Press [1975 - 1984]

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LA SCALA

1975

LORENZO ARRUGA

←Two world premières: Pulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites (after Bernanos, director Wallmans, scenery by Wakhevitch, 1957); and Pizzetti's Assassinio nella Cattedrale (after T. S. Eliot, director Wallmann); and here the famous scene designed by Zuffi in the form of a cross, with Nicola Rossi Lemeni.

….. The main problem was that of the nature of the audience at La Scala, which was a public theatre and therefore was intended to furnish a service to the entire city. Until the end of Ghiringhelli's management, La Scala's choice was to make a gradual attempt to enlarge its middle-class audience, while the middle class itself was being transformed and its level of education and power was climbing and slowly changing. The truth is that La Scala at its resplendent "first nights" remained a fief of the rich bourgeoisie and aristocracy; but it no longer had the same dependence on them as in the past. It pursued its own artistic and cultural goals, sought out a dialogue that went far beyond the interests of the inner circle. But musical and theatrical education in Italy was at a desperately low point, and so the available education and cultivation that a musical theatre demands did not permit a broadly sympathetic base; and this was all the more true since present-day custom channels the majority to other spectacles, such as the movies, sports and television. La Scala's public, even in its progressive growth (of course, not proportional to the growth of the city's population, which reached more than a million and a half in the 50's, and now, twenty years later, stands at about two million) remained a curious mixture of interest and blindness, of fanaticism and laziness, of furious hopes and the serene love of music. Certainly the struggles between interpreters, the rival factions, did not help to change habits; and so what prospered was what might be called the "balcony birds," those balconies in which are nested, as is customary in Italy, the true experts of opera, who have no suspect desire to hobnob with the stylish and elegant society folk in the boxes and orchestra, and from their high, dominating positions can be heard by everyone and, if necessary, can even intimidate-which can happen above all at first nights and can make itself felt chiefly at those times when a period of interpretive transition combines with the spread of nonchalant, sloppy behaviour. But leaving aside these rather colourful and at times genuinely impassioned manifestations, which might be generally considered inevitable, if not to say providential, it was precisely the common taste which had its shortcomings, the stable reference points which were crumbling. La Scala's entire audience, whether brazen, timid, or haughty, had little faith in the innovations in the sphere of opera and, in general, in the new musical languages. Alongside the apostles of the new music and those interested enough to understand its reasons for being, there still can be found at La Scala the immovably pious and utterly respectable, mixed up with the radical…..

←A great interpretative tradition was also born in acting. After Maria Callas's version, here is Norma in sets by Salvatore Fiume, is Leyla Gencer brandishing a sword in a fury and rapt in her destiny of love and expiation (immediately below, with her, Giulietta Simionato).

….. These last twenty years have been our own history-from one point of view unrecoverable, and certainly not to be misrepresented by partial lists. Our discussion becomes fragmentary, the historian is transformed into a frightened witness, and nothing is clarified save for a few fixed points of orientation; and we can trust only these points. As for singing, there is one orientation and a blatantly obvious one; this is the revival of the old singing styles, rather than a mere adherence to the taste of our own time, the obvious attempt to carry the public back to the language of the epoch in which the opera was composed. And the crucial name here is evident: Maria Callas. For the technicians of singing, the whole experience with Callas (at La Scala from 1950) was revolutionary. She transfused the technique of the coloratura into the art of the dramatic soprano, and in her dark, emotional voice, so far from the warm, full-bodied tones of the Italian tradition, she revived wonders and suggestive powers which had been forgotten for decades, qualities which, in her pre-Verdian repertoire, earned her a comparison to Maria Malibran, and which led her to solve all the problems of the score, whatever its period, by colourfulness, eloquence and virtuosity. But the effectiveness of her mode of singing, the example she proposed, became an established style because of its overwhelming, enormous, incredible popular success, which even overcame, despite her impatient, violently prima donnaish personality (which had its tender, slyly ironic side, too) the image of the "tigress" which fashionable opinion in the gossip columns and the press tried to impose on her. A phenomenon of this sort is not easily explained, and certainly not in terms of a predestined personality: she was Callas, and that was explanation enough. Her model was the exemplary singer Rosa Ponselle, who in some respects was her precursor. With innate acting ability, she was a true Greek tragedian, which gave her a powerful control over gestures, spaces, words and phrases; and what is more, she was guided by wise conductors and intelligent stage directors. In short, this aggressive, fragile, nervous, egocentric woman for the first time in many years magnetized the interest of the entire world, which was not accustomed to listening to or attending opera; but she was not (as Beniamino Gigli was) someone about whom it was interesting for everyone to know what she did in life since she sang so well. For Callas, it was interesting for everyone to know what she did in life in order to discover why she sang in so revolutionary a manner, what her secrets were, why the traditionalists were opposed to her, why her premières at La Scala became long-drawn-out battles, why the conviction grew stronger and stronger that after Maria Callas singers would no longer be able to sing as they had done before her advent. The battles, caused by human emotions and by many other matters connected with good and bad operatic customs, sprang in truth from a really new creative event: Maria Callas sought expressiveness not in abandonment to immediate eloquence…..

←Images of an already consolidated taste, and intelligent beauty: the last scene of Lucia di Lammermoor, with Pier Luigi Piggi's costumes and De Lullo's stage direction in 1967, starring Gianni Raimondi and La Scotto. Leyla Gencer sorrowfully immersed in two great characters of the music theater: Alceste and Elizabeth of Spain. Her characterization was not only psychological and dramatic but responsive to a whole general logic in the ambiance and stye.

….. and Ninetta could dance a few steps, that expressing their inner jubilation. Don Pertusio could take advantage of this incident to pick up his prayer book again and recite the office.... All the records seem to agree that at the end of the 19th century, save for a few productions prepared by Verdi with furious attention and inspired concern for detail, and some other instances, the stage spectacle fell far short of being dramatically convincing and moving. So it can be understood that the most urgent problem in respect to the spectacle, when the sensitivity to it was undergoing a vivid rebirth in a society that was trying to reorganize itself, having left behind the emergencies and tumultuous life of the Risorgimento, was that of finding a firm relationship between the music and the action, the music and the actor's gestures, the music and space in the opera; and that this relationship should remain stable in an immediate sense. Musical Verismo, whose ideas insisted that the score must not theoretically give rise to actions but instead reproduce them, not only resulted in fixing a definite choice of milieux, movements and gestures, but also led to conceiving of the score itself in terms of preordained movements and spaces. For example, when Puccini composed Madame Butterfly for La Scala, he musically characterized the protagonist when she asks her maid Suzuki for the white garment in preparation for the wedding night, so that the thematic repetition has significance when tied to these particular gestures and no others; and again when she receives it and changes, as she looks coquettishly in her mirror, primping her hair; and again when the night's purifying tenderness descends and bewitches Pinkerton ("Notte completa: cielo purissimo stellato," "Deep night: pure and starry sky"), and the orchestra's andante sostenute is accompanied by Butterfly's movement (slowly approaching Pinkerton, seated on the garden bench), even to the extent that she will wait until she is close to him before she sings (she kneels at Pinkerton's feet and gazes at him tenderly, almost imploringly), and only then will she say in a low voice: "Vogliatemi bene, un bene piccolino, un bene da bambino quale a me si conviene" ("Ah, love me a little, oh just a little, as you would love a baby").
To present another example, the entire action of the second act of Giordano's Madame SansGene is rigidly controlled by this relationship; if the movements on the stage are not performed, the music becomes descriptive and sounds like the accompaniment to something that is not actually happening. In other words, it no longer has any meaning. The same order in the established relationship between action and score existed between space and score, scenery and score. The scene in Puccini's Tabarro is described minutely, and contains not only the precise epidermic sensation which accompanies listening to the opera but also the ingredients that will propel the action, and explain why the distances, the conversations and the empty, solitary spaces have their precise arrangement and composition: "A bend in the Seine on the outskirts of Paris, where Michele's barge is moored. The barge occupies almost the entire front of the stage and is connected to the quay by a gangplank.
"The Seine stretches away as far as the eye can reach. In the distance one can see the outline of old Paris and, chiefly, the majestic bulk of Notre Dame stands out against the sky, which has a marvellous red hue. Also in the background, to the right, are tenement houses which border the right bank and, much closer, lushly luxuriant plane trees stand tall.
"The barge looks like but another of those many barges which navigate the Seine. The helm can be seen above the tiny cabin; and the cabin itself is neat and gaily painted, with green windows, a small chimney and a low roof, which is somewhat like an altar, on which stand some pots of geraniums. On a clothes line, stretched across the deck, wash has been hung out to dry. A bird cage is set above the cabin door. It is sunset."
In the postwar period at La Scala it seemed that the important problem was to give all opera the same scenic credibility that opera had actually had in the period of the Verisme and in a certain sense to ennoble the action by calling in directorial experts to guide the singers. Ennoblement had already been tried successfully at the Florence Maggio Musicale in the years immediately after the war, when the artistic director Francesco Sicialini commissioned great Italian painters of the period, from De Chirico to Sironi and Casorati, to paint the backdrops. And already before 1943 La Scala had profited from the contribution of such noted painters as Casorati, De Chirico, Vellani, Marchi, Cascella, Carpi, Marussig, Prampolini, Neher and Kautsky, with varying results as to beauty and suggestiveness.
In short it seemed above all a fact of style and custom; and with the arrival of Giorgio Strehler (at La Scala from 1947) and his direction of La Traviata (settings by Gianni Ratto), together with other operas including Prokofiev's Flaming Angel, and later, Luchino Visconti (at La Scala from 1954), with his production of Spontini's La Vestale (scenery and costumes by Piero Zuffi, Maria Callas in the leading role, Franco Corelli's debut and, among the many singers, Ebe Stignani and Nicola Rossi Lemeni, the conductor Antonio Votto and, for the first time, Norberto Mola the chorus master, taking the place of Vittorio Veneziani), the question did not seem to go far beyond these terms. Indeed, for many years, if one read the reviews, it would seem that the substance of the problem remained abstract and limited: Can stage direction upset the sacred traditions of lyric opera? Can it make us believe that until now we have been mistaken? Can it disturb the singer, forcing him to think of acting movements and gestures when his task is principally singing? Can it "distract us from the music"? (And the traditionalists, out of resentment, would praise as tradition that which did not "disturb" the parades of banners and standards, the processions of extras and choristers, the precipitous exit of people carrying halberds, the absence of a logic which can distinguish between the gestures of singers in some antiquated mise en scène, or, even, elegantly disposed in a graceful, harmonious choreography by Margherita Wallmann.) But the reality of the innovation was something quite different. It could be seen by those who wanted to seein the most sensational event, the staging of La Traviata by Luchino Visconti, where, assisted by the astounding pictorial elegance of Lila De Nobili's scenery and costumes, the stage action was shifted from its original period to the late 19th century so as to present it in a decadent image and setting. With that brilliant move, which also put at the centre of the critical polemics Maria Callas's performance, …..

THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS  

1975.03.23 

FINANCIAL TIMES

1975.05.01

OPERA MAGAZINE     

1975 August

OPERA MAGAZINE     

1975 September

Menotti

and Spoleto

Alan Blyth

 

'Plus ça change. . .' Reading what Cynthia Jolly wrote (OPERA, September 1958) shortly after the start of the Festival of Two Worlds at Spoleto, I note that things have changed very little in the small Umbrian town over the 18 years of the festival's existence. Menotti still 'confers with its Communist mayor about preserving its unspoilt charm, luring funds from American millionaires' pockets to do so' (he had just seen and charmed money from a rich American lady when I saw him). He is still 'prince and pauper' in one, sporting his lovely new home in the Lammermoor Hills while at the next moment seeming to spend his last penny on Spoleto. He is still 'the dreamer and successful man of action'. Hotel accommodation remains at a premium in Spoleto's centre, food is still haphazard in quality, the Spoletini still continue their life as if the myriad American accents around them hardly existed. Although it reminded me in some respects of Wexford and Lina Lalandi's English Bach festivals rolled into one, Spoleto undoubtedly remains very much itself on the festival map.
As regards opera itself, performances have always been enhanced by the beauty and intimacy of the two theatres: the Caio Melisso, about the size of Wexford's Theatre Royal, and therefore minute, and the handsome Teatro Nuovo, about the shape and capacity of the Theatre an der Wien. That these theatres have been reclaimed for theatrical use is, of course, another of Menotti's achievements and even after 18 years that should not be forgotten. Indeed, it is far from forgotten by Menotti himself. He was insistent that young people, and Spoleto is very much a young person's festival, expect to encounter in the theatre something like the immediacy of a television performance, and that can be achieved only in smaller theatres, not in the vast international opera houses. He also believes passionately that productions must be relevant to the age. Hence his controversial production of Don Pasquale, set around 1930, of which more below.
He puts it like this: 'We only present operas that we believe need a new look, sometimes paradoxically an old look! I thought Tristan badly needed a romantic production after all the austerities that had been imposed on it, needed to be taken away from the Appia concept not that I don't admire the Bayreuth approach in its own way. Our approach worked marvellously well, I think, even though people were shocked. It caused as much stir as if we had done it in the most outrageous modern style. Bayreuth talked about taking it over, but I think their courage failed them!'
Another production of which he is particularly proud was the Don Giovanni of 1967. 'It received very little publicity because it was done under great stress and with much secrecy. Henry Moore designed it, and he would come only on condition that his name should not be announced in advance. He took no fee, but he did insist on that anonymity at first, until he approved of everything at the dress rehearsal. He was here every day, and nearly drove us mad with his many changes, but it was all worthwhile. I was desperate. In the end, we got the idea of always sitting him in the same seat in the theatre, so that he always had the same perspective on his sets. That way we finally got his approval.
'That was an extraordinary production. His abstract sculpture went marvellously with that pure music. For me it was enchanting and absorbing. I'm very proud of it, and I very much hope that Henry Moore will allow us to repeat it before long. We still have all the sets, the "sculptures" made of foam-rubber!
'I'm also proud of our Pelléas, which I've been asked to repeat at the Paris Opéra in 1977. That makes me nervous for an Italian to bring that work to the French.
'Our Bohème was also controversial because people did not think it was a festival work, but I think our production set a trend which Zeffirelli for one followed. Then there have been our lovely Visconti productions. His Macbeth was memorable, also his Manon Lescaut. But that did not "travel". The magic of Spoleto is not easily transferred elsewhere.'
That brought him to his point about a theatre's size. 'In a larger theatre our Manon Lescaut didn't look as good. The secret of our success is the small, intimate theatres. Young people are used to seeing the expression on an actor's face, and at home on the gramophone they hear a loud sound. If they then see an opera at Covent Garden or La Scala, even if they can afford it, they see small faces a long way away and an orchestra that sounds small. They are disappointed. In our theatres, they receive much more impact. Even Aida could be done in a small theatre. Wagner, too, chose small theatres. I'm not popular when I say that I hope Edinburgh never has its new house. The excitement there is to see productions in the small King's Theatre' - Peter Diamand's pained expression seemed almost visible in the Palazzo Campello at that point!
Of course, another of Spoleto's specialities has been the discovery of young singers. One year, an unknown mezzo took part in a kind of serious revue with operine by Barber and Henze, songs by composers like Debussy and Fauré, sketches by the likes of Ionesco, sets by Rauschenberg. 'She was so good that next year I invited her back for Carmen.
That was Shirley Verrett. By the way, in that production we didn't have enough money for a ballet, so we just had one boy dancing. He had come to our office in Rome, penniless. That was Antonio Gades. Kertesz, unknown and in his early twenties, did The Fiery Angel here. Then the rich and famous come for nothing. Richter passed by, liked Spoleto so much that he just gave a concert for free. Louis Malle came to do our Rosenkavalier without us paying him one cent.
'Our policy in casting in every production is to put one experienced singer in a cast of comparative newcomers Muriel Greenspon in this year's Old Maid and the Thief, Dara in Pasquale. That seems to work well, gives confidence to the youngsters.'
Menotti has always been surprisingly reticent about presenting his own works at the festival. Spoleto has never seen one of his premières. How come? 'As long as I was artistic director, I didn't think it was right. Now it may be different. The Saint of Bleecker Street was done quite successfully, and this year the two one-acters. We must see.'
What operatic wishes of his for the festival remained unfulfilled? 'It's been marvellous here producing other composers' operas. As a composer oneself, one learns so much that way. There are still two or three pieces I would like to produce Figaro is one, Werther is another, L'Enfant et les sortilèges is a third. If I was younger, I would love to tackle the Ring... Of course, I adore Così fan tutte, but that has already been done so beautifully in so many places.'
Did he think, 18 years ago, that the festival could exist for so long? 'No.'
At present, Menotti is in love with his Scottish fastness in East Lothian. There, away from the stresses of the festival, he is able to work on his commissions for the American bicentennial celebrations next year. 'I've really bitten off more than I can chew. I've completed my opera for Philadelphia - The Hero, a comic work. I thought there would be so many solemn pieces, I would attempt something lighter. As usual, it's my own libretto a bit of a parody of Nixon. Then I'm writing a symphony for the Philadelphia Orchestra, and a little piece, a kind of church opera, for Washington Cathedral.
Back to the festival. "The real question for the future is how much the new Communist regime may try to control the festival. As soon as I come under any kind of political pressure, I shall leave Spoleto. We don't want any more of the present situation where about a quarter of the seats are given away to the authorities, who then often leave them empty.'
There were certainly some empty seats at the two performances I attended. Don Pasquale (July 6) in the TEATRO NUOVO, deserved to be full to the rafters. Even at the possible cost of Desmond Shawe-Taylor's wrath, I thought there was every justification for setting the work circa 1930 because Menotti's own staging was so consistently and pertinently carried out. It brought all four principal characters into unerring focus in a way not possible when they are presented in the ambience and costumes of an earlier time.
Let me describe them. Pasquale is first seen as a bald, seedy, down-at- heel householder, in an old dressing-gown, tetchy and bored with life, an easy target for the forthcoming gulling. Once he has a wife in prospect, he dons an elegant brown single-breasted suit, and a brown bowler under which he wears a plausible wig. Malatesta, by contrast, sports a double- breasted pinstripe suit, a walking cane and a wide-brimmed hat, a dodgy, spivlike person not without charm and, of course, quick with his words. Above all, he is young and spirited, not the usual middle-aged crony of Pasquale, and credible as Norina's 'brother'.
Norina herself is first seen in camiknickers and is obviously very much the girl-about-town, not above a kinky game or two with Malatesta before getting down to business. Once at Pasquale's money, she wears fashionable clothes and a not unbecoming wig. Ernesto, and here Menotti and his designer Pierluigi Samaritani touched the Italians on the raw, first enters in a black shirt, but that too made sense. Most unthinking young men who then wanted to be in the swim were surely Fascists, if but superficial ones, and Ernesto for the rest is obviously a nice boy.
Samaritani's sets cleverly contrasted the sleazy character of Pasquale's flat before his 'marriage', with its art-deco trendiness after, complete with maids in uniform and bell boys. Norina lives (see photo) in a garret, has Claudette Colbert and Cary Grant as pin-ups, and enjoys a wind-up gramophone. Within these unusual sets, Menotti never allowed the action to get out of hand. Practically every movement and gesture was consistent with the characterizations he had conceived. Some overdone byplay with Malatesta and his hat and a chair with only three legs apart, the staging was thoroughly unexaggerated, and even the tandem on which Norina and Ernesto rode away at the close did not obtrude. I also liked the idea of having a real marriage contract which Ernesto signs when nobody is looking.
Musically, things were almost as happy. Although I did not care for Christopher Keene's hard-driven, unsmiling account of the score, it accorded well enough with the fairly tough interpretation on stage and the young American players in the pit relished Keene's zip. Enzo Dara's Pasquale was the lynchpin of the performance; at first an apt butt for the treatment he receives, but very soon a figure of true pathos, wig now in hand, all thoughts of marital bliss in ruins. Vocally, he was faultless, surely the best buffo of the new generation.
Angelo Romero, in spite of his florid acting, never forgot to sing smoothly and nimbly - his 'bella siccome' was one of the most elegant in my experience, with the words eagerly pointed. Max René Cosotti presented an ingenuous, ardent Ernesto, a credible nephew of Pasquale. His tenor is sweet and pleasing, typically open and Italianate, but some of his phrasing in the first act was clumsy. 'Com' è gentil' and his contribution to 'Tornami a dir' could hardly have been bettered by an Alva or Benelli.
Rosetta Pizzo's Norina was sadly rough and uningratiating. One could admire her uninhibited vocalization while wishing that it actually sounded less raw and untutored. However, I must report that she was much admired by the matinée audience. The standard cuts were made, except that Ernesto was allowed the cabaletta to 'Cercherò lontana'.
 
