento attivisti che spesso assistono alle sue recite e che talvolta orga nizzerebbero spedizioni punitive contro le rivali, Poco più di un anno fa, prima an cora che conoscessi personalmente la Signora Gencer, si sparse la voce che i duecento pretoriani avevano mosso aspra guerra alla Suliotis durante una recita genovese del Macbeth. Vera si, vera no. ammetto che la cosa stimolò la mia immaginazione. Le azioni di disturbo dei soliti dieci o venti fanatici sappiamo tutti in che cosa consistano. Sono banali e volgari. insieme. Ma una massa d'urto di duecento pretoriani costituisce un sistema orga nizzato di dimensioni imponenti. E che dire poi di una donna capace di scatenare una guerra greco-turca e di indurre gli italiani a schierarsi sotto la bandiera ottomana, quando, da che mondo è mondo, è sempre avvenuto il contrario?

Cosi, cominciò a prendere corpo l'idea di avvicinare una buona volta la Gencer che da tempo m'interessava, comun. que e poco dopo, infatti, s'apri la serie. delle nostre dilettevoli conversazioni, sotto gli auspici, mi piace ricordarlo, d'una delle più belle arie verdiane: D'amor sull'ali rosee..

Quella sera Leyla Gencer era chiaramente di pessimo umore. Stava studiando l'Elisabetta d'Inghilterra di Rossini e un raffreddore l'aveva colta a tradimento, ridu cendola momentaneamente al silenzio. Inguainata in un vestito nero che, tutto sommato, deviava un poco nello stile teatrale, aveva lo sguardo crucciato, ciò che poi significa più concentrato e indagatore del solito. Tuttavia quel modo di tenermi sotto tiro con gli occhi, mentre una voce levigatissima e un sorriso scenicamente perfetto dipanavano i preamboli, mi dava strano a pensarci non disagio, ma confidenza, Infatti, ho un debole per le nature pugnaci, per les femmes terribles e per le risse che scatenano.

Dunque. Leyla Gencer sorrideva e parla. va con sciolta affabilità, ma tutta l'aggressività del suo viso caparbio e tutta la sua capacità di aggrondare la fronte, oltre che lo sguardo, continuando a ostentare dol cezza e pacatezza, erano in piena tensione. Nulla che non avessi in qualche modo previsto, perché certa maniera di cantare e di fraseggiare, nonché di recitare e di atteggiarsi, m'avevano da tempo fornito una serie di indicazioni, sulla donna, che secondo me davano un ritratto già defi nito. E Leyla Gencer avrebbe anche potuto esprimersi, sorridere, muoversi, scrutare e guatare in modo tutto diverso: lo non mi sarei spostato da quelle indicazioni, da quel ritratto, a nessun costo.

così non è, se vi pare

In effetti, per tutta quella sera, e pol in occasione di altri incontri ovvero di telefonate, alcune anche lunghe, s'ingaggio. fra la Gencer e me, un gioco sottile, pirandelliano, per alcuni versi: io la vedo in un certo modo e lei, che intuisce con una prontezza e un'astuzia folgoranti, subito si getta su un'altra strada, si occulta, si mimetizza, si trasforma; perché non accetta per principio di essere decifrata, anche se non le dispiace di essere osservata e studiata. La sua maggiore gioia, quando leggerà queste pagine, sarà di proclamare che non ho capito assolutamente nulla, di lei, che l'ho svisata, distorta: e magari me lo dimostrerà con paziente dialettica. simulata arrendevolezza e divertenti colpi di spillo; al che io non mi sposterò di un millimetro. continuerò a sostenere che la sua carta più valida è il geniale trasfor mismo, in tutti i sensi; e il gioco conti. nuerà.

Tanto per dire: io ero lì, quella sera, pacatamente seduto su una poltrona e la seguivo con lo sguardo mentre muoveva verso il giradischi. Era la prima volta che la vedevo da vicino e costatando la sua statura relativamente esigua. non potevo non domandarmi come mai mi fosse sembrata tanto alta. anni prima, nel corso delle terribili collere dell'Elisabetta del -Roberto Devereux.

"d'amor sull'ali rosee »

Fu subito dopo che Leyla Gencer levò il grido della giungla. Il disco da ascoltare era già pronto e lei lo aveva scelto tut t'altro che a caso. Era D'amor sull'ali rosee, uno dei cinque brani registrati in inizio di carriera e poi rimasti senza se guito, ciò che costituisce uno del capitoli più strani, per non dire assurdi, della storia della moderna discografia. La Gencer volle che ascoltassi questa Incisione, sconosciuta ai più, praticamente irreperibile, e a me, fino a quel momento, del tutto ignota, per avviare un certo discorso tecnico-stilistico e sottolineare certi aspetti contrastanti della sua carriera. Naturalmente. da quella donna penetrante e immaginosa che è, colse nel segno.

Si tratta d'una esecuzione veramente straordinaria, in cui l'esattezza e la precisione della parte vocalizzata e ornamentale vanno di pari passo con l'abbandono patetico, mentre il gioco raffinatassimo delle legature, del portamenti e dei chiaroscuri è idealizzato dalla dolorosa eloquenza dell'accento. Ma c'è una levità lunare, nell'esecuzione, che sottolinea, come forse mai m'è accaduto d'udire da altre voci, il miracolo che compi Verdi in quel punto del Trovatore arrivando a. fondere l'estasi lirica d'origine belcantistica e la realistica sofferenza romantica.

Immagino che, mentre il disco girava, la Gencer sorridesse. Sapeva già che al pri mo incontro con una delle lance spezzate della belcantorenaissance-, e per di più in fama di non avere orecchie che per la Sutherland, la Horne e la Caballé, gli avrebbe tolto l'arma di mano levando il grido d'avvertimento degli eroi della giun. gla di Kipling: Siamo dello stesso sangue, tu ed lo!.

Ma sarei pronto a giurare, adesso, che se lo avessi avuto altra fama, e fossi stato, per esempio, un fautore dell'espressi- vità a tutti i costi e della scuola dell'urlo, dalla sua riserva di nastri e di dischi. pirata la Gencer avrebbe estratto e esibito, con la stessa sicurezza, un brano fatto su misura per appagare la mia presumibile sete di conati declamatorii e di scatti belluini.

Restammo per qualche attimo in silenzio. lo avrei voluto dire: Non è che non la sapessi capace di cantare bene, signora Gencer: è il gusto di questa esecuzione che mi ha sorpreso!, ma la Gencer mi precedette. Disse: «Cosi cantavo quando venni in Italia, nel 1954. Però, lei lo sa, allora questo modo di cantare era consi derato antiquato, lezioso e noioso. Dovetti cambiare rotta, diventare un'altra».

Riprendemmo e sviluppammo il tema in altra occasione. La Gences è consapevole. d'una certa sua intempestività storica-, data dal fatto che inizialmente fu costretta a mettersi sulla scia della Callas quando, soltanto dieci anni dopo, avrebbe potuto trovare un clima più consono allo stile e alla tecnica con cui registro D'amor sull'ali rosee per la Cetra. Uno stile e una tecnica da caposcuola, indubbiamente, se ci rifacciamo all'epoca d'incisione. Ma mentre lei sostiene che furono soprattut to le circostanze a spingerla in un'altra direzione, io ho la sensazione che, con il suo temperamento, non avrebbe mai potuto seguire una strada troppo diversa da quella che tutti conosciamo.

«Insomma», mi ha chiesto qualche mese fa, «almeno un po' di fatalismo orientale me lo vuol riconoscere? O intende mettere in dubbio persino che sono nata e cresciuta a Istambul?».

Cosi cominciammo a parlare della sua infanzia e della jeunesse dorée della Turchia degli anni trenta e degli anni quaranta, che frequentava le scuole straniere perché questa era la moda, allora. Cosi Leyla Gencer s'iscrisse al liceo italiano. «Vede? Il destino!».

«Niente destino», replicai. «Una Gencer, sia pure adolescente, che permette al destino di scegliere per lei, non è conce. pibile».

«Eppure è cosi». Però soggiunse, subito dopo: «Ero amica di alcune ragazze ita liane. Inoltre conoscevo già bene il francese. Ho avuto una governante francese, da bambina. Decisi per il liceo italiano. II destino».

Avesse scelto il liceo tedesco o quello francese o quello ottentotto. sarebbe divenuta ugualmente ciò che è. Alla peggio, avrebbe cantato Wagner e Strauss, oppure Massenet e Gounod, invece di Donizetti e di Verdi. Ma, certo, che il suo de stino fosse quello di finire sul palcoscenico, non lo si può negare. Così come non si può negare che imparò l'italiano alla perfezione. Leggeva libri d'ogni genere, mi ha raccontato, e spesso a voce alta, declamando.

↑ La Gencer, Antonina nel Belisario. [Venezia, La Fenice 1969]

«Vede? Il destino!».
«Eravamo un gruppo di amiche», continuò «e ci piaceva organizzare recite o, meglio improvvisarle. Aprivamo un libro qualsia si, non importa se di versi o di narrativa. e lo recitavamo. Meglio, naturalmente, se era un testo teatrale».
«Chi apriva il libro, di solito?..
«Io».
«Vede? I destino! Chi sceglieva il testo teatrale?..
«Io».
«Chi, con il suo orientale fatalismo e la sua passiva accettazione del destino, ob bligava le amiche, con le buone e con le cattive, a recitare?».
«Ancora io», rispose, e la sentil ridere sommessamente, al telefono.
«Sognavo di diventare attrice di prosa. Ma sognavo anche», soggiunse «di diventare una grande danzatrice, una grande archeologa, una grande scrittrice».
«E una grande cantante?».
«Quello dopo. Sin da bambina, comunque, cantavo in cappella, con le suore». «Scusi, ma Lei di che religione è?».
«Musulmana, teoricamente, Ma mia madre sebbene nata in Turchia, era polacca e quindi cattolica».
«Era normale, in Turchia, quando lei co minciò a studiare il canto, che una ragaz za della «jeunesse dorée» pensasse di dedicarsi al teatro?».
«Non lo era, ovviamente. Infatti trovai qualche opposizione, in famiglia»,
Cominciò a studiare il canto nel 1950, comunque, e la sua maestra fu Giannina Arangi-Lombardi. Mentre studiava, fu a volte utilizzata come corista dal Teatro di Stato di Ankara, presso il quale l'Arangi-Lombardi aveva la cattedra. Fu un'esperienza preziosa, soprattutto perché le die. de familiarità con il palcoscenico. Era inoltre assidua alle recite di prosa: e anche questo, a tempo e luogo, l'avvantaggio.
Le sembrò naturale, una volta terminati gli studi, intraprendere la carriera italiana già, il destino!e venire a debut tare al San Carlo di Napoli, nel 1954, con la Madama Butterfly. Tre anni dopo era alla Scala, per cantare la parte della Nuova Priora alla prima esecuzione assoluta dei Dialoghi delle Carmelitane di Pou lenc, Fu allora che l'ascoltai ma soprat tutto la vidi per la prima volta. Non ricordo, cioè, che precisa impressione mi facesse la voce, mentre la nobiltà, la semplicità e l'espressività dell'attrice mi restarono impresse..
Oggi, ripensandoci, non mi meraviglio che la parte vocale sia rimasta in ombra, nella mia memoria. La voce di Leyla Gencer la si nota soprattutto quando il virtuosismo o la tensione drammatica la mettono alla frusta. Perché è una voce normale, anzi piuttosto comune, se considerata in sé e per sé.
Non è affatto una brutta voce, come talvolta si sente dire. Ha poco metallo, specie nei centri, questo si, e il volume è relativamente esiguo, ma è molto estesa, sale facilmente e il timbro m'è sempre parso gradevole, salvo sporadiche durezze e forzature provocate dalle tessiture più arcigne. Però, è una voce che non ha tra le proprie componenti un'individualità spiccata, né per timbro, né per colori, né per volume. Di singolare ha soltanto questo: è mirabilmente addestrata ad assimilare e riverberare la personalità di Leyla Gencer. Nella Gencer, la donna, la vocalista e la interprete s'intrecciano in modo difficile. da definire, Esistono grandi cantanti in cui la donna si lascia completamente annullare dal fatto artistico. Costoro, divenute famose per eccezionali qualità naturali o tecniche, non pretendono di spiccare come donne. Leyla Gencer è diversa, credo. Il fatto artistico è uno strumento di potere della donna, un devoto suddito della sua intelligenza e della sua scaltrezza. Il fatto vocale, poi, è quello che ho detto. se ci limitiamo a valutare il suono in sé e per sé; e novantanove soprani su cento non avrebbero saputo ricavarne altro che una decente attività in provincia. Vicever sa la Gencer era alla Scala dopo tre anni di carriera, come s'è visto, e in quello stesso anno cantò la Forza del destino- a Colonia, la Liù della Turandot a Los Angeles, la Traviata e la Lucia a San Francisco.
Nel 1958. ulteriore ampliamento di orizzonti: Due Foscari alla Fenice di Venezia e a Torino: Trovatore a Trieste; Me. fistofele alla Scala: Tabarro e Suor Angelica all'Opera di Roma: Anna Bolena alla RAI; Don Carlo, Rigoletto e Manon di Massenet a San Francisco. Ancora un anno, e accanto ad altre recite di Trovatore e di Lucia", troviamo l'Angelo di fuoco di Prokofiev a Spoleto, il Simon Boccanegra al San Carlo di Napoli, la Battaglia di Legnano al Maggio Fiorentino.
Che, in questo modo, Leyla Gencer si fosse messa sulle orme della Callas, è innegabile. Soprano lirico, o addirittura lirico-leggero, per mole e struttura di orga nizzazione vocale, intui che Maria Callas aveva impresso, al repertorio operistico. una scossa sismica i cui effetti si sarebbero protratti a fungo. Non esitò, quindi, a prendere posizione, anche se questo le assegnava, in quel momento, una parte da epigona più che da vessillifera.
Fu una scelta oggi cominciamo ad avvedercene assai più coraggiosa che opportunistica. La voce della Gencer non aveva il mordente e la forza di penetrazione di quella della Callas, e se anche era più gradevole, come pasta, più omogenea, più dolce, mancava di individuali- tà timbrica: quell'individualità, cioè, che può essere anche data da un timbro decisamente brutto, ma che è unica, co me nel caso di Maria Callas. Inoltre, il fatto che la Callas disponesse di suoni più penetranti e voluminosi, si risolveval in un diverso assetto del gioco dei contrasti. Un punto di coincidenza, tra le due voci, erano i planissimi, magistralmente usati dall'una e dall'altra; ma un pianissi mo della Callas faceva più effetto, perché era preceduto o seguito da forti o da fortissimi più nutriti e vigorosi. Lo stesso dicasi dei contrasti di colori. Quando la Callas scuriva il suono, al centro o in basso, raggiungeva effetti preclusi alla Gencer, perché disponeva di una gamma più ampia su cui articolare il gioco delle intensità. Inoltre, il timbro più mordente. dava maggior risalto e spicco alla sua dizione. Questa è semplicemente una questione fisiologica (a parità di articolazione, di scansione e di pronuncia, il timbro mordente prevale, come chiarezza di dizione, sul timbro flautato). ma intanto lat Gencer si trovava, nel confronto, in posi zione di inferiorità.
C'era, poi, la questione dell'aspetto fisico, La Callas asciutta e scavata della fine degli anni cinquanta s'avvaleva d'una statura imponente, da vero soprano dramma. tico, mentre la Gencer, più minuta, era. anche sotto quel versante, un lirico.. Infine, quando le due voci affrontavano gli stili virtuosistici tradizionali, apparivano più o meno sullo stesso plano nell'agilità di maniera (o di grazia), ma il metallo. più intenso e caustico della Callas prevaleva nell'agilità di bravura [o di forza). indipendentemente dalle doti tecniche. Questo, a volte, si riverberava anche su certi dettagli ornamentali. come l'esecuzione del trillo e delle scale semitonate. Da ultimo, c'era lo svantaggio psicologico della posizione d'epigóna. Troppo intelligente, troppo accorta e anche troppo ferrata, tecnicamente e stilisticamente - per non cadere nel tranello dell'imitazione letterale dei suoni e delle inflessioni, lat Gencer era tuttavia giunta seconda, mentre a dare l'avvio, a creare un movimento destinato a mutare la faccia alla vocalità del nostro tempo era stata, indubita tamente, la Callas. E cosi la Gencer sil trovò esposta, oltre che ai continui pericoli del confronto, anche ad un clima che non poteva esserle troppo propizio. in certe occasioni, e che portava un po' tutti, o quasi tutti, a sottovalutarla. Compreso chi scrive, inizialmente: giacché io apprezzavo la tecnica, lo stile, l'intelligenza sceni. ca e musicale di Leyla Gencer, ma ritene vo che si fosse messa fuori strada per eccesso d'ambizioni e che stesse sottoponendo la sua organizzazione vocale a uno sforzo che in pochi anni l'avrebbe annientata. Devo anche ammettere che mi vennero a mancare, un po' per forza di cose, un po' per mia trascuratezza, elementi di giudizio autentici. I nastri e i dischi cosiddetti pirati non avevano ancora una sufficiente circolazione, negli ul timi anni del regno di Maria Callas. Se. ad esempio, avessi potuto ascoltare allora la registrazione di un Rigoletto che la Gencer cantò nel 1961 al Colón di Buenos Aires, insieme ai Puritani-, mi sarei reso conto molto prima sia d'una rifinitezza virtuosistica, sia d'una duttilità espressiva di altissimo livello, E, viceversa, mi toccò udire alla Scala, nella stagione 1963-64, un Don Carlo monotono e soporifero, in cui l'Elisabetta di Leyla Gencer, sebbene ben cantata e ben recitata, mi parve sfasata e fiacca rispetto a ciò che m'attendevo. Ma il fatto è che, salvo poche eccezioni, la Scala ha da una dozzina d'anni il potere di rendere grigio, monotono, acquoso, pe sante tutto ciò che fà. E questo a prescindere da certe inqualificabili esecuzioni delle ultimissime stagioni e dagli incredibill repêchages di elementi canini che le hanno caratterizzate, dando luogo a farse, anziché a rappresentazioni.