The triple bill (July 5) in the tiny TEATRO CAIO MELISSO can be treated in more summary fashion. The first part of the long afternoon was the best. The Old Maid and the Thief is one of Menotti's happiest scores, economic, well-timed, unassuming, consistently constructed in his most fluent vein. Samaritani, turned producer, staged it with similar qualities so that its short, pointed scenes followed each other quickly and simply in Pasquale Grossi's trim sets. The conductor, David Agler, a youthful American, brought out the piece's subtle irony.
Another young American, the soprano Karen Hunt, was an affecting Letitia, and made her mark with the audience in her sixth-scene, Puccinian arietta. The baritone, Siegmund Cowan, also sounded promising as Bob, the beggar who is turned into the thief of the title, thus becoming the character wished on him by the old spinster Miss Todd, a role somewhat over-played by Muriel Costa Greenspon. Margaret Baker's Miss Pinkerton completed the cast.
The Telephone, like the other Menotti, was given in Italian. It received much more uncertain treatment from Mariella Devia's thoroughly unsympathetic, vocally and dramatically, Lucy, and Giorgio Gatti's pale Ben. Franca Valeri underproduced; Maurizio Rinaldi conducted.
Inconsistently, Docteur Miracle was given in the original French. Although admired elsewhere by our usual Spoleto correspondent, William Weaver, I must admit I found Giulio Chazalettes's production insufferably farcical, with some of the stalest tricks in the business, relentlessly overdone. Some of Bizet's charming score survived the rough treatment it received from Jean Pierre Marty and the orchestra of the Teatro Verdi, Trieste. The performance boasted one vocally admirable performance from François Loup as the Mayor; he has a bass of depth and character. The whole bill was more of student than festival standard. No wonder Menotti himself did not greet it with much enthusiasm at our meeting.

The Spoleto Festival, 1958 to 1974

Repertory and casts

1958

Macbeth (Verdi). With Shakeh Vartenissian, William Chapman/Dino Dondi, Angelo Rossi/Nicola Nikolov, Ferruccio Mazzoli/Ugo Trama, c. Thomas Schippers, p. Luchino Visconti, d. Piero Tosi

The Scarf** (Lee Hoiby). With Patricia Neway, Richard Cross, John McCollum, c. Reinhard Peters, p. Richard Evans, d. Ruben TerArutunian

Lo frate 'nnamorato (Pergolesi). With Silvana Zanolli, Bianca Maria Casoni, Carlo Franzini, Paolo Montarsolo, c. Ennio Gerelli, p. Pier Luigi Pizzi

Il maestro di Cappella (Cimarosa). With Montarsolo, c. Gerelli

Il giuoco del Barone** (Bucchi). With Lidia Marimpietri, Lino Puglisi, c. Peters, p. Franco Zeffirelli

1959

The Fiery Angel (Prokofiev). With Leyla Gencer, Stefania Malagù, Anna Maria Canali, Florindo Andreolli, Mario Carlin, Rolando Panerai, Mario Borriello, Raimondo Botteghelli, c. Istvan Kertesz, p. Frank Corsaro, d. Paul Sylbert

Il duca d'Alba* (Donizetti). With Ivana Tosini/Margarita Zambrana, Renato Cioni, Louis Quilico, Vladimiro Ganzarolli, c. Schippers, p. Visconti, d. originals from Rome production of 1882

1960

La Bohème. With Mietta Sighele, Albertina Valentini, Lorenzo Sabatucci, Robert Kerns, Ganzarolli, Walter Alberti, Giorgio Onesti, c. Schippers, p. Gian Carlo Menotti, d. Lila De Nobili

Der Prinz von Homburg* (Henze). Hamburg State Opera cast, c. Henze

1961

Vanessa (Barber). With Tosini, Sighele, Alvinio Misciano, Giovanna Fioroni, Giulio Bardi, Harold Lara, c. Werner Torkanovsky, p. Menotti, d. Beni Montresor Salome. With Margaret Tynes, Lili Chookasian, George Shirley, Paul Arnold, Robert Anderson, c. Schippers, p. Visconti

L'Isle de Fous* (Duni). With Valentini, Renata Ongaro, Edith Martelli, Andreolli, Mario Spina, Paolo Pedani, Dino Mantovani, c. Luciano Rosada, p. Gian Carlo Sbragia, d. Peter J. Hall

1962

Carmen. With Shirley Verrett, Renata Mattioli, Shirley, Chapman, James Loomis, c. Schippers, p. Menotti, d. Ernest O. Mondorff and Hall

The Love for Three Oranges. With Chookasian, Franco Bonisolli, Cristiano Dalamangas, c. Julius Rudel, p. Giovanni Poli, d. Misha Scandella

Le comte Ory. With Luis de Sett, Fioroni, Rosa Laghezza, Pietro Bottazzo, Claudio Strudthoff, Carlo Badioli, c. Schippers, p. Beppe De Tomasi, d. Steinberg and Hall

1963

La traviata. With Franca Fabbri, Daniela Dinato, Bonisolli, Mario Basiola, Attilio Burchiellaro, c. Roberto La Marchia, p. and d. Visconti

La madre** (Hollingsworth). With Sighele, Maria Luisa Nave, Judith Blegen, Paolo Mantovani, Michele Molese, Cesare De Leon, c. Rudel, p. Sandro Sequi, d. De Nobili

Il signor Bruschino. With Elena Zilio, Mantovani, Molese, Mario Ferrara, De Leon, Angelo Nosotti, Burchiellaro, Vito Susca, c. Rudel, p. Sequi, d. Fiorella Mariani

1964

Der Rosenkavalier. With Joan Marie Moynagh, Marguerite Willauer, Marianne Weltmann, Fioroni, Friedrich Meyer-Wolff, Bonisolli, c. Schippers p. Louis Malle 1965

Otello (Verdi). With Jane Marsh, Silvana Padoan, Tito Del Bianco, Fernando Iacopucci, Peter Glossop, Maurizio Mazzieri, c. and p. Schippers, d. Tony Wall Partita a pugni* (Tosatti). With Antonio Pirino, Basiola, c. Edo de Waart, p. Virginio Puecher

1966

Pelléas et Mélisande. With Blegen, Anna Reynolds, John Reardon, André Jonquerès, John West, Lorenzo Muti, c. Torkanovsky, p. Menotti, d. Terrutunian 1967

Don Giovanni. With Sighele, Lou Ann Wyckoff, Valeria Mariconda, Anastasios Vrenios, Justino Diaz, Donald Gramm, Rinaldi, Ubaldo Carosi, c. Schippers, p. Menotti, d. Henry Moore

Il furioso all'Isola di San Domingo* (Donizetti). With Rita Talarico, Lilia Reyes, Veriano Luchetti, Gianluigi Colmagro, Charles Williams, Renato Borgato, c. Bruno Campanella, p. Menotti, d. Renzo Mongiardino Markheim, Chailly.

1968

Tristan und Isolde. With Klara Barlow, Christina Murphy, Claude Heater, Antonin Svorc, Malcolm Smith, c. Oscar Danon/Paul Freeman, p. Menotti, d. Pier Luigi Samaritani

The Saint of Bleecker Street* (Menotti). With Maria Miranda, Gemma Marangoni, Anna Assandri, Gloria Lane, Bonisolli, Pierre Philippi, c. Schippers, p. Menotti, d. Bernard Daydé

Paysage du Réponse* (Henri Pousseur), Estii* (Petrassi), and Laborintus II* (Berio). With Cathy Berberian, c. Berio

1969

El retablo de Maese Pedro. With Roberto Puleo, Pedro Farras, c. Campanella, p. Menotti, d. Samaritani

The Medium* (Menotti). With Joanna Bruno, Muriel Greenspon, Frank Phelan, c. Campanella, p. Menotti, d. Samaritani

L'Italiana in Algeri. With Patricia Kern, Bottazzo, Enzo Dara, Raymond Myers, c. Schippers, p. Patrice Chereau

1970

Il Giuramento* (Mercadante). With Patricia Wells, Beverly Wolff, Molese, Colmaro, c. Schippers, p. Tito Capobianco, d. Ming Cho Lee

The Medium. Cast as in 1969, c. Bruno Aprea

The Unicorn, The Gorgon, and The Manticore, c. David Kram, p. John Butler, d. TerArutunian

1971

Boris Godunov. With Gabriella Novielli, Bruna Baglioni, Greenspon, Kenneth Riegel, David Ogg, Richard Cross, Paul Plishka, Alfred Mariotti, c. Christopher Keene, p. Menotti, d. Petrassi, Balentini and Franco Folinea

1972

Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny*. With Bettina Jonic, Greenspon, Arturo De Castro, c. Keene, p. Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, d. Ferdinando Scarfiotti, Claudio Cintoli, Gabriella Pescucci

The Consul. With Virgina Zeani, Joy Davidson, Giuliana Matteini, Fioroni, Flora Rafanelli, Colmagro, Nico Castel, Giorgio Giorgetti, c. Schippers, p. Menotti, d. Dani Karavan and Frank Phealan

1973

Manon Lescaut. With Nancy Shade, Harry Theyard, Angelo Romero, Carlo Del Bosco, c. Schippers, p. Visconti, d. De Nobili and Tosi

La Dafne (De Gagliano). By the New York Musica Antiqua c. George Houle 1974

Lulu*. With Slavka Taskova-Paoletti, Elaine Bonazzi, Mallory Walker, Ernesto Palaccio, Cross, Andrew Foldi, c. Keene, p. Roman Polansky, d. Sylbert

Manon Lescaut. As in 1973

Prima la musica poi le parole* (Salieri). With Sung Sook Lee, c. Lorenzo Muti, p. Menotti, d. Sandro La Ferla

Tamu-Tamu (Menotti). With Lee, Sylvia Davis, c. John Mauceri, p. Menotti, d. La Ferla

OPERA MAGAZINE     

1975.09.30

1 9 7 6

RADIOCORRIERE.TV             

1976.02.22

Perché in italia la musica da camera è pressoché ignorata

Questo giardino è chiuso? Ebbene, apriamolo!

Secondo il violista Bruno Giuranna «la colpa è tutta di Verdi». E Leyla Gencer: «Gli italiani preferiscono l'opera al Lied perché nei conservatori il Lied non si studia». Da qualche tempo però i giovani sono più aperti verso questa forma d'arte

di Laura Padellaro

Andate, una sera d'inverno, in una casa tedesca, «Troverete», dice Wagner, «un padre e tre figli intorno a una tavola rotonda. Due suonano il violino, il terzo la viola, il padre il violoncello; ciò che eseguono con tanto fervore è un quartetto composto da quell'omino che batte il tempo col piede. Questi, però, è il maestro di scuola del vicino villaggio e il quartetto che ha scritto è bello, sincero, artistico».