← 1.-2 Lady Macbeth
3. Elena, nei Vespri Siciliani. [Milano, Teatro alla Scala, dicembre 1970]

La Gencer, subito dopo I«Aida», cantò la »Norma», alla Scala: poi esegui la «Beatrice di Tenda» alla Fenice e così s'espo se impavida al confronto diretto con Joan Sutherland, un altro soprano che, sia pure con una formula diversa, era entrata in campo e lo dominava, dal 1960 in poi -dopo che la Callas aveva riproposto il soprano drammatico d'agilità e mandato all'aria le tradizionali barriere di repertorio fra canto di forza e canto di coloratura.
Ora, in un mondo di intelletti pigri e av vezzi ai benefici della routine come è quello del teatro musicale, quest'opera di escavazione che rimetteva in circuito la vori sepolti da un secolo e più e che, in aggiunta, agevolava la polverizzazione di mezzo secolo di io canto la "Lucia", tu canti la "Boheme", ella canta "Aida", non poteva riuscire gradita. Ma era appunto uno del risultati del metodo Callas: lo canto tutto, vi piaccia o no. Un metodo che la Gencer ha puntualmente fatto proprio, ma che, sia pure con minor evidenza e temerità, è seguito oggi anche dalla Sutherland, dalla Caballé, dalla Sills e dalla Deutekom. Ammetto che è una regola di gioco dispersiva e pericolosa, ma ha questo vantaggio: favorisce le migliori, cioè le più dotate tecnicamente e musical. mente. Inoltre, è una formula che conti nuamente smuove le acque intorno alla persona di queste primedonne e scaccia la monotonia.
Ora, dopo il letargico Don Carlo dei pri mi del 1964, un destino propizio assegnò alla Gencer la riesumazione del Roberto Devereux [San Carlo di Napoli, maggio 1964) e a me la curiosità di ascoltare quest'opera. forse la più vitale del Donizetti ritrovato. Da allora, nel mio culto per la grande Elisabetta e la sua epoca leggen daria, s'è infiltrata l'immagine di Leyla Gencer nel Roberto. Un'immagine scenica e vocale, devo dire: ma a differenza del Dialogo delle Carmelitane, qui la vocalità prevale. Non conoscevo l'opera e certi sussulti, certe folate, certe impennate mi presero del tutto alla sprovvista: così, dopo la nostalgica cavatina iniziale (L'amor suo mi fe' beata-) e dopo l'ab bandono della prima parte del duetto con il tenore (Un tenero core mi rese felice-). lo scatto ferino, di Un lampo, un lampo orribile, che è una grande frase -preverdiana e che la Gencer esegue con una forza drammatica travolgente.
L'Elisabetta di Leyla Gencer non è tuttal nella protervia di questa e di altre frasi come le note scure, procellose di «Taci. pietade, grazia o le sibilanti volatine discendenti di Un perfido, un vile». C'è in questa figura, come la plasma la Gencer, un'infelicità autentica, un dolore rovente. La molla non è la pura e semplice gelosia della donna, ma lo spasimo della regalità offesa. E allora ecco una delle grandi in. tuizioni della Gencer: cantare piano, con voce di planto e con una dolcezza rotta appena da una scansione più accentuata, l'invettiva:

Pria d'offender chi nascea
dal tremendo ottavo Enrico.
scender vivo nel sepolcro.
tu dovevi o traditor..

Logicamente, la reazione a questa lacera. zione intima è la vendetta, pubblica, uffi ciale. plateale. vorrei dire, della sovrana dispotica e onnipotente. I la acuti di Leyla Gencer forse saranno stati piccoli, a Và, la morte sul capo ti pende,; schioc. cavano, però, come colpi di frusta, Ma il meglio l'ebbi dal finale. Ancora una volta l'orgoglio ferito della sovrana soverchiava il dolore della donna tradita e la frase la regina d'Inghilterra ho veduto lacrimar, strapiombante con un arpeggio dal la acuto al re sotto il rigo nel Larghetto Vivi ingrato, rappresentò forse uno dei non plus ultra raggiunti dalla Gencer nel canto patetico. Così come Quel sangue versato, con la sua melodia ossessiva chel denuncia un Donizetti suggestionato dal finale della Norma, fu uno dei culmini da lei conquistati nel canto di forza. Con una piccola voce ingigantita da un grande accento.
le «sue» regine
Lucrezia Borgia, ancora a Napoli, nel 1965; Saffo, sempre al San Carlo, l'anno dopo: e. a distanza di pochi mesi, Maria Stuarda a Firenze (e a Edimburgo nel 1969). Fisicamente, Leyla Gencer è più Maria Stuarda che Elisabetta: la Maria Stuarda degli ultimi tempi, intendo, umiliata dalla prigionia, La Gencer ne indossa il costu me e ne ritrae il volto intristito con assoluta spontaneità. Ma psicologicamente i crucci e gli sdegni di Elisabetta ci aiutano meglio a definirla. E questo non perché io mi sia intestato a ravvisare in lei un'unica corda l'aggressività, lo scatto iroso come a volte mi diverto a soste nere quando ci incontriamo, ma per un'al tra ragione. Quella, cioè, che le grandi parti regali del melodramma donizettiano- verdiano, da Lucrezia Borgia a Lady Macbeth, sono veramente tali quando le anima la consapevolezza dei poteri che il trono può conferire, Ora. Maria Stuarda, come Anna Bolena e come Beatrice di Tenda, sono sovrane spodestate, inermi, annichilite. La Gencer sa far vibrare in modo particolare la loro pateticità, servendosi di emissioni alate e di sfumature sottili in cui lascia scivolare con grande senso di poesia, ed esemplare misura, gemiti. sospiri e lacrime. Avrei molto da dire. su questa pateticità, anche a proposito della Saffo di Pacini e della voce cupa e flebile, insieme, del famoso Largo "Ai mortali, o crudo, ai numi oppure malinconicamente rassegnata di L'ama ognor qual io l'amai. Nemmeno si possono dimenticare certe eteree effusioni del prologo della Lucrezia Borgia, ancora una volta ottenute con un uso dei pianissimi. tanto nel canto di sbalzo quanto nella fiorettatura, che resta esemplare e che. spesso, è portata sul livello d'una lancinante espressione drammatica [esempio, Ah toglietemi la vita di Antonina del -Belisario, opera eseguita dalla Gencer alla Fenice nel 1969 e di cui ho la registrazione in nastro, come per la Saffo e la Lucrezia Borgia-). E tuttavia l'altra corda, quella dell'aggressività, della protervia è più caratteristica delle grandi figure regali melodrammatiche perché deriva dal loro rango, dal loro potere. La facoltà di esprimere, scenicamente e vocalmente, la forza conferita dal manto regale e di tradurla nelle favolose dimensioni tipiche al teatro d'opera, giunge alla Gencer in parte dalla sua preparazione culturale, in parte dal suo temperamento volitivo e innegabilmente ambizioso. E così. l'impeto di Nel di della vittoria- di Lady Macbeth (un'altra grande parte della Gencer) e l'esplosione Ah, a te ba da, a te stesso pon mente, di Lucrezia Borgia trovano, nella sua voce e nel suo accento, rifrazioni elettrizzanti e probabilmente inimitabili.

← 4. Lucrezia Borgia. [Milano, Teatro alla Scala, maggio 1970]
5. Maria Stuarda. [Firenze, Teatro Comunale, Maggio Musicale 1967]
6. Aida [Milano, Teatro alla Scala 1963]

Dissi a Leyla Gencer, la sera che ci conoscemmo, che era ancora presto per trarre conclusioni definitive e giungere a un bilancio della sua attività. Non sbagliai, perché da allora a oggi la Gencer ha aggiunto un altro trofeo, per me molto significativo, alla propria raccolta. Alludo all'esecuzione della Gioconda, nella pri mavera del 1971, a Venezia, Di tutte le imprese della Gencer, questa è fra le più strabilianti, almeno per chi conosce la tessitura massacrante e la vocalità stentorea dell'opera di Ponchielli. Ma le risorse di tecnica, di scaltrezza, di temperamento che Allah e il suo Profeta hanno dato a Leyla Gencer per permetter. le di cantare da soprano drammatico con una voce da soprano lirico-leggero, sono praticamente Infinite. E anche se oggi certe doti virtuosistiche cominciano a risentire degli ininterrotti contatti con un repertorio improbo, io sono sempre della idea in questo più genceriano della stessa Gencer che un bilancio definito sia prematuro. E la dimostrazione è che Leyla Gencer ha cantato a Palermo la Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra di Rossini parte virtuosistica, oltre che regale, per eccellenza dopo averla studiata, approfondita e sviscerata per oltre un anno.
Comunque, una cosa già adesso si può dire. Tutto ciò che è derivato dall'avvento. della Callas ha dato luogo a una serie di reazioni a catena le cui conseguenze erano, ancora una quindicina di anni fà, assolutamente imprevedibili. Proprio l'impo nenza del fenomeno avvalorò allora la scelta della Gencer. Non si sapeva che la Callas avrebbe lasciato il teatro ancor giovane, né si prevedeva l'ulteriore svolta che avrebbero impresso alla vocalità una Sutherland e una Caballé. La Gencer pas sò, inizialmente, per una semplice epigona della Callas e questo era ineluttabile per tutte le ragioni tecniche e psicologi- che che ho cercato di chiarire. Pol il pubblico e la critica si assuefecero alla sua presenza (molto meno, conviene dirlo, si assuefece l'ambiente teatrale alla sua invadenza in materia di repertorio) e cominciarono a valutarla per ciò che realmente. valeva e significava.