← Leyla Gencer: «Nella mia patria, in Turchia, lo studio del Lied costituisce la base dell'educazione vocale»

Non riusciamo a immaginare, a dire il vero, una famiglia italiana come quella descritta da Wagner: un padre, cioè, e tre figli che fanno musica in una sera invernale con estasiato amore extraprofessionale. Oltretutto «far musica» è la brutta traduzione letterale di un verbo tedesco che, invece, è bellissimo: «musizieren». Noi, quel verbo, non l'abbiamo inventato perché non possediamo l'anima della musica «in casa». I manuali c'insegnano che il termine «musica da camera» nacque, in epoca barocca, per distinguere la musica di chiesa da quella profana («Kammer», o camera, sta per corte, castello, palazzo). I musici da camera erano esecutori che venivano pagati dalle casse personali dei principi o dalle amministrazioni di palazzo. Nell'accezione attuale e corrente s'intende per musica da camera quella che impiega al massimo dieci strumenti (il doppio quintetto), i quali eseguono ciascuno una parte diversa dagli altri. Il quartetto e il Lied so no espressioni auree di questo genere musicale. Spoglia di seduzioni, di sfarzi, di effetti, la musica da camera è la più delicata e difficile creazione. Presuppone inaudito magistero di scrittura: il pensiero musicale non si camuffa, non si addobba e la costruzione nella sua lucida razionalità è di un'assoluta purezza. Il compositore che scrive musica da camera sta dinanzi a se stesso senza menzogne: i messaggi più teneri, tutte le confessioni e le arcane fantasie, furono affidati nella storia a questa forma d'arte rarissima. Beethoven non poteva ascoltare, senza piangere, la cavatina del suo Quartetto op. 130: «Mai una melodia uscita dalla mia penna», diceva, « mi ha fatto un simile effetto e mi ha causato una così profonda emozione ». Alla superba eloquenza della grande orchestra, alla ricchezza dell'opera lirica corrisponde la sobria bellezza di cosmi coerenti e meravigliosi come, per esempio, il quartetto e il Lied. Ma qui spunta l'interrogativo: come mai nelle scuole del nostro Paese non si educano i ragazzi a una forma d'arte in cui le sfingi musicali svelano i loro enigmi?

In Italia la musica da camera è purtroppo negletta o per lo meno lo era in modo sconfortante fino a pochi anni fa. Riservata a certi fini gustatori di musica che si rannicchiavano sparuti ed estatici nelle prime file delle sale da concerto (perché le altre rimanevano immancabilmente vuote), è ancora oggi un frutto che il popolo non deve gustare. Dal mondo discografico ci vengono altre conferme di questo stato di cose. Il responsabile della « linea classica» della EMI, Michele Corradi, ci dice che in Italia la casa vende solo il 20 per cento di dischi di musica da camera, con punte del 35 o del 40 per cento, rispetto alla musica sinfonica e lirica. Nel caso di recital in il nome famoso dell'uno o dell'altro solista fa da richiamo. Anche il responsabile del settore classico della Philips, Umberto Balestrini, cioè di una casa che incide moltissima musica da camera, ci conferma che una delle forme meno amate dal pubblico dei discofili è il Lied.

Quali i motivi che hanno determinato questa situazione in Italia? Un interprete di fama internazionale, il violista Bruno Giuranna, da noi agguantato al telefono mentre chiudeva l'ultima valigia prima di partire per una tournée in Giappone, ci dà una singolare spiegazione. « La colpa è tutta di Giuseppe Verdi, Fu lui, operista, a impedire che venissero in Italia i quartetti tedeschi ». Come accusa, nel 75° anno celebrativo verdiano che cade appunto quest'anno, non c'è male, Indubbiamente, però, il gusto diffuso per l'opera lirica ha compromesso con il suo peso schiacciante la vita della musica da camera in Italia. Oggi, per fortuna, l'orizzonte è più chiaro. Di appena qualche settimana fa un concerto che a Roma ha richiamato per la stagione della Filarmonica Romana un pubblico tra cui c'erano molti giovani in bluejeans. Era un concerto di Lieder, interprete il soprano Leyla Gencer. Primadonna famosissima soprattutto per le sue interpretazioni di opere donizettiane, belliniane e verdiane, la Gencer ha rivolto i suoi interessi alla musica da camera soltanto qualche anno fa. Il primo recital doveva darlo con Dino Ciani: un incidente automobilistico spegneva purtroppo la giovane vita del pianista prima che l'attesa serata musicale potesse aver luogo. In memoria dell'artista, la Gencer portò ugualmente a termine l'impresa: il successo, alla Piccola Scala, fu delirante e dimostrò come sia erronea la convinzione che opera e Lied siano inconciliabili. A sgominare tale pregiudizio la Gencer ha eseguito anche a Roma il programma milanese: fra i cinque bis che il pubblico ha preteso a gran voce figuravano Il Pirata e l'Anna Bolena. « Gli italiani », ci ha detto la Gencer, « preferiscono l'opera al Lied perché nei conservatori quest'ultimo non si studia. Altrove non è così: anche nella mia patria, in Turchia, lo studio del Lied è essenziale, costituisce la base dell'educazione vocale ». Un'importante Scuola di Lied a dispetto di quanto si fa o meglio non si fa nei conservatori italiani, è sorta a Mantova come manifestazione estiva. E' il corso di Lied tedesco, diretto da Elio Battaglia e giunto ormai alla sua quarta edizione (organizzato dall'Ente Manifestazioni mantovane sotto gli auspici del ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, il corso è affidato per la parte pianistica a Loredana Franceschini). Battaglia, insegnante di canto nel Conservatorio di Torino, ci fornisce dati confortanti. « Oggi le cose, sebbene lentamente, tendono a cambiare per quanto riguarda la musica da camera e il Lied in particolare. Il risveglio d'interesse altro non è che la nuova esigenza dei giovani di accostarsi ai generi musicali più vari: esigenza nata da una formazione culturale media più vasta e in continuo aggiornamento. Insomma i giovani, vogliono oggi, saperne di più. Da ciò, automaticamente, il declino del divismo canoro. Il giovane d'oggi vuole ascoltare i quartetti di Beethoven o di Bartók, i "song" di Yves e i canti impegnati di Nono. Infine si sta avvicinando al Lied tedesco. Posso dirlo per diretta esperienza. Il corso di Mantova è una testimonianza inequivocabile. Ogni anno gli allievi che vengono da ogni parte d'Italia nella città di Monteverdi imparano ad amare la smisurata letteratura liederistica. Durante i mesi che seguono ricevo lettere da cui apprendo la formazione di gruppi liederistici da parte di quanti hanno seguito il mio corso. Naturalmente la prossima riforma dell'insegnamento del canto dovrà contemplare regolari cattedre di Lied e di Oratorio, così come avviene a Londra, New York, Ankara, Tokio, Kiev, ecc. Problema da risolvere sarà la preparazione dei docenti: a questo potremo pensare attuando scambi con insegnanti stranieri, corsi di aggiornamento che potenzieranno quello di Mantova. L'ostacolo della lingua sarà superato il giorno in cui lo studio delle lingue straniere sarà esteso ai conservatori di musica. Perché un giapponese deve cantare Verdi in italiano e un italiano non deve affrontare Goethe in tedesco? Non mi si venga a dire che - come taluni affermano - il tedesco sia nocivo per le corde vocali. Sciocchezze. In tedesco si canta esattamente come in italiano: sulle vocali e non sulle consonanti. Posso testimoniare che i giovani che vengono a Mantova nel ristretto spazio di venti giorni riescono a cantare in tedesco senza la minima ombra di accento esotico ».

E' ancora la Gencer a dirci: « Lo studio del Lied giova anche al cantante d'opera. Intanto impara a cantare piano ciò che, soprattutto in gioventù, è difficile mentre cantare forte è facile. Nell'opera, inoltre, ci sono momenti in cui le cose vanno dette come nel Lied: nel Werther, per esempio. Ricordo di essermene accorta quando interpretai l'opera nel '59. Frasi come, per esempio, "dividerci dobbiamo" e l'intera "lettura della lettera" sono puramente liederistiche ».

I tempi, dunque, maturano e oggi riusciamo a cogliere valori che solo qualche anno fa ci avrebbero trovati sordi, « C'è un grande entusiasmo per la musica da camera », ci dice Bruno Giuranna, « soprattutto nei giovani i quali di fronte a questa forma musicale più essenziale, più dura, si mostrano aperti e disponibili». In Italia, d'altronde, abbiamo interpreti che non hanno nulla da invidiare a quelli tedeschi e centro-europei. Un censimento è impossibile: ma basti citare il Quartetto Italiano e il pianista Giorgio Favaretto che da tanti anni tengono alto il vessillo della musica da camera nel nostro Paese. Occorre, però, che questo giardino delle Esperidi venga aperto a tutti, che il quartetto e il Lied siano accolti nelle scuole e nelle fabbriche come avviene per la sinfonia, per il concerto, per l'opera, se è vero ciò che afferma Bruno Giuranna, ossia che la colpa è tutta di Verdi, va anche detto che in una grande enciclopedia musicale tedesca si legge che il solo quartetto importante nell'Ottocento italiano fu composto proprio da Verdi. Un Verdi ultrasessantenne che con i « tedeschi » stava venendo genialmente a patti. Ma di questo quartetto, in mi minore, Bruno Giuranna non ci ha parlato. [Laura Padellaro]

OPERA MAGAZINE                 

1976 September

Naples. We hear that... Leyla Gencer will sing the title-role in Mayr's Medea in Corinto at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, in February 

RADIOCORRIERE.TV          

1976.10.10

OPERA MAGAZINE                 

1976 December

Milan. At the Piccola Scala Petleas et Melisande. With Maria Ewing, Anna Reynolds, Nesterenko and others to be announced, c. Pretre, p. and d. Ponnelle. April 30 Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. With Olivia Stapp, Sergio Tedesco, Dino Dondi, Giulio Fioravanti, Tadeo, c. Gary Bertini, p. Giorgio Strehler, d. Luciano Damiani. June 3 at the Teatro Lirico Other artists engaged whose names are not mentioned above include: Maria Grazia Allegri, Margherita Benetti, Laura Bocca, Lelia Cuberli, Anna Di Stasio, Franca Fabbri, Mirella Fiorentini, Jone Joni, Stefania Malaga, Jeda Valtriani, Laura Zannini; Carlo Bini, Otello Borgonovo, Federico Davia, Carlo Del Bosco, Giovanni Foiani, Alfredo Giacomotti, Walter Guilin°, Carlo Meliciani, Regolo Romani, Lorenzo Saccomani During the season there will be a series of recitals by Hermann Prey (December 20), Montserrat Caballe (January 10), Alfredo Kraus (February 7), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (February 28), Eugeni Nesterneko (March 7), Gwyneth Jones (March 21), Marilyn Horne (March 28), Nicolai Gedda (April 26), Evelyn Lear and Thomas Stewart (May 2), Leyla Gencer (May 23)

1 9 7 7

 

OPERA MAGAZINE                 

1977 March

Naples. San Carlo. Leyla Gencer sings title-role in revival of Mayr's Medea in Corinto 12 Munich, National Theatre. 