↑ Elisabetta, nel Roberto Devereux. [Roma, Teatro dell’Opera, febbraio 1968]

«Troppo tardi», mi ha detto una volta la Gencer, non senza malinconia. «Troppo tardi non rispetto alla fama, che è effimera va e viene a capriccio, ma rispetto a ciò che avrei potuto esprimere con la mia vera voce, se non mi avessero costretto a mutarla, a inventarne praticamente un'altra».
Due minuti prima m'aveva fatto ascoltare D'amor sull'ali rosee e quella, certamente, era una dimostrazione tangibile che il suo destino, anziché quello di seguace della Callas, sarebbe anche potuto essere quello di antesignana della Caballé. Li per li, il suo rammarico mi contagiò. Servi, indubbiamente, a farci diventare amici, se non altro perché fu il primo spiraglio attraverso il quale io intravidi in Leyla Gencer, sotto la vernice della socievolezza, della cordialità e della conversazione brio. sa. un'indole inquieta e malinconica e già gravata, nel pieno della celebrità e della popolarità, da un senso di solitudine. Ma più ci penso, più mi convinco che la Gen. cer non poteva essere che ciò che è stata. Forse questo ha reso meno clamorosa la sua carriera, meno pomposi ed esteriori I cuoi corteggl trionfali di primadonna, ma quando si è in vena di trarre conclusioni definitive bisognerebbe staccarsi dalla cro. naca e accostarsi di più alla storia. In venti anni, non soltanto la vocalità, ma il repertorio dei teatri hanno mutato faccia, Oggi è diverso anche il gusto con cui una non esigua parte del pubblico, in Italia, e soprattutto all'estero, ascolta Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi. Ebbene, la Gencer ha avuto, in tutto questo, una notevolissima parte. Quando raccolse la bandiera prematuramente lasciata cadere dal la Callas, rimase per qualche tempo sola a sostenere il peso di un patrimonio ope ristico che avrebbe anche potuto soccombere date le nostre congeniali tendenze alla routine e alle spartizioni di comodo. Avrebbe proseguito il cammino I Macbeth senza la Gencer? Avremmo conosciuto, senza di lei, la Saffo di Pacini e il Belisario-? E. soprattutto, a chi dobbia. mo, se non alla sua lampeggiante raffigurazione della grande Elisabetta, il completo ricupero del Roberto Devereux. di Donizetti? Queste sono le funzioni storiche. di un interprete; e il resto è cronaca, salvo forse le aggressioni dei duecento pretoriani, che lo vorrei fossero vere per la loro fastosità e Imponenza e aggressività in tutto degne della fantasia e della forza di volontà della regale Gloriana- ma che probabilmente fanno soltanto parte dei miti degli eterni conflitti greco-turchi.
Una cosa sola può suscitare rimpianto e rammarico: che la voce della Gencer, cosi fonogenica e duttile per virtra le oltre che per tecnica, non sia stata praticamente sfruttata dalle Case fonografiche. Sarebbe stato un settore, quello del disco, in cui la Gencer avrebbe potuto spaziare in una misura forse inimmagina bile, come del resto dimostra l'intens circolazione dei nastri e delle registrazioni clandestine e semiclandestine che la riguardano. Che le sia stato precluso que sto spazio è un fatto inspiegabile, Ingiusto. e doloroso: e che si stia preparando la ristampa degli unici cinque brani da lei incisi una quindicina d'anni fà, è un atto di riparazione che giungerà gradito a molti, ma che solo in minima parte ci risarcisce di ciò che abbiamo perduto.

nota

discografica

del soprano leyla gencer

a cura di Raffaele Vegeto

Cetra 78 giri

LA FORZA DEL DESTINO (Verdi) Pace, pace mio Dio

Cetra 45 giri

IL TROVATORE (Verdi). D'amor sull'ali rosee PE 220
MADAMA BUTTERFLY (Puccini) Un bel di vedremo
TRAVIATA (Verdi) Addio del passato SPO 1001
AIDA (Verdi) O patria mia
LA WALLY (Catalani) Ebben? ne andrò lontana SPO 1002

Edizioni private e limitate per collezionisti The Golden Age of Opera Opere complete

← 1.Elettra, nell'Idomeneo [Milano, Teatro alla Scala, gennaio, 1968]

2.Donna Anna nel Don Giovanni
3.Anna Bolena [Glyndebourne, maggio 1965]

I DUE FOSCARI (Verdi) nel personaggio di Lucrezia Contarini (con Gian Giacomo Guelfi. Mirto Picchi, Alessandro Maddalena. Ottorino Begali, Marisa Salimbeni, Augusto Veronese. Uberto Scaglione. Coro e Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice di Venezia diretta da Tullio Serafin [1957]) EJS-155

ANNA BOLENA (Donizetti) protagonista (con Plinio Clabassi, Giulietta Simionato. Silvio Maionica. Aldo Bertocci, Anna Maria Rota. Mario Carlin Coro e Orchestral della RAI di Milano diretta da Gianandrea Gavazzeni) EJS-166

JERUSALEM (Verdi) nel personaggio di Elena (con Giacomo Aragall, Emilio Savoldi, Gian Giacomo Guelfi, Antonio Zerbini. Franco Ghitti, Virgilio Carbonari, Alessandro Maddalena, Ottorino Begali, Mirella Fiorentini Coro e Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice di Venezia diretta da Gianandrea Gavazzeni [1963]) EJS 284

ROBERTO DEVEREUX (Donizetti) nel personaggio di Elisabetta (con Piero Cappuccilli, Anna Maria Rota, Ruggero Bondino. Gabriele De Julis, Silvano Pagliuca, Bruno Grella Coro e Orchestra del Teatro San Carlo di Napoli diretta da Mario Rossi [1964]] EJS-307

LUCREZIA BORGIA (Donizetti) protagonista (con Mario Petri. Glacomo Aragall, Anna Maria Rota, Giuseppe Moretti, Alfredo Colella, Salvatore Catania, Mario Guggia, Augusto Frati, Franco Ricciardi. Emilio Savoldi. Coro e Orchestra diretta da Carlo Franci [1966]) EJS-368

SAFFO (Pacini) protagonista (con Louis Quilico, Franca Mattiucci, Tito Del Blanco, Mario Guggia, Vittoria Magnaghi, Maurizio Piacenti Coro e Orchestra diretta da Franco Capuana (1967)] EJS.404

Con gli stessi interpreti è stata pubblicata. un'altra edizione: MRF-10

MONTE IVNOR (Rocca) nel personaggio di Edali (con Anselmo Colzani, Renato Gavarini, Giorgio Algorta, Miriam Piraz zini, Leonardo Monreale. Augusto Pedroni, Nestore Catalani, Jole De Maria, Walter Brunelli, Salvatore di Tommaso Coro el Orchestra diretta da Armando La Rosal Parodi) EJS-408

BELISARIO (Donizetti) nel personaggio di Antonina (con Nicola Zaccaria, Giuseppe Taddei, Mirna Pecile. Umberto Grilli, Rina Fallini, Bruno Sebastiani, Giovanni Antonini. Augusto Veronese, Alberto Carusi. Coro e Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice di Venezia diretta da Gianandrea Gavazzeni [1969])

EJS-476

Con gli stessi interpreti è stata pubblicata un'altra edizione stereo: MRF-37-S

Leyla Gencer: Donizetti Verdi Recital

ROBERTO DEVEREUX: Vivi ingrato

ANNA BOLENA: Finale
MARIA STUARDA: Aria e Cabaletta del l'atto 2"
LUCREZIA BORGIA: Tranquillo ei posa. Com'è bello
MACBETH: La luce langue
BATTAGLIA DI LEGNANO: Aria dell'atto I I VESPRI SICILIANI: Bolero
SIMON BOCCANEGRA: Come in quest'ora I DUE FOSCARI: Aria dell'atto I NABUCCO: Ben io t'invenni JERUSALEM: Duetto (con Aragall) EJS-421

Opera Viva

MARIA STUARDA (Donizetti) protagoni sta (con Shirley Verrett. Franco Taglia vini, Giulio Fioravanti, ecc. Coro e Orche stra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino diretta da Francesco Molinari Pradelli [1967]. In questa registrazione figura an che una intervista con Leyla Gencer e il Gran Finale della Lucrezia Borgia con Gianni Raimondi [Scala 1970]) JLT-7

L'Arte di Leyla Gencer (recital) ANNA BOLENA (Donizetti) Come innocente giovane (atto I scena III) Piangete voi? Donde tal pianto? (atto II scene 12. 13. 14) Orchestra diretta da Gianandrea Gavazzeni

ROBERTO DEVEREUX (Donizetti) Vivi ingrato Orchestra diretta da Arturo Basile NABUCCO (Verdi) Ben io t'invenni - Or. chestra diretta da Arturo Basile

MACBETH (Verdi) Nel di della vittoria . Orchestra diretta da Arturo Basile

LA FORZA DEL DESTINO (Verdi) Pace. pace mio Dio Orchestra diretta da Alfredo Simonetto JLT-51 M.R.F.

LA VESTALE [Spontini) nel personaggio di Giulia (con Roberto Merola, Franca Mattiucci, Renato Bruson, Agostino Ferrin, Enrico Campi, Sergio Sisti Coro e Orche stra diretta da Fernando Previtali [1969]). M.R.S. 53

The throne suits Gencer well

It’s rumoured that Leyla Gencer has about two hundred activist fans who often come to see her performances and organize “punishment acts” against her rivals from time to time. A year ago, before I met Signora Gencer, it was rumoured that these fans had declared a war against the Greek soprano Eleanor Suliotis during the Macbeth performances in Genoa. Whether they were true or false, that rumour awoke my imagination. We all know the concept of ten to twenty fanatics’ hostile acts. They seem ordinary and vulgar when they’re together. But a troop of two hundred guardsmen means a well-equipped organization. And what’s more to say about a woman who caused a war between Greeks and Turks and even made Italians fight under the Turkish flag?

Thereby, my plan of meeting Gencer- she had caught my attention since long time- was finally realized. And our conversation began shortly afterwards….

That night Leyla Gencer was feeling rather down. The flu temporarily quietened her. She wore a black, theatrical dress. She had angry eyes that were more intense and questioning than usual. Anyway…Although it seemed a bit strange when she continuously stared at me while speaking in a deep, heavy voice and with a scenographically perfect smile, it didn’t stress me but calmed me. Actually, I have a soft spot for strong-willed people, “tremendous women” and furious fights.

Yes, Leyla Gencer was smiling and speaking kindly. But in spite of her sweet and soft glances, the tension of her stubborn face, aggression and tendency to frown was felt anyway. I shall say that she was exactly how I’d expected her to be. Because by observing how she sang, talked and acted, I’d gathered enough information to know what kind of a woman she is. It was enough to portrait someone. Leyla Gencer could have spoken, smiled, moved and looked differently but no matter what, I planned to strictly hold on to the image that I had in my mind.

Actually, that evening and during our subsequent conversations, a Piranello style game emerged between us. I saw her in a particular aspect which she immediately sensed and rapidly changed her ways, she acted and become different than before. Because no matter how much she enjoys being watched and observed, principally she didn’t accept to be fully exposed. Surely, she will cheer up when she reads these pages and she will say that I completely misunderstood her, got confused and twisted the truth. And most probably she will prove it to me with dialectical, sarcastic and fun implications. And without making even a slightest compromise, I will say that her biggest weapon is her genius talent of transformation, and this game will go on like this.

That evening I was sitting peacefully on a chair. I was watching her when she headed for the record player. It was the first time that I saw her so closely. As I noticed her minuteness, I wondered how come she’d seemed so tall to me while she was portraying the tremendous fury of the queen in the opera Roberto Devereux.

Leyla Gencer suddenly shouted in a Kipling jungle style. She’d found the record that they wanted to listen. And that record wasn’t chosen randomly; it was “D’amor sull’ali rosee”. One of the first five arias that she had recorded at the beginning of her career and which she didn’t continue to do...She wanted everybody including me to listen to that recording and to underline the contrasts in her technique and style.

In that extraordinary interpretation, the precision and the clarity of the vocal embellishments go head-to-head with a pathetic surrender. Meanwhile, the refined interpretation of the legatos, transitioning of the sounds, both clear and covert passages, the melancholic intensity in her voice reach perfection. She has the lightness and the fragility of a moonlight-like quality that I’ve never heard from any other singer, which brings out the miracle that Verdi had accomplished by combining Bel Canto derived lyricism with a more realistic anguish.

I guess Gencer smiled as the record kept on turning. She was well aware that she had unarmed me on our first encounter with one of the “broken spears” of the Bel Canto Renaissance. And since I was famous for listening to only Sutherland, Horne and Caballé, she was doing it by shouting like one of Kipling’s jungle characters. She was saying “We have the same blood!”.

I know for sure that if I had been known differently, for example, if I’d been a fan of an expressionist style, she would definitely have chosen another record.

We kept silent for a few minutes. And when I said that “Signora Gencer, I know that you sing well but I’m surprised that you chose to play this recording”, she answered impetuously:

“When I came to Italy in 1954, I used to sing like this. At that time, this style of singing was found rather unfashion and dull. I forced myself to change my style and follow a different path.” she said. Gencer was well aware of her incompatibility at the time. Because in the beginning, she had to follow the path of Callas. She said “Fate” and nothing else.

When I think about it today, I’m not surprised at the fact that I still remember the vocality of the piece. Leyla Gencer’s voice becomes quite interesting when she’s exhibiting virtuosity or expressing dramatic tension. But her voice might be classified as normal and even ordinary. But it’s not actually an ugly voice as some say. It possesses an insufficient amount of metallicity and volume especially in the middle tones, but it has a wide range and reaches high notes with ease. And I’ve always liked her tone except for some rare rigidness and strains caused by stringent muscles. The only special quality of this voice is that: it’s so suitable to absorb and reflect Leyla Gencer’s personality.

All female, vocalist and performer qualities are perfectly combined within Gencer. Some renowned female singers fully sacrifice their womanhood for the sake of art. Those singers who are famous for their natural or technical abilities don’t aim to be charming women. I think that Leyla Gencer is different from them. Her artistic talent seems as if it’s in service of female power, wisdom and abilities.

And vocally; as I have mentioned before, if shall judge by the quality of the voice, I would say that ninety nine percent of singers with similar voices would only be able to perform in provinces. But Gencer did exactly the opposite After only three years of professional experience, she went to La Scala and to Cologne to sing La Forza del Destino, to Los Angeles for Turandot and to San Francisco for La Travata and Lucia.

She had to bear the continuous confrontation between her and Callas. In an ambiance where she wasn’t treated quite amicably, some people appraised her less than that she had deserved. Even I’d thought that despite her technique, style, dramatic and musical intelligence which appealed to me, she had lost her path because of her ambition, and she was pushing herself too much. And that would destroy her voice in a short time. I must admit that I’d failed to make an authentic judgement because of my negligence and the conditions in that period. In the years of Callas’ dominance, it wasn’t easy to find pirate long plays and recordings. If I had been able to listen to Gencer’s Rigoletto and I Puritani recordings of Buenos Aires performances in 1961, I could have acknowledged her virtuosity and high-class interpretative skills much earlier.

The evening that we met, I had told Gencer that it was indeed early to make definite judgements about her capacity. And I was rather right. Because she has added more meaningful victories to her curriculum. For example, her interpretation of Gioconda in Venice in the spring of 1971 was one of her most astonishing performances. At least for the people who know the difficult structure and vocal demands of the opera of Ponchielli. But the range of Gencer’s God and prophet given technique, talent and temperament that help her to perform dramatic soprano roles with that light-lyric voice, seem almost endless.

Most of the audience in Italy and especially in the world listen to Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi nowadays. And Gencer also had a role in this accomplishment. She took over where Callas had prematurely left and supported by herself an operatic treasure that was at the risk of being forgotten.

I wonder if Macbeth performances would continue if Gencer hadn’t existed? Would we have known Pacini’s Saffo or Belisario? Who else do we owe rather than her for the revival of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux?

All of these facts prove the historical importance of the artist.

All that’s left is Leyla Gencer’s reign, throne and this rumour: I wished the aggression of the two hundred fierce fans were real. Because this victorious Queen’s strength and imagination is worthy of their glory! But most probably this rumour isn’t even true. It must be a consequence of the never-ending conflict between Turkish and Greek nations.

OPERA MAGAZINE
1972 May

Milan, La Scala. Leyla Gencer sings title-role in Gluck's Alceste 13, 19, 21, 22, 24

Naples, San Carlo. Leyla Gencer sings the title-role in Donizetti's Caterina Cornaro, c. Carlo Felice Cillario

L'UNITA

1972.05.03

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".

↓ 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 com- poser'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.

↓ Below, an announcement of the first complete edition of Rossini's operas.

↑ Above, the first page of the autograph score of Elisabetta' at Pesaro

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.

The two-volume manuscript of Elisabetta is kept at the 'Fondazione Rossini'

↓ A scene from the recent Palermo production to be seen at Edinburgh this month

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:

↑ Gianandrea Gavazzeni

“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., Tivoli 1927.
Herbert Weinstock 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.

People: 95

Leyla Gencer

Rodolfo Celletti

Listening to Leyla Gencer in the theatre, and even when talking to her, it is difficult to remember that she is Turkish and a Moslem. I was quite shattered the day Madame Gencer said to me 'You always forget my origins. I am a Moslem and an oriental'. It was as if this had been a sudden revelation.

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 Mos- lem. 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 re-launched the repertory of the so-called 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

↑ Left Anne Boleyn at Glyndebourne, 1965 / ↑ Right 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 un- doubtedly 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)

↑ Queen Elizabeth I in 'Roberto Devereux' Lucrezia Borgia in Donizetti's opera

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 melo- dramatic 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 im- promptu 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 impas- sioned, tight-rope 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, Cherubi- ni'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.

JORNAL DO BRASIL
1972.08.06

OPERA MAGAZINE
1972 September

New Jersey. The Opera Theatre of New Jersey’s 1972-3 season will include: Attila. With Leyla Gencer, Cesare Bardelli, Jerome Hines, c. Alfredo Silipigni, p. Franco Gratale.
Edinburgh. King's Theatre. Leyla Gencer sings title-role in Rossini's Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra.

OPERA MAGAZINE

1972 September

San Francisco Opera's

Half Century

Arthur Bloomfield

This season sees the 50th anniversary of the San Francisco Opera. Here our San Francisco correspondent outlines the company's eventful history.

I had thought to launch this pocket history with a conventional 'in the beginning' narrative about the suspenseful formation of the company, but there is a better tack. The San Francisco Opera is more vividly introduced if one identifies it as the scene of the following: Jeritza's first Salome in America; the first Siegfried Brünnhilde anywhere of Flagstad; the only Walküres on record to have paired Flagstad (Brünnhilde) and Lehmann (Sieglinde); Leontyne Price's first Donna Elvira, Giorgetta, Aida, Amelia in Ballo in Maschera and Leonora in both La Forza del Destino and Il Trovatore; the first Tristans of Ramon Vinay and Jess Thomas (San Francisco was supposed to be the debut point for Jon Vickers's Tristan, too); Vinay's return as a baritone to do his first Bartolo; Irene Dalis's only Isoldes (Wieland Wagner had her in mind for the role); and Licia Albanese's first Desdemona.