BILLBOARD            

1977.03.05

RADIOCORRIERE.TV              

1977.12.07

1 9 7 8

BAY AREA REPORTER        

1978.01.05

RADIOCORRIERE.TV            

1978.05.07

LOS ANGELES TIMES            

1978.08.13

1 9 7 9

RADIOCORRIERE.TV              

1979.01.21

OPERA MAGAZINE           

1979 March

RADIOCORRIERE.TV              

1979.04.20

LIRICI IN CASA

 

Crede nelle potenze

occulte, non vuole

limiti alla sua libertà,

ha un amante (il

telefono) e l'incubo

della memoria. Se in

scena dimentica le

parole inventa

 

Leyla Gencer:

Maga

zingara o

regina

 

La cantante, nella sua

casa di Milano, mostra

un antic hissimo

specchio d'argento lavorato

che proviene dalla

Turchia. La Gencer

possiede oggetti turchi

autentici di cui è gelosa

 

di LAURA PADELLARO
Milano, aprile
 
Maga, zingara, regina. Leyla Gencer si è impadronita con prepotenza di queste figure che affollano il melodramma dell'Ottocento. Regine, soprattutto: Maria Stuarda, Elisabetta, Anna Bolena, la sanguinaria Lady Macbeth. « Non sei contenta se non hai una corona in testa », le disse Paolo Grassi ai tempi della Scala, Ed è vero: le basta cingere l'insegna regale e il personaggio, per una sorta di misterioso « ritorno », si incarna. Allora ecco Leyla-Elisabetta camminare a passolento, disillusa sovrana d'Inghilterra; eccola scendere barcollante le scale del palazzo di Duncano, sonnambula consorte di Macbeth. Apparentata con la Callas per quei « pianissimi, per le « smorzature che danno ali alla sua voce, per la singolare capacità di pesare la parola nei recitativi, di scoprire nel personaggio i semi nascosti delle passioni, gli orrori morali, Leyla Gencer- quando entra in scena annuncia sempre un evento memorabile. Mette addosso allo spettatore un'inquietudine ch'è già una chiave d'emozione. Molto le debbono i personaggi del giovane Verdi, del Donizetti sconosciuto a cui ha dato nuova vita.
Nata in Turchia, a Istanbul, da venticinque anni in Italia, la Gencer dice di avere non due ma tre radici: quella slava della madre polacca, quella turca del padre e, innestata, l'italiana. Da tali congiunte radici è nato un albero rigoglioso e strano. Una donna che non ama più di tanto la bontà, che si scatena in brevi e tempestose collere. Ha un vizio moderno, Leyla: il telefono. Lunghissime conversazioni e vittime designate, come la nobildonna che non sfugge al rendezous di ogni mattina.
Al Comunale di Firenze, alla Piccola Scala la Turca ha scatenato quest'anno, al suo apparire in sala, prima ancora di aprir bocca, un delirio di applausi.

La Gencer con

lo scaldavivande

usato per il

ramadan, il digiuno

musulmano.

A destra, il soprano

mostra un piccolo

Corano in custodia

d'argento. In basso,

la sua stanza da

letto: anche il

coprimobile è turco

 

LE OPERE CHE HA RESUSCITATO

1950-1979: ventinove anni di carriera, fino a oggi. In questo spazio di tempo, dall'esordio all'Opera di Ankara, dal debutto al San Carlo di Napoli nella stagione '53-'54 (Madama Butterfly e Tatiana nell'« Onieghin »), Leyla Gencer ha cantato in tutti i grandi teatri del mondo: alla Scala, dal 1957. Il repertorio tradizionale (Lucia di Lammermoor, Gilda, Leonora del « Trovatore » e della « Forza del destino », Elvira del « Don Giovanni », Carlotta del « Werther », Gioconda, eccetera) e il repertorio inconsueto hanno suscitato, nell'artista, un pari interesse: « I due Foscari », che oggi sono usciti in dischi, il « Macbeth », « Lucrezia Borgia », « Roberto Devereux », « Belisario », « Saffo » e poi « I dialoghi delle carmelitane », l'« Assassinio nella cattedrale », l'« Angelo di fuoco », «  Intolleranza », « Attraverso lo specchio » sono le opere presentate in prima esecuzione o « resuscitate » dalla Gencer. Pochi, purtroppo, i suoi dischi fra i quali è memorabile un recital con Dino Ciani, dove la cantante rivela la sua inimitabile grandezza di lie derista.

 

 

Canti e parli diverse lingue, Leyla. Quale preferisci, come cantante?
L'italiano, anche se la prima lingua che ho parlato è il francese. Era francese la mia prima governante, una contessa in esilio. Viveva con noi. Nelle nostre case, in Turchia, si usava avere ospiti a vita. onoratissimi, rispettatissimi. Cosi eravamo noi, allora. Fu un personaggio determinante per me: con lei ho imparato tante cose.
donne?
Chi capisci di più, gli uomini o le donne?
Mi trovo molto meglio con gli uomini. Sono più diretti, più immediati, più leali. Nelle donne c'è sempre una «arrière-pensee» e io sono sempre sul chi va là con loro.
Come reagisce a un'offesa, a un tradimento?
In due modi: o facendo delle grandi scenate, tempeste, uragani, o ignorando chi mi ferisce. Quando esplode dice cose che non dovrei dire,
L'amore, fino a oggi. ti ha dato piir felicità o infelicità?
L'amore dà sempre molta felicità, ma anche molta infelicità.
Appartieni al tipo di donne che tormentano la persona amata?
Si, sono una donna che tormenta: ma per amore.
Ti dà fastidio la gelosia?
Non voglio limiti alla mia libertà. Abito sola, anche se sono sposata, Mio marito, un grosso banchiere, sta in Germania. E una persona straordinaria, mi capisce, mi lascia vivere. Mi adora come artista. mi trova davvero molto brava e allora mi perdona molte cose, anche il mio carattere.
Come hai superato i dolori, le disillu sioni nella tua vita?
Dipende. Il primo impatto col dolore è di disperazione, di ritiri da convento, addirittura. Non voglio vedere nessuno. Poi scatta in me qualcosa, ricomincio a vivere. Ma certi momenti sono di morte: di morte totale.
Credi nelle potenze peculte?

Sono portata a crederci. Sono una orientale, cresciuta nella magia, ma certamente in un modo molto diverso dal vostro, Credo nelle potenze magiche.
che »?

Leyla Gencer indossa.

nelle due foto,

un magnifico abito

turco che tira fuori

molto raramente

dall'armadio. Sono

il mantello, che

ha bordure preziose

è prevista und

tunica leggera

Che cosa intendi per «potenze magiche»?
I maleficio, il malocchio. Durante una recita voglio vedere persone simpatiche in prima fila o nei palchi più vicini, voglio sentire fluidi benefici...
Qual è, secondo te, la tua dote domi nante in teatro?
La forza magnetica. Cantare è un'arte magica. Ecco perché, prima di un'opera o di un concerto, curo ossessivamente ogni particolare. Non solo il canto, la dizione. ma tutto è importante: il vestito, la pettinatura, la parrucca, il gioiello, le scarpe. Devi conquistare il pubblico non solo con la musica. Una volta. in un recital, interpretavo tre personaggi: una maga, una zingara, una regina. E la regina era la decapitata Maria Stuarda. Per quell'occasione ha vo luto un abito rosso, un grande peplo rosso come il sangue.
Ti commuovi mentre canti?
Si, piango veramente. Norma, Alceste... Mi avrai visto. Però mentre piango vedo che nel primo palco c'è una persona che sbadiglia, vedo la corista che chiacchie ra fra le quinte. E allora mi arrabbio e l'altra me stessa dice: Come osano chiacchierare mentre si sta cantando?».
E' vero che nel passato si cantava meglio?
Ho visto per caso, in televisione, un vecchio film con quattro grandi della lirica: una calava, l'altro era bruttissimo... Non voglio dire che oggi si canti meglio, ma si sa meglio la musica, pur avendo forse meno voce...
A che cosa tieni di più, all'amore o alla carriera?
Il mio più grande amore è la musica. Ma la musica è sempre legata ai mici amori. Tutta la vita sono stata innamorata.
Di musicisti?
No, non precisamente.
C'è, nella tua vita, una persona cle non dimenticherai mai?
Si, ho avuto la fortuna di trovare un sovrintendente come Di Costanzo, che non era un uomo colto, ma che intuiva subito le qualità di un artista. E' stato lui a darmi la forza di fare il teatro. Poi è venuto il macstro Serafin e poi ho avuto la fortuna di conoscere Gui e Gavazzeni... Questo mi ha aperto tanti orizzonti...
Che cosa provi prima di entrare in scena?
Paura, terrore, angoscia. Mi sembra ogni volta di non aver più voce, mi sento malatissima: asma, bronchite, mal d'oreechio...
Temi di più l'incidente vocale o l'amnesia?
La memoria è stala sempre un incu ho per me. Non canto mai senza suggeritore. Impara prestissimo, ma dimentico con altrettanta facilità...
E se ti capita un vuoto di memoria...
Invento le parole. Una volta, alla Scala, nell'Aida he incominciato la romanza con le parole O fresche valli convinta di dire Cieli azzurri. Viene poi su il maestro Gavazzeni e mi fa: Ma, allora. questi cicli azzurri non li sentiremo mai...».
Hai mai fumato?
Si. qualche sigaretta. Adesso è un pezzo che non fumo più.
Sogni?
Si, moltissimo. Ho un sogno ricorrente: volo su un mare azzurro, limpido, sui prati, in mezzo ai fiori. Ebbene dopo mi accade sempre qualcosa di bello...
Che cosa cerchi nelle persone?
La lealtà. Troppa bontà non m'interessa. Io non sono molto buona. Ma sono generosa verso il prossimo. Generosi biso gna esserlo sempre.
Ami la casa?
Si, so fare tutto. Tengo molto all'ordine, moltissimo.
Vuoi bene a te stessa?
Generalmente mi autodistrugge. Però, forse, mi amo...
Ti piace andare all'opera come spet tatrice?
Spesso mi annoio. Quasi sempre trovo belle voci, ma non la magia. Si, la magia è finita con la Callas... [Laura Padellaro]

GB OPERA                                             

2021.10.10

Leyla Gencer (1928 – 2008): “Maga, Zingara o Regina”

Leyla Gencer (Istanbul, 10 ottobre 1928 – Milano, 10 maggio 2008)

Photo Galliano Passerini

(Estratto da “Leyla Gencer: Maga, Zingara o Regina” di Laura Padellaro – Milano, 1979)

https://www.gbopera.it/2021/10/leyla-gencer-1928-2008-maga-zingara-o-regina/

LA STAMPA           

1979.05.24

MUSICA MAGAZINE

1979 June

Dino Ciani, Poeta del Pianoforte by Umberto Masini 

Testimonies by Claudio Abbado, Martha Del Vecchio, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Leyla Gencer, Carlo Maria Giulini, Paolo Grassi, Nikita Magaloff, Riccardo Muti and Salvatore Sciarrino. Discography by Umberto Masini.