Martinelli sang his first Otello in San Francisco, Melchior his only complete US Otello, and Tibbett his first Iago. San Francisco is where Sir Geraint Evans sang his first Pizarro, Kecal and Wozzeck (the last in a production he considers his favourite), and Richard Lewis his first Herod and incomparable Wozzeck Captain. James King took on Stolzing for San Francisco (and later repeated it in New York) because Kurt Adler thought it was ideal material for him.

San Francisco also witnessed the first Riccardos of Bjoerling and Pavarotti, Marie Collier's first Minnie, Marilyn Horne's first Eboli, Eberhard Waechter's first Barak, and Dorothy Kirsten's first Louise, not to mention Journet's 1000th Mephistopheles, Schorr's 200th Sachs, and Lehmann's last Marschallin. It was the only principal US city to hear Baccaloni's Falstaff, and Bidu Sayão's Margherita in Mefistofele. San Francisco is also where composer Gunther Schuller made his highly successful conducting debut outside specialized modern repertory in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. The 50th anniversary season of 1972 brings the first Meyerbeer (L'Africaine) staged in the US for 38 years and the first Ring cycle in North America in a decade.

The list of singers making US debuts in San Francisco through the years includes, if one names only sopranos, Ingrid Bjoner, Inge Borkh, Rosanna Carteri, Leyla Gencer, Sena Jurinac, Pilar Lorengar, Janine Micheau, Ljiljana Molnar-Talajic, Birgit Nilsson, Margaret Price, Leonie Rysanek, Graziella Sciutti, Anja Silja, Renata Tebaldi, Rosina Torri. Some went on to the Met sooner or later. The present management, which is to say general director Kurt Adler, can be credited with making much use of Mary Costa, Eileen Farrell, Reri Grist, Marilyn Horne, Leontyne Price and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf well before Mr Bing brought them to his house. Adler also has a good record of bringing back expatriate American singers like Robert Anderson, Judith Beckman, Keith Engen and Thomas Tipton in leading roles.

I hope that this information gives some idea where the house stands on the operatic map. In the US it must be considered one of the five or six major companies (the ones giving continuous seasons) together with the Metropolitan, New York City Opera, Chicago Lyric, the Santa Fé Opera and possibly the Cincinnati Summer Opera. San Francisco, like the Met and Chicago, is international, star orientated. In length (about 11 autumn weeks) and prestige its main season is most closely comparable to Chicago's, but lately San Francisco has played much more Wagner and Strauss than the Midwest city, it has developed a bigger store of productions in the mid-20th century repertory (also beating Bing's Met in this department, if not Santa Fé and the City Opera), and it has put much more emphasis on home-built productions. AS OPERA's editor has observed, the Chicago house has an Italian, singers-first atmosphere. In San Francisco Adler, with his European background, is as likely to side with a producer as a prima donna in an artistic dispute.

Statistics are one thing, but what the company's performances are really like is another. Happily, there is an excellent combination of circumstances at work in San Francisco: a concentrated season, Adler's persistent watchfulness, and San Francisco's gemütlich atmosphere and hospitality. Concentration keeps the performers on their toes, and so does Adler. Then there is something about the city which tends to warm performers to a good mixture of commitment and relaxation, without the frightening limelight of New York, or its debilitating impersonal grind. This state of affairs does not guarantee better results, but there is rarely a dull performance in San Francisco. All operas, by the way, are rehearsed for about three weeks with the whole cast present, whether the production is new or being revived.

What of the early history of the company? It is one of those success stories which has rather more drama in it than one concerning a traditional European company. Also, there is a special kind of suspense surrounding its formation, because if a Gaetano Merola had not come along and fought through its birth pains, the San Francisco Opera might to this day remain unformed.

San Francisco being a cosmopolitan port city, an entertainment-minded rather than a 'stay-at-home' town, has never been unfriendly to opera. Nearly 800 performances by resident or touring troupes were registered in the 1860s, more than 1000 in the 1880s including performances sponsored by the legendary Colonel Mapleson – and the operatic current, despite fluctuations of intensity, was not to be stopped. There were at least two opera houses, Dr Wade's and the Tivoli, both of which went up in smoke in the great earthquake and fire of 1906, but the brain and money power (private money, of course) to launch and build a permanent home-based company of a high artistic standard remained dormant.

Merola was an urbane Neapolitan, more magnetic than systematic by nature, who served as Oscar Hammerstein's chorus-master with the brief-lived but hell-raising Manhattan Opera in New York. He conducted during the great Oscar's last operatic fling in London in 1912. Musical comedy occupied him for a time and during World War I he joined Fortune Gallo's indestructible touring company, the San Carlo, as conductor.

It was in this role that Merola made trips to San Francisco in 1919, 1920 and 1921. He had seen the city before in 1906 as an accompanist - and its bay, with Mount Tamalpais looming beyond the Golden Gate rather like the more familiar Vesuvius, made an unforgettable impression on him. In fact, it was a case of love at first sight. On one of those visits Merola met a music lover and dilettante composer, Mrs Oliver Stine, who encouraged him to settle in San Francisco. He did not need much prodding, and he came West in 1921, taking on some voice pupils and nursing his dream of producing opera for customers who were in the habit of attending performances of the visiting Chicago, Scotti and San Carlo troupes at the huge Civic Auditorium. The fact that a new Opera House was on the drawing boards was uppermost in his mind.

Merola's first major stimulus toward a specific season of opera came, curiously enough, when he was invited to a football game in the 90,000-seat stadium at Stanford University 30 miles south of San Francisco. Tenors on his mind more than quarterbacks, and with thoughts of open-air opera in the Verona Arena dancing through his head, Merola conceived the idea of a short season in the stadium. He put on three operas in June 1922 with Martinelli, Rothier and the Spanish baritone Vincente Ballester. There were not only operatic stars, but also a full moon for the Garden Scene of Faust. Patronage was not exactly meagre, but expenses did exceed takings by a good deal.

The winter of 1922-23 began gloomily for Merola, who naturally wished to move his production scene into San Francisco. He now had the backing of some of the wealthier people of the city, but music patrons of San Francisco were still reeling from a fat guarantee they had had to pay in the wake of the magnificent visit by Mary Garden's Chicago troupe. On 5 February 1923, Robert I. Bentley, who was to become the Opera Association's first president, wrote Merola a letter regretting that formation of a permanent company seemed impossible. Merola was extremely depressed, but the seeming message of doom was simply the needed spark - a classic situation - to set off a new and fruitful stage in the progress of events toward realization of the goal.

Merola's friend Horace Clifton suggested getting 750 contributors to give 100 dollars, instead of 75 giving 1000 dollars, and fund-raisers quickly set to work. There were ups and downs, and sudden dashes to the bank for funds, but Merola and his friends were not to be stopped. Officers were elected on April 4 at the St Francis Hotel; Gigli, Martinelli and De Luca were engaged, a local chorus recruited and rehearsed by Merola on Russian Hill; and, came September 26, a two-week season was launched in Civic Auditorium (the Opera House was not finished until 1932).

The first season brought a different opera virtually every night. Merola conducted all of them, and his nephew Armando Agnini staged all of them – at least so far as staging went. Seasons gradually increased in length (a month by 1935), the repertory widened (especially in Italianate directions, including much late Puccini), there was an occasional US debut and even the American première of Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges (1930). Most singers came from the Met or Chicago. The Opera House opened auspiciously on 15 October 1932 with Muzio and Dino Borgioli in Tosca, Merola conducting. The following year there was Louis Gruenberg's Emperor Jones but that was the end of contemporary opera until Adler succeeded Merola in 1953 and began producing it quite regularly.

The company's coming-of-age could be said to have taken place with the 1935 Ring involving Flagstad, Rethberg, Melchior, Schorr and Artur Bodanzky at the helm. The 1938 season brought enough new singers directly from Italy (Ebe Stignani for one) to give San Francisco an independent-of-the-Met flavour. The war put a stop to importations; but after Adler took over, this policy was vigorously pursued. In Merola's day so many operas were thrown on in a season that rehearsal possibilities were often limited. With Adler has come the idea of a smaller repertory, integral productions, and much more thorough preparation.

Merola gradually reduced his conducting as administrative duties consumed more time. Although departmentalization of conductors has not always been the case in San Francisco, there have been principal ones in particular repertories; for instance, in the German, Fritz Reiner (1936-38), William Steinberg (1944-49), Georg Solti (1953), Leopold Ludwig (1958-64), Horst Stein (1965-68), Otmar Suitner (1969- ). In the Italian field one finds Gennaro Papi (1936-41), Fausto Cleva (1949-55), Francesco Molinari-Pradelli (1957-66), Giuseppe Patanè (1967-69). Jean Périsson has been in charge of the French side since 1966.

Agnini reduced his producing as the company grew and was helped for a while in the 1930s by Herbert Graf. Rennert, Everding and Rott have been recent guests. Ponnelle is a San Francisco regular of long standing, so is Lotfi Mansouri, and Capobianco and Erlo are other familiar names, plus, in 1972, the film writer and director Francis Ford Coppola. Paul Hager, a Wieland Wagner disciple, has been, in fact if not in title, the chief resident producer for some years. Youthful producers are featured in relatively ‘experimental' low-budget spring seasons.

From 1937-65 the company played seasons in Los Angeles, but, ironically enough, the move from the cavernous old Shrine Auditorium into the much smaller but infinitely more attractive Music Centre Pavilion spelled financial impossibility. Now the company stays home.

AFTER DARK
1972 November

Date: November 1972 Cover: Simon WardContents: Simon Ward - featured in a 4-page movie review of "Young Winston" and "Savage Messiah" Siegfried & Roy 3-page article with 4 photos including a full-page photo.

The First Edition featuring Kenny Rogers & Terry Williams - 4 pages with 2 full-page photos--one is of Terry Williams, Jeff Fenholt - star of "Jesus Christ Superstar" - 4 pages with 3 photos--one a full-page shirtless photo Paul Lynde - 3 pages with 2 photos. Also: George Cukor, Lois Nettleton, Leyla Gencer, fashion, film reviews, and more!

Leyla Gencer:

The Belle of Bel Canto

by Robert Jacobson

On a hot Sunday afternoon in June, amid the plush elegance of the San Carlo in Naples, you don't expect to find a familiar face especially when it's already the third performance of a recent revival. But they are there: standees and regulars from the Met, music critics from England and northern Italy, an American who is finishing a book on bel canto, a world-travelled opera buff from Chicago. The reason was two-fold- the first production since the 1843 premiere of Donizetti's last opera, Caterina Cornaro, and its protagonist, Leyla Gencer.

For American operaphiles she is a bit of a legend in her own time. Her U.S. appearances have been scant and scattered, and she hasn't sung on these shores for the past five years. Her career has been mainly Italian, despite her Turkish origins. The tall, strikingly handsome lady has also been somewhat of a crusader in the bel canto repertoire of Donizetti, Bellini, Rossini and Verdi, a fact that tended to be obscured by the fact that it coincided with the cometing career of one Maria Callas. Her recordings of such rarities as Donizetti's Belisario, Pacini's Saffo, Spontini's La Vestale and Rossini's Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra are best-sellers on the black market. And if you listen and compare, you'll find that Montserrat Caballé owes much to Gencer in matters of phrasing, floating pianissimi and effective glottal attacks.

The fans come from all over for La Gencer, and the vociferous Italian ammiratore follow her from Milan to Naples, from Turin to Palermo, shouting their approval, showering her with flowers at every curtain call. She is a favorite and she is unique. Her style can hint of the provinciale garlic and oregano (as opposed to truffles and cream), her acting can be alternatively ferocious or uninvolved, her singing can turn wild. The voice is harsh in forte, but it is powerfully expressive, colorful in its dynamics, and thrusting in its communication.

She is a true dramatic d'agilita of days long past. And there is that ravishing, haunting pianissimo which hangs in the air, that innate excitement, that womanly authority that makes her a force with which to reckon. In an age when one is constantly being sold automatons and Wellesley sorority girls as stars, she is an authentic personality, a presence.

The Gencer repertoire is a phenomenon early seventy roles by her current calculation. Take the 1967 season, for example: at La Scala she was Ottavia in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea; in Naples she recreated Pacini's Saffo and returned to verismo opera in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur; in Turin she took on that supreme challenge, Bellini's Norma, and in Florence she sang Donizetti's Maria Stuarda. A great favourite with the Neapolitans (she launched her career in that city), she has sung in Roberto Devereux, William Tell, Lucrezia Borgia, Pizzetti's Lo Straniero and Cavalleria Rusticana there, as well as Caterina Cornaro. She has done Aïda, Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, Elena in Vespri Siciliani and Electra in Idomeneo at La Scala; Anna Bolena at Glyndebourne and Donna Anna at Covent Garden; Leonore in La Forza del Destino and Norma at the Arena di Verona; Belisario, Beatrice di Tenda and Macbeth in Venice; La Gioconda and La Vestale in Palermo. Add to this Verdi's Gerusalemme (I Lombardi) on tour in Germany and Gluck's Alceste in half a dozen Italian cities and you have some idea of her range and capabilities.

Her American career has been intermittent since her dazzling start in San Francisco in 1956. Her debut was as Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini and she went on to impress as Lucia, Massenet's Manon, La Traviata, Liu in Turandot, Elisabetta in Don Carlo and Gilda in Rigoletto in a period of three years. In 1967 she returned as La Gioconda. She's sung Don Carlo in Chicago, Madama Butterfly in Dallas and Traviata in Philadelphia. This season she opened the New Jersey Opera season as the ferocious Odabella in Verdi's early Attila.

But Leyla Gencer is not eager to stray far from her home in Milan, where she lives with her Turkish husband, a bank manager. "lo son pigra," she smiles, shaking her head. "I'm a little lazy... Oriental. I don't like to travel. I have a beautiful career here and a good life. There are many fans from Spain and France and Germany, and my performances are always sold out. I choose only what I want to do. This year it was not much, but... basta. I sang Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra in Palermo, Alceste at La Scala, Ernani to open Catania and Caterina here at San Carlo. In July I do Gioconda at Macerata ... because tanti soldi. They offer Gioconda all the time, but I don't like it."

Born in 1927 in Ankara, Turkey, Leyla Gencer studied at the Conservatory there with Giannina Arangi-Lombardi and Apollo Granforte. In 1950 she made her local debut as Santuzza and two years later made her Italian debut in Naples, again as the unfortunate Sicilian girl. By 1954 she was singing Cio-Cio-San and Tatiana in Eugene Onegin in that city. From the start, her repertoire opened its doors in various directions. She was heard as Amina in La Sonnambula, Lucia, Gilda and Violetta- but at the same time as Renata in Prokofiev's Angel of Fire at Spoleto and the New Prioress in the world premiere of Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites at La Scala in 1957. "But modern music," she raises her dark eyebrows, "is terrible for the voice, no? I was a very good actress though. It's in the nature to be a good theatrical interpreter. It is inborn. You can study to help, but it is a natural thing."

She feels it is impossible to sing all repertoires because each demands a different technique. "Of course, it depends on the throat and the manner of singing and the technique of each artist. Callas sang everything, but she was better in the nineteenth-century Verdi, Donizetti and Bellini. She also sang repertory that was not right for her because it was too heavy. I too began this way, but I realized early enough that it was important to keep the repertory light. For example, I don't sing Cherubini's Medea. It is too low.

"I chose the street for me-revivals. My specialty," she smiles, "is revivals. For many years I did bel canto and Puccini, but now I've made a specialty of four Italian composers. I've launched many operas and received the Commendatore for it. I am very proud of this because I am not Italian and yet I received it for reviving these operas and for reviving the international interest in these national operas."

In fact, there was a story circulating that Montserrat Caballé had quipped about the whole bel canto fever today: "Leyla discovers them, Sills records them and I sing them." The facts speak for them- selves. Leyla Gencer has sung eight Donizetti operas alone, including Roberto Devereux, Maria Stuarda and Anna Bolena, before most other singers had even heard of them-plus Lucrezia Borgia, Poliuto, Lucia, Belisario and Caterina Cornaro. Of the latter opera, she says, "I knew it existed for a long time. Out of sixty-two operas there are so many to rediscover. This one is not easy. It's a strange role and the tessitura is difficult. Why are these operas not done? Because there are not enough singers able to sing these demanding roles."

Of the three "English" operas, she feels Anna Bolena is superior musically and dramatically, "but Devereux is fantastic for the protagonist." And her face lights up in true prima donna fashion. She was not wholly enthusiastic about Caterina Cornaro because of the weak libretto. "But the most interesting thing is that there is no comparison. I don't study anyone else. I do it all myself. The most difficult thing is how to make a part interesting. This is not Bolena or Stuarda, so I had to build it myself. It is not complete in itself, so I have to find the right colors and style."

As for Verdi there has been / Due Foscari, Gerusalemme, La Battaglia di Legnano, I Vespri Siciliani, Ernani, Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, La Forza del Destino, La Traviata, Aïda and Don Carlo. "Above all," she notes, "Verdi is the most challenging, even though each of these nineteenth-century composers presents difficulties. But early Verdi is the most difficult. I prefer Lady Macbeth of all the roles."

As for future explorations, she just smiles, probably for fear that Caballé or Sills might jump the gun. She had made no decisions for the 1972-73 season yet (that's the way of the Italian opera house). "Always I say 'Si, si, si' but there is nothing definite yet. I want to do only what I want-otherwise I don't sing. I will do the Palermo production of Vestale in Rome. It was done by Samaritani and is bravissima. Also the Pizzi di Lullo Alceste in Napoli. They would like this opera in New York. If they can do such things in Italy, why not in New York? The Metropolitan is the first theatre of the world, and it needs diverse repertory. Here in Italy the public comes more when they do these unusual operas. La Scala, San Carlo, all the theatres are pieno." She doesn't go to the opera much, "unless it is interesting. I went three times to see The Abduction from the Seraglio at Scala because of the spectacular Strehler production. Now he asks me to do a new Macbeth with him. When Callas sang, I went because it was always interesting." In Milan, one leading paper headlined Leyla Gencer's Alceste last spring, "The Voice That Makes the Chorus Cry," and another called her "the legitimate heir of Callas." Concerning the latter comment, she shakes her head, "Everyone is a separate thing, not a copy. My voice is a little strange because I have the colours of a mezzo-soprano with a soprano voice." She is pleased she has made her career on her own terms and in the works she treasures. "I began my way and now it's become international." As for pressures to return to America and an eventual debut at the Met, she lifts her hands and tilts her head with an enigmatic smile, "Nothing is a matter of life and death."

↑ Donizetti's "Maria Stuarda" is one of the many bel canto operas in which soprano Leyla Gencer has established her reputation.