RADIOCORRIERE.TV              

1979.06.03

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES    

1979.06.10

RADIOCORRIERE.TV              

1979.07.01

RADIOCORRIERE.TV              

1979.09.02

RADIOCORRIERE.TV              

1979.09.30

MUSICA MAGAZINE            

1979.10.03

1 9 8 0

L'UNIVERS DES VOIX "LES DIVAS"        

1980 January

DOMINIQUE FERNANDEZ & CHARLES DUPECHEZ

TARRYTOWN DAILY NEWS

1980.01.27

THE DAILY ARGUS SUN   

1980.01.27

OPERA MAGAZINE   

1980 May

CASH BOX       

1980.06.14

RADIOCORRIERE.TV              

1980.12.14

RADIOCORRIERE.TV              

1980.12.28

1 9 8 1

MUSICA VIVA             

1981

Photo shooting with Raimondi for Musica Viva Magazine

Photos © SILVIA LELLI, Milano

RUGGERO RAIMONDI   

1981

L'UNITA      

1981.03.19

MUSIK MAG (Supplemento No.22 Superstereo)

1981 May

BAY AREA REPORTER        

1981.05.07

L'OPERA INTERNATIONAL        

1981 October

MICHEL PAROUTY

Above all, Leyla Gencer is a true Diva. And undoubtedly, she’s one of the last ones of the century.  Just one gesture of her hand, one glance is enough to make her accepted by everyone in the audience.

Her interpretation is proper: The perfection of the phrases, the right usage of the voice colours and nuances, intelligence of the singing. Gencer knows how to emphasize the perfecty dramatic effects of the Bel Canto, to interpret melodic phrases sensitively like noone else.

Gencer was absolutely enchanting in Pasini and Mayr’s music. She gave her best in Donizetti: with Sapho she offered the audience a chance to explore a rather unknown piece whilst her solicitude towards the details empowers the recitative. The final scene of Faust was very impressive with its dramatic tension and Maria Stuarda’s aria “D’un cor che muore” was innocent, introvert, pathetic and almost on the verge of becoming a confidant. 

 

L'OPERA INTERNATIONAL         

1981 October

SERGIO SEGALINI

  

If there are still people who doubt Leyla Gencer’s artistry, they should listen to her concerts at Athenée Theatre and her two recently released recordings. 

Gencer’s voice is at its peak in the pirate recordings made between the years 1958-1965. Her interpretation and expression seem eternal. And her style is absolutely perfect. Her Mozart interpretation shall set an example in the Italian singing and her interpetations of Donizetti shall only be confronted with those of Callas.  It’s an art that must be discovered continuously. And today “The Fiancée of the Pirates” takes her revenge. 

LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE          

1981 December

Number One Since Callas

 

She’s the fierce Turk. The Goddess of the Italians wasn’t well known in France. But her fanatics have always said “Ah, you should listen to Leyla Gencer”. And I was dreaming about it… But one day I finally met her.
I guess it was the La Scala’s annual opening or maybe it was after Maria Callas’ death. The tv camera was filming the mythical theatre. After scanning its red velvet lodges, chairs and shadows, the camera focused on a person.
“I could never set foot on this stage without feeling an unexplicable excitement. The audience almost expects you to call out the Gods in here.” said an artist. With her proud and angular face, shining with the brightness transmitted through her big black eyes, she was speaking in a noble and literary French and the way that she was rounded the “r”s gave her a unique quality. It was the first time that I saw her. The reporter who was interviewing her bowed with a respect that is shown to world-famous people. When I saw the name that appeared on the screen, then I understood why. So that was Leyla Gencer! 
I suddenly thought of various clichés and memories: The fierce Turk. The woman for whom the Italians say: “The crown suits her” since she often plays queen roles! She was the only singer to revive and uplift and the Romantic Bel canto operas since Callas quit and who actually accomplished it! In some articles, I had read that she doesn’t possess a voice as spectacular as Sutherland’s or Caballé’s, but she is so exciting that she could make you cry. I had listened to one of her pirate recordings. The record was skipping and the sound wasn’t clear. But inspite all, I’d noticed Gencer’s incredibly colourful nuances. She was surprisingly able to give a nobile quality to even an ordinary song. I searched for more elaborate recordings of her but later I found out that she’d never set foot in a recording studio.
When her fans encounter opera fanatics who have plenty of money and time to see Caballé handling difficulties of Bellini or Katia Ricciarelli battling against the acrobatic roles of the young Verdi period, they say “Ah, you should have seen Leyla Gencer sing these”. And when somebody asks: “Gencer? Who’s she?” then their mission is accomplished.
Since I’m always sceptic towards exaggerated praises and groundless adorations, I had completely forgotten how I was struck by the voice that I had heard in the broken record. Taken by the pleasure of vengeance, I paid attention to a rumour: According to that rumour since Gencer couldn’t sing the notes above G in Donizetti’nin Les Martyrs, she used her mimics instead for compensation. In order to prove this harsh rumour, the gossipers said that the pirate recording of that concert would be out soon. As far as I’ve heard, in her 25 years of career, Gencer is the one artist of whose performances have been pirately recorded and published the most in the opera history.  And that’s why she’s called “The Fiancée of the Pirates”. Last year Leyla Gencer’s concert posters took great attention in France. Her fans rushed to the Athenée Theater and the people who watched them were dying to say “Gencer’s interpretation was so much better than the others’.” That evening I had to be somewhere else, so I couldn’t go to the concert. The next day, rather than speaking about her voice and talent, people were primarily talking about how wonderfully she was applauded before even opening her mouth. For me: the mystery of Leyla Gencer still wasn’t unveiled.
When I learned that she was coming back to France, I asked for an appointment. I wanted to meet her in person no matter what. I sharpened my claws to prepare myself for a creature who’s probably a copy of Callas and is yet considered sacred by the public. No matter what; I wanted to drop her mask and understand whether “La” Gencer was really an heir of the mighty shadows as she says. If she were really a genious as people say, then why didn’t she have a better career?
When I arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel, I felt like I was being followed by gangsters who made pirate recordings of an artist that refused to record albums. Come on, I would finally get rid of that Gencer virus with a boring interview, a concert and a notebook in my hand!
“Pronto! My plane had a five-hour delay. I couldn’t sleep because of the so called “Air Conditioning” ventilation.  Please eat and drink something and I’ll be there.”
And there I was, waiting for the Bel Canto Queen to arrive.
Right from the moment she arrived, the plan and the order of the events got out of my control. I remember her being wrapped up in her white mink fur and her black eyes…we looked for a place which didn’t have air conditioning that would allow us to talk comfortably. She was in front and the hotel managers were behind us…

“I’m less scared this year.”
“Scared?”
“Of course! Even a thirty-year career doesn’t relieve this anxiety and fear. In the early years of my career as I was becoming famous, I could have performed in Paris. But the intendant of your opera decided that my voice didn’t match with the criteria of the French people. And so last year I was expecting a rather cold welcome at the Athenée Theater. But they welcomed me with enthusiastic applauses instead.”
Leyla Gencer smiled. And her face changed suddenly just like the voice that I’d heard in the pirate recording. Her rigid chin and dark black eyes softened and her face lines that were tightened by insomnia reflected only her tiredness. Alas! She will destroy me!
“You were enthusiasticly expected in Paris since you’ve made such little amount of recordings…”
“I’ve never made any recordings! And I’ve never actually understood the reason for it.”
“But all those pirate recordings should make you proud…”
“Ah yes, of course. It’s very nice that people made those. But they recorded so randomly. It saddens me to think that some of the performances which I’d rather forget will be out there for eternity.”
The next evening when I was at the Athenée Theater, the person who was sitting next to me asked me recklessly not to cause creaking in my chair: Because he would record the recital! During the interval, he explained to me that it was a great advantage for Leyla Gencer to not to record in a studio. Because in a studio without the audience, it wouldn’t have been possible to achieve the magnetism and the enchanting effect created by the artist. Wheras the real power of the art derives from this interaction.
“In the first years of my career, everybody was talking only about Callas. And frankly, I wasn’t uncomfortable with that. When she was singing in Milan, I used to go to the theatre every night to listen to her. I didn’t miss any of her rehearsals. It was her who showed me that the opera is also a theatrical experience. Callas also used her fame to sing operas such as Verdi’s Il Corsaro, Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, Poluito etc. But the record labels wanted her to record operas like Madam Butterfly, La forza del destino which were very popular among wide audiences.”
“But you, by taking her place…”
“It was early for me at the time. And Madam Butterfly was recorded many times. However, I was never assisted by a major impresario and it had a considerable effect on my career. In the current system, it’s often witnessed that overworking, recording too many albums and excessive travelling might harm the voices in five tears. Whereas I’m still able to perform on the stage.
In front of the red curtain of the Athenée Theater, in her splendid black silhouette and her palms reached out; as an act of asking for God’s forgiveness, she interpreted Maria Stuarda’s last moments. I can’t say that her incredibly clear and smooth voice didn’t lose focus when she tried to expand it.  It’s the cruel consequence of all the years after all…But does it matter? That simple music delivered us the most striking emotions at the moment when the whole orchestra seemed like it’d turned into a giant guitar.
“About this repertoire...I can say that it was already in my blood since birth. I noticed that when I was cast to sing Lucia di Lammermoor in 1957 at San Francisco Theater replacing Callas. I only had five days to learn the role. I immediately understood that its music shan’t be sung forte. Unfortunately, the same mistake was made continuously also in Verdi and Puccini operas.  The same year during the recording of Il Trovatore-although I’ve never made a record, I worked a lot at the radio- my colleagues Mario del Monaco and Ettore Bastianini told me “Why are you singing piano in these parts? It would be more effective if you sang forte instead.” When I told them that Verdi had precised that it should be sung piano and it wouldn’t be possible for me to contradict Verdi; I could imagine that they would look at me strangely and say “Oh, she’s doing what she can with the small voice that she has.” behind my back. But when that recording was released two years ago, I received so many compliments that would contradict my colleagues.”
The Parisians once again welcomed her with a delirious enthusiasm, just like they did last year. Poople who couldn’t find any tickets gathered in front of the theatre carrying boards on which wrote phrases such as: “I must find a seat. Please do something, I have to enter.” The unending applause which began the moment she set her foot on the stage was far more beyond a one-night success. They were applauding and blessing the new image that Leyla Gencer added to opera after Callas; she criticized fiercely and faught against singers who were only obsessed with their voices and didn’t know how to integrate drama with the music, who are ignorant to different styles and would confuse Bellini with Puccini, Monteverdi with Massenet. The young audience who can’t stand any strict rules was naturally interested in that new style.
In this recital: she brought all personalities who accompanied her during her career: Queens, sorceress’, lovers. She even interpreted Handel with such astonishing wisdom. And sang Verdi with all the nuances of the neo-romanticism.
One day ago, at the King Suit of the Intercontinental Hotel, I was still resisting Gencer’s impact. My only goal was to push back the charm of the face that is made of fire and ice and not to be taken by the confessions made with half closed eyes and low voice:
“In a way, I envy Callas. I would want to pass all levels rapidly just like her, give everything in a few years and then disappear. It’s so painful to see that it’s slowly decreasing and disappearing.”
And suddenly her voice arose:
“In Italy and other places, the quality of the performances are rapidly decreasing. Theaters are directed by pople who do anything to achieve their goals. Is there a trace of the time spent at La Scala to realize Poulenc’s opera now? I personally think that productions like that were the sacred fire. The behaviours of the art merchants make me furious. They trigger my eastern blood.” 
“How can a Turk become an opera singer?”
“In my case, it shall be called an irrational aspiration or a passion. There wasn’t an opera tradition in Turkey.  All had to be begun from zero. I left the Istanbul Conservatory before graduating, my plan was to attend Arrangi-Lombardi’s lessons in Ankara.  She’s the person who made me an Italian singer.” 
As soon as I left Leyla Gencer’s presence, I went and bought one of her pirate recordings. “Anna Bolena”. In the mad scene, Gencer expresses her dreams and pain in a mezza voce. And that’s when the time actually stops.
Tomorrow evening at the blood red stage of the Athenée Theater, she will cross her arms and whisper Sapho’s lament, revive the image of her desperation and the reflection of pain, yet remaining motionless. (François Lafon)