RIO DE JENAIRO
1972.11.10

TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT
1972.11.26

OPERA MAGAZINE
1972 December

Milan. April 2 Un Ballo in Maschera. With Leyla Gencer, Lazzarini / Anghelakova, Santelli / Elvina Ramella, Giorgio Merighi, Cappuccilli/ Fioravanti, c. Nino Verchi.
Naples. The 1972-3 season at the Teatro San Carlo December 26/29, January 3/7. Belisario. With Leyla Gencer, Bianca Maria Casoni, Ottavio Garaventa, Giuseppe Taddei, Silvano Pagliuca, c. Carlo Franci, p. Alberto Fassini, d. Pier Luigi Pizzi.
Rome. The 1972-3 season at the Teatro dell’Opera opened on November 23 with I Masnadieri followed by Lucia di Lammermoor on November 27. The repertory and casts for the rest of the season are as follows: April 14 La Vestale. With Leyla Gencer, Bianca Maria Casoni, Umberto Grilli, Carlo Cava, Mario Petri, c. Carlo Franci, p. Mauro Bolognini, d. Pier-Luigi Samaritani.

1 9 7 3

THE ORLANDO SENTINEL

1973.03.20

OPERA MAGAZINE

1973 August

Metropolitan Opera. Bellini's Norma will be 142 years old next Christmas but the number of fingers on two hands suffice to count the prima donnas who have succeeded in the title-role. One reads of Giuditta Pasta who created the role at La Scala, of Giulia Grisi who succeeded her in the role during the 1850s, of Adelaide Kemble, Lilli Lehman and (in the memory of senior citizens still living) Rosa Ponselle, Zinka Milanov and Maria Callas - to which list the name of Gina Cigna could tenuously be added. More recently we have had Leyla Gencer, Elena Souliotis, Joan Sutherland and, making her first New York appearance in the role on February 12, Montserrat Caballé.

Caballé has been doing the part in European houses for a few seasons. Her appearance on stage, both as to dress and manner, owes a great deal to Maria Callas. She assumes the same imperious stance, the forbidding hieratic gesture; her arms are bare and her hair swept sharply back and up. Vocally she emphasizes the lyric and coloratura aspects of the part, shaping phrase upon phrase with delectable artistry. If one occasionally feels the want of a vast power, like that unleashed by Callas and Milanov, that is not too serious a draw-back: there is enough. More significant is an emotional shortness of range which denies her characterization the last reaches of fury or agony or love. Taken at face value Caballé's Norma remains a very prodigious achievement. It is sung as only a great singer could do it; and that is quite a lot to say. The part also requires a great tragedienne and this, very simply, she is not. So if you are content with phrasing of limpid grace, a velvety legato and an armoury of coloratura effects, then you will be fully satisfied with this performance. If you demand a deeper insight into the tragic soul of this very profound operatic heroine, then Caballé's interpretation will leave you with a sense of insufficiency.

It was cruel of Bellini to confront his heroine in her first minutes on stage with the fearsome hurdle of 'Casta diva'. Miss Caballé was inadequately warmed up for this task, but soon found her security. Most particularly in the two great duets with Adalgisa did she move into the serenity and confidence that can be drawn from the presence of a sure and skilled companion. This she had in Fiorenza Cossotto. Bellini separates the two voices by the interval of a third and there was memorable beauty in the seamless cadences we were given.

Carlo Cossutta was to have sung Pollione but was sick for the first night and yielded his part to John Alexander, who gave a fine, solid performance. I heard Cossutta on the Saturday matinée broadcast, and he sounded a little beefy. Giorgio Tozzi sang Oroveso, delivering a firm, authoritative line with lots of sonority.

The conductor Carlo Felice Cillario is a clear-minded, explicit sort of musician with very firm ideas about how this music should go, but control of tension is not one of his strong points. He worked well with the singers, aiding them through their awesome responsibilities; and one must settle for that kind of work in this music at the present.

Two important singers new to their roles at the Metropolitan and a promising talent on the podium made the season's first Der Rosenkavalier (March 16) something special. Expectation was fully realized in all three cases, a rare event in the round of an opera critic. The first of the evening's many delights came with the very opening words of the opera ('Wie du warst... Wie du bist!') which, carried by the cool, firm mezzo-soprano of Yvonne Minton, raised the eyebrows. Miss Minton's young-sounding, right-on-pitch voice, unusually free of vibrato, is housed in a youthful, boyish figure, giving her all the attributes needed for the part of Octavian. She wears the trousers well, manages the swordplay convincingly, and clearly has an excellent mastery of Strauss's singing style. She is thoroughly welcome at the Metropolitan.

The other newcomer (to the part of Sophie, not to the Met) was Judith Blegen, as apt in her part as Yvonne Minton is in the other. Miss Blegen's clear, bright lyric soprano voice conveys the youthful naiveté of the heroine and with it goes a bandbox-fresh appearance: she is to the life the ingénue Hofmannsthal had in mind.

Leonie Rysanek completed the trio of principal ladies, bringing to the part of the Marschallin her familiar nobility and sensitivity. This artist is unfailingly moving in her portrayal, giving us every nuance in the character of a beautiful noblewoman, one who is both involved in and detached from the events around her. Occasionally the voice lets her down and does not do all she wishes, but the great the monologue in Act 1 and the climactic trio of Act 3 - scenes were given full value. Walter Berry remains an essentially unsatisfactory Baron Ochs, the part lying high for his voice and the subtleties of the character escaping him. I have seen him in it many times and consider that he does best when he does least. On this occasion he mugged and hammed, making us forget that the man in the play is a nobleman as well as a lecher. The Princess would not have borne such a bumpkin in her drawing room, let alone her boudoir.

Christoph von Dohnanyi first came here last season and conducted a rather prissy Falstaff. Rosenkavalier is obviously much more congenial to him. He drew from the orchestra a refined and singing sound throughout the evening - one was always aware of the presence of a superior ear, building the juicy sonorities carefully - yet he also found a certain pliancy, an essentially Viennese rubato, in the waltzes that did much to bring the score to life. This was an impressive performance.

It is only by the tenacity of Benjamin Britten's odd-ball fisherman that the Met keeps a tenuous toehold in mid-twentieth century opera. No other post-war work is in the repertory. Peter Grimes was first done in the old house in 1948 and has had two series of revivals in the new. These last have been dominated by the powerful figure of Jon Vickers in the title-role, an assumption of searing intensity that brings the knowing customers in so that they may marvel at his dramatic mastery and his musicality. Unfortunately, the house is rarely filled on these nights (there were many empty seats on February 26) and nothing dismays the front office more keenly than that; so it may be some time, alas, before we have Grimes again.

The work of Jon Vickers generally draws from me the most potent adjectives in the armoury, but I can think of no more commanding male operatic presence in the two decades or so of my busy attendance. He is an actor of such range, power and scope as comes rarely to any age; and married to these abilities is a manly tenor voice of the utmost gleam, driven by a musical sensibility of the first order. Where do you find his equal? He does not slurp or smear the lines as other tenors do; and he takes a role like Grimes completely within himself, projecting precisely the sort of bull-necked outsider who would stir up hostility and fear among fisher-folk. Comparisons are sometimes necessary: I have seen Pears in this role, written with him in mind. He is a great artist, singer and musician, but I can never believe him to be a rough fisherman; village school- teacher, yes. Grimes may have been created for Pears, but to my mind Vickers has owned the part from the day he started singing it.

Other players: Donald Gramm took over the role of Captain Balstrode, recently done here by Sir Geraint Evans, and he too has little to fear from the comparison. Gramm is also a singing actor of the highest order, sure and sonorous of voice, with an unfailing instinct of what works well on stage. Would I could be as laudatory about the performance of Lucine Amara, whose colourless Ellen hardly comes across the footlights, her diction unforgiveable in a teacher. Sixten Ehrling conducted - his house debut. He had been chosen for the assignment by the late Göran Gentele, having done Grimes at the Stockholm Opera. His view of the music is perhaps less searingly intense than that of Colin……

OPERA MAGAZINE

1973 September

LETRAS DA PROVINCIA
1973.10.15

1 9 7 4

THE RECORD
1974.02.11

OPERA MAGAZINE
1974 June

Florence, May 9 to July 25 The festival opened on May 9 with Spontini's Agnese di Hohenstaufen with Leyla Gencer, Beverly Wolff, Veriano Luchetti, Mario Petri, Walter Alberti, Ferruccio Mazzoli, c. Riccardo Muti, p. Franco Enriquez, d. Corrado Cagli,

OPERA MAGAZINE
1974 August

Los Angeles. We hear that... Leyla Gencer will sing the title-role in Lucrezia Borgia in Los Angeles next month.

OPERA MAGAZINE
1974 September

Los Angeles. The newly-formed Los Angeles Opera Company, under the direction of Hugh Weathersby, opens its 1974-75 season on September 27 with Lucrezia Borgia. Leyla Gencer will sing the title-role, and the cast also includes Huguette Tourangeau, Giacomo Aragall, and Vladimiro Ganzarolli ; c. Richard Bonynge, p. Beppe De Tomasi.

RADIOCORRIERE.TV
1974.09.08

OPERA MAGAZINE
1974 December

Trieste. La Falena (Smareglia). With Leyla Gencer, Rita Lantieri, Ruggero Bondino, Aurio Tomicich, Mario D'Anna, c. Gianandrea Gavazzeni, p. Filippo Crivelli, d. Pierluigi Samaritani. March 18, 21, 23, 26 June 1957

Press [1965 - 1974]

OPERA MAGAZINE 1974 September

OPERA MAGAZINE 1974 December

OPERA MAGAZINE
1974 September

OPERA MAGAZINE
1974 December