RADIOCORRIERE.TV            

1981.12.12

1 9 8 2

A HISTORY OF THE FESTIVAL (Opera Glyndebourne)

1982 January

Page 226

….. composer he had known well. An unofficial feature of these Glyndebourne performances of Peller was the small group of singers' children who collected in the wings to listen, fascinated and motionless, to the opera night after night. Gui was delighted by this; it proved, he said, that at last a generation was growing up that really appreciated Debussy's masterpiece.

The production of Pelleas, perhaps the finest thing Ebert had ever done at Glyndebourne, was followed by a revival of Figaro, which was given an unusual kind of preview -or rather, prehearing, for the artists wore evening dress and there was no stage action- in the form of a concert version compared by Moran Caplat before an audience supporting the Jewish charity, British Ort.

The first night of Figaro followed a week later with no fewer than six principals making their first appearance in this opera at Glyndebourne, and three of them their first- ever appearance at the Festival Opera House. A new conductor was also in the pit-Silvio Varviso, a young Swiss, whose understanding of the score and refusal to try fancy frolics with the fandango came as a great relief. The 1962 Figaro, indeed, was worthy to rank among the best ever seen at Glyndebourne-on the second night, that is, for the new Countess, the Turkish Leyla Gencer, seemed to be a habitual sufferer from first-night nerves which invariably started her off below form. Gabriel Bacquier, from the Paris Opera, was another newcomer; he gave a brilliant performance as the Count-elegant, aristocratic and full of unexpected touches that showed a rare understanding of the character. Mirella Freni was the new Susanna, a part she was singing for the first time; she played it with great charm and above all with respect for Mozart's vocal writing a much rarer accomplishment among Susannas than one might think. Susanna is no ordinary soubrette and Miss Freni recognized this in everything she did. There was another Murillo like Cherubino who came, rather unexpectedly, from Switzerland. Edith Mathis brought her own peculiar charm to a performance that suffered little by comparison with Teresa Berganza's (all Glyndebourne Cherubinos are good..."). The new Figaro was Heinz Blankenburg-lively, witty but with so strong a streak of the dangerous social rebel about him that it seemed odd that an intelligent man like the Count shouldn't have spotted it. Carlo Cava, also new to Figaro, presented a convincing Bartolo.

An extra, unannounced performance of this Figaro was put on at six hours' notice when the season's last performance of Pelleas had to be cancelled because of an ankle injury to Michel Roux, who sang Goland. There seemed to be no available understudy capable of acting the part; Roux was not a vocal casualty and so there was no question, of course, of anybody in a dinner jacket singing the part in the wings. Roux could sing all right; he just couldn't stand up. Gabriel Bacquier was asked if he knew the part, he did not. So, for the first time in Glyndebourne's history a performance of an opera was cancelled and another put on in its place. Silvio Varviso and Edith Mathis had taken advantage of a four-day middle between performances of Figaro to return to Switzerland and so were not available; the opera was accordingly conducted by John Pritchard and Cherubino was sung by Maureen Keetch.

The revival of Cosi fan tutte which came next was of really startling mediocrity.

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Only Michel Roux, who was able to lean on a silver-handled stick as Don Alfonso and so remain in character as well as erect, and the little American coloured singer, Reri Grist, an Despina, made any sort of impression or suggested in any way that the opera had ever been Glyndebourne's perennial pride and joy. The four lovers, all newcomers to Glyndebourne, were quite astonishingly lacking in personality, and it was hard to believe that they could make such a hit with the Albert Hall audience when they gave their concert performance of the opera at the Proms. The difference was so marked, indeed, that it was almost as though the Glyndebourne run had been merely a rehearsal for the p sold- out one-night stand in London.

The second novelty of the year was Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, which a Nottingham paper. in a story about a local ex-collier who had joined the Glyndebourne chorus, delighted everybody by calling The Coronation of the Pope'. Originally the production was claimed by Glyndebourne as the first performance of the opera in Britain, but this was correctly modified to the 'first professional production' when it was pointed out that there had been a memorable week of seven or eight semi-professional performances of Poppea given by the Oxford University Opera Club in 1927, when the score was arranged by the recently graduated 13-year-old Jack Westrup, now Sir Jack and Professor of Music at Oxford.

To perform Poppea at Glyndebourne was in its way a greater challenge to its audience than the production of Pellas. Debussy's opera had at least some idiomatic points of contact with everyday musical life, Monteverdi's, on the other hand, had none. It was unlike anything the great majority of the audience had ever heard in their lives before and I could find only one other critic who had also heard the Oxford performances, and he was an undergraduate at the time. The odds against Poppea making any sort of impact on the non-professional listener ought to have been overwhelming. It didn't even have the snob appeal which we are always told makes people go to Glyndebourne. But once more the instinct which had sensed the quality of Feller recognized the genius of Monteverdi - to such effect, indeed, that for the first time an opera not by Mozart has been performed in three successive years at the Festival Opera House. Raymond Leppard's arrangement of the music of Poppea was most imaginative and dramatically effective. He was criticized for an allegedly anachronistic harp glissando at one point in his score; his reply was that nobody could tell him that in 1642 people didn't run their fingers up and down the strings in a glissando just for the joy of it-just as anybody still does today. This struck me as the best possible answer.

Mr Leppard's score, made specially for the Glyndebourne production, was given a fine sendoff by an excellent cast. Magda Laszlo returned to Glyndebourne as Poppea, in place of Judith Raskin, whose name appeared in the programme but who had had to go into hospital in New York for an operation; Richard Lewis was Nero and so revived an operatic partnership with Miss Laszlo which had begun with Alceste at Glyndebourne and continued with Trailer and Cresside at Covent Garden. Carlo Cava, whom we had hitherto known only as a buffe, gave a most moving performance of the tragic Seneca; Oralia Dominguez, just surviving the most grotesquely silly head-dress ever seen on any stage, …..

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….. some two and a half hours. This was happily not permitted at Glyndebourne where a German precedent of dividing the work into two parts was followed. There had been a possibility, I believe, of performing Capriccio in one piece at Glyndebourne, with the audience having to wait until the fall of the curtain for its dinner. Second thoughts prevented what would surely have been a mistake. The prospect of trying to picnic in the dark afterwards without having enjoyed more than a glimpse of the gardens and the Downs the whole evening would make the expedition to Glyndebourne much less appealing. That this did not occur with Capriccio is something to be grateful for; that such a thing as dinner at the end of an opera-anybody's opera-at Glyndebourne should ever have been contemplated for a moment is nevertheless most disquieting.

The major disappointment of the 1963 season was the withdrawal of Vittorio Gui from Fidelio on medical orders to take things more easily. He still conducted Pelleas and the new production of The Magie Flute later in the season, but Beethoven's opera never really came to life without his wisdom and experience. The Glyndebourne Festival Chorus made a special hit of its own in the last scene of the work, when it sang with an attack and rhythmic bite instilled into it by its new Chorus Master, Myer Fredman, which was sadly lacking in the orchestra pit and elsewhere. There was a new Rocco, Victor de Narke, from the Argentine; Mihaly Szekely had died in Budapest in March, aged da. In the part of Marrelline one conductor's wife succeeded another conductor's wife. April Cantelo (Mrs Colin Davis and a member of the Glyndebourne chorus in 1948) replaced Elsie Morison (Mrs Rafael Kubelik), who had originally been chosen to repeat the part she had sung in the two previous Glyndebourne productions, but was unable to take on this time as she was on tour with her husband.

The revival of Pelléas et Mélisande under Gui was an even more satisfactory experience than the original production had been. A new Dutch Pelléas, Hans Wilbrink, was an improvement on his predecessor, and Anna Reynolds as good a Geneviève in her way as Kerstin Meyer, who was absent from Glyndebourne altogether this season. Denise Duval again sang Mélisande and though I suppose, strictly speaking, she was no less sophisticated than she had been the year before (this had been the only criticism) her performance was so attractive, so musical and her singing of the French language so lovely that it was still a rare experience. Apart from anything else, she came nearer than many singers of the part to making us forget the greatest understatement in all opera- Mélisande's words, after she has been pushed and banged about by Golaud: Je ne suis pas heureuse! Gous Horkman, another Dutch singer and a fine Arkel, and Michel Roux, who went through the season this time without injury as Goland, both gave admirable performances again.

The next two productions of the 1963 season, Poppea and Figaro, were both taken up to the Albert Hall for performance at the Proms and both, it was plain from anybody's loudspeaker at home, were riotous successes. The impact on the audience of the Monteverdi opera was as astonishing in its way as it had been originally at Glyndebourne the year before. Oralia Dominguez, who had sung seven of the ten performances during the Glyndebourne season, was the only principal unable to appear at the Proms. For the rest,

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the Nero-Lacan drinking scene heard over the radio was a great improvement on the stage production, as it at last allowed Monteverdi's music to make all the comic points that were necessary and so achieve twice the comic effect.

In the 1963 Figas there were two changes from the 1962 cast-Michel Roux, returning as the Count, and Liliane Berton, a French singer of great charm who was unwisely put into a black wig as Susanna and so appeared much older than her voice. This, however, was put right during the run of the opera at Glyndebourne.

The Prom performance of Figaro was one of those almost chaotic affairs which only the grace of God and an abundance of sheer theatrical luck keep the audience from knowing about. The evening at the Albert Hall was one of the hottest of the whole summer. Liliane Berton had fainted from the heat during rehearsal; the rehearsal was abandoned and the evening's performance was presented with many of the stage gestures and movements still unmodified to suit the concert version. Silvio Varviso, who conducted, was in panic until almost the last moment before the concert began because his dress trousers had been sent to the cleaners and not retuned. The Glyndebourne Management sorted this out for him. Finally, Leyla Gencer, suffering from worse nerves than even on first nights at Glyndebourne, decided as she was about to go on to the platform that she had lost her voice. The Glyndebourne Management sorted this one out, too, by pushing Miss Gencer firmly through the entrance to the platform and leaving her there.

The first half of the performance was perhaps not unnaturally a little edgy, and I doubt if the first act trio between the Count, Basilio and Susanna has ever been taken faster by any conductor. But once this general nervousness had been mastered the performance was a credit to Glyndebourne and a constant joy to a sold-out Prom audience.

Back at Glyndebourne, the revivals of Poppea and Figaro had been followed by a new production of The Magic Flute- an all-Italian affair in as much as Vittorio Gui conducted, Franco Enriques produced and the designer was Emanuele Luzzati. Opinions in the audience of this production were probably more sharply divided than on any Mozart production since the beginning of Glyndebourne. It was unusual, inventive, decorative and -to my taste anyway-very enjoyable. The most immediately striking feature were the designs by Mr Luzzati, who is surely the most original designer ever to have worked at Glyndebourne. True, the Queen of the Night's costume at first created the illusion that the singer was standing with raised, deformed arms, but when the lighting was favourable these 'arms' proved to be supports placed on her shoulders to hang a cloak on. The principal change from all other Glyndebourne productions of The Magic Flute was in the elimination of waits between the scenes. This was achieved by the use of ten tall decorated three-sided screens, each manipulated by a sceneshifter standing inside the screen, who moved about the stage according to individual instructions received from Geoffrey Gilbertson, the Stage Director, by radio on headphones. These mobile screens were most effective and though they were being used at Glyndebourne for the first time I remember having seen them in Vienna in the 1930s where they had been a feature of Stravinsky's ballet Pulcinella in the Redoutensaal. Vienna being what it always has been, of course, the idea was not new; in fact, screens were often used in this way in the seventeenth …..

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….. well interpreted by the German people; even our old Ebert, indubitably a great producer, in the Barbiere and Cenerentola was not at all at his best. The sense of humour, the conicity [Gui's English for comicità-comic quality) of our great Rossini must never be "caricature" - the style of our great genius, a Mediterranean genius, is immensely far from the conicity of the German races!"

No sooner had Gui been told that Macheth was 'off' than it was on again. It would open the season, produced by Enriquez, designed by Luzzati, conducted by Lamberto Gardelli, and Lady Macbeth would be well, they hadn't allowed for the Macbeth gremlin. Leyla Gencer was the first choice but was not available. Nor was the Russian, Galina Vishnevskaya. But the American soprano, Margherita Roberti, was free, approved and signed up, only to have to cry off exactly a month before the start of rehearsals because of influenza that had led to bronchitis and a total ban on singing for at least a month.

A Lady Macbeth, sound in wind and limb, was finally found and the part was sung by Marta Pender, another American, who lived and sang in Italy but had had little or no theatrical experience. But she knew the part, and the first night passed without disaster. Her dramatic inexperience and first-night nerves were obvious, but, as Andrew Porter bothered to tell us in the Financial Times, she later improved out of all recognition and was able to command her music and to command the scene.

The Macbeth, Kostas Paskalis, a Greek baritone from the Vienna Opera, was out- standing in a staging which (except for the deliberate and unjustifiable omission of the visible ghost of Banquo specifically demanded by both Shakespeare and Verdi) was original and effective. The battle scene (with the fugue played in full- - a welcome innovation) was particularly successful in its use of a cinematic quick-cutting by spotlights from one pair of combatants to another.

For the rest, it was a relief to hear Monteverdi's Poppea for the third year running. even though nothing had been done to modify the 'conicity' of the Nero-Lucan drunk scene. Raymond Leppard made his début in the Glyndebourne pit as conductor of his own 'realization' of the opera.

Vittorio Gai, now seventy-nine, was in the end persuaded to conduct six performances of The Magic Flute with much the same principals as he had directed in the initial production a year earlier.

The fifth revival of Idomeneo was the final opera of the 1964 season. Richard Lewis sang Idomeneo, as he had done in every Glyndebourne performance since the original Busch-Ebert production in 1951 (he was to sing the part again at Glyndebourne in 1974). The Idamante was a singer heard and engaged by Glyndebourne before he had been heard at the Scala or Covent Garden in 1963- Luciano Pavarotti. The twelve performances of Idomeneo were all he ever sang at Glyndebourne, but years afterwards he remembered them when he said: "What I learned there was to sing piano-from Jani Stramer.

In 1964, for some contractual reason or other, the orchestra which succeeded the Royal Philharmonic in the pit was described as the "Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra". …..

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….. In fact, as we have been able to read in the programme every year since 1965, the orchestra was the London Philharmonic whose principal conductor at the time was John Pritchard. Not since 1934 had Glyndebourne had an orchestra that had never played an opera before, but under its familiar director the LPO soon got the idiomatic hang of things, and with the ample rehearsal time available at Glyndebourne reached a high standard in under the seven-year par which Vittorio Gui once declared was the average time needed to train an opera orchestra.

1965

Though the revival of Macbeth in 1965 did inevitably bedevil the production of that opera itself, its notorious jinx this time also subtly affected virtually the whole season as originally planned several years earlier. The idea had been to open with La traviata (first proposed in 1936, then again confidently, but fruitlessly, announced for 1948), with Gui conducting and Mirella Freni singing her first Violetta. This most promising project came to nothing when it was found that performances had been so scheduled that Freni was expected to sing perhaps Verdi's most difficult role thirteen times in twenty-five days; this she understandably declined to do, and it was then too late to rearrange the dates. So it happened that Mirella Freni made her début as Violetta elsewhere later in the year and was found to be most disappointing in the part. One can't help feeling that if she had I spent a month on the part with Jani Strasser at Glyndebourne, she would have developed into a far better Violetta than they made of her in Milan.

Four operas were inked in by Glyndebourne to follow La traviata and had to be just as firmly inked out - Den Giovanni, produced by Peter Brook, a seventeenth-century double bill of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Monteverdi's Il ballo delle ingrate, and Cimarosa's Le ashurie femminill. The Mozart fell through because although he had accepted eagerly in December 1963, Peter Brook had had to change his mind five months later, when he found his other commitments too heavy. The Cimarosa ran into casting difficulties, Dido was postponed and with it the Monteverdi. As a result, these five operas were replaced by six fall-length works, which together contributed a record-breaking total of seventy-four performances during the season that lasted from 16 May to 15 August.

Cimarosa did, in fact, open the season as planned, but with the more famous Il  matrimonio segreto introducing the composer to Glyndebourne for the first time. This should have been conducted by Gui, but on the journey by car from Italy his wife was suddenly taken ill with some form of food poisoning. I called the doctor,' Guai wrote to George Christie and Moran Caplat from a town in Jura, 'who found not only a serious trouble in the stomach with signs of intoxication, yet also a form of allergy... (The Italians, like the French, commonly use the word intoxication in its strict medical sense of poisoning-and, of course, are as commonly misunderstood by the English.) After a rest at home in Florence, the Gui eventually reached Glyndebourne, where Vittorio conducted the last six of thirteen performances of Il matrimonio segreto (the first seven had been taken over by Myer Fredman). Frank Hamer's production, notable for the …..

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….. fact that for the first time in Glyndebourne's history the cast of six was entirely Italian, had a distinction and style that caused Desmond Shawe-Taylor to remark pointedly in the Sunday Times that "by placing Frank Hauser's elegant Matrimonie in the same season as Rennert's crude travesty of La pietra del paragone, Glyndebourne invited a dangerous comparison".

The other novelty of the season was Donizetti's Anna Bolens, an opera not only neglected in England, where it had not been heard for seventy-three years, but also in Italy, where there was no performance from the 1880s until its 1956 revival in the composer's native Bergamo. The following year it was put on at the Scala, its first time there since 1877, in an historic performance with Maria Callas as Anna Bolena and Giulietta Simionato as Jane Seymour. The conductor then, as at Glyndebourne, was Gianandrea Gavazzeni, a Bergamasco, like Donizetti, and the author of a study of the composer.

Since her appearance as the Countess in Figaro, Leyla Gencer had been increasingly specializing in 'Callas roles' and she was impressive in the title part of Anne Bolena. That Giulietta Simionato did not repeat her Scala part was due entirely to the accidents of inconvenient dates and places; she had song Cherubino for Glyndebourne in Edinburgh in 1947 and would have accepted the return engagement 'con grande enthusiasm. Even more unexpected than Gencer's change from Mozart to dramatic soprano was the singing of an old favourite who had not been heard at Glyndebourne for four years, Jaan Oncina, in the part of Percy. Oncina had been the principal tenor di grazia in all Gui's famous Rossini revivals, as well as in Feineff, Cosi fan tutte and Don Giovanni. As Percy his voice had changed its character almost to that of a Heldenster-indeed, he had recently sung Lohengrin. It was a fascinating and surprising transformation.

The performing edition of Asse Belene followed at Glyndebourne was the same as Gavazzeni had used at the Scala revival, when few of the critics commented on the cuts in the score made by the conductor, and those who did were in favour of them. One of the Scala improvements had been the omission of the overture, which Desmond Shawe- Taylor had described as 'unworthy and trivial". But when the same thing happened at Glyndebourne one of the London critics was highly indignant about the 'drastic cuts' made by Gavazzeni. "We are told the overture is poor and banal,' he protested, "but how can we judge unless we hear it? How, indeed, except by doing what anyone else would have done-namely, look at the score?

The revival of Der Rosenkavalier was distinguished by the first appearance in England of the Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé, who has since become one of the highest- paid singers in the world. Miss Caballé was ill during the first week of rehearsals and having arrived at Glyndebourne without knowing a note of the part of the Marschallin at all an unforgivable breach of traditional Glyndebourne discipline worthy of a Bateman cartoon-had to be taught the whole thing in six days by Gerald Gover of the music staff. Nevertheless, she was a great success and got some ecstatic notices.

Less ecstatic was the notices Miss Caballé received for her Countess in the revival of Figaro the last appearance of the opera for another eight years. (Except for the war

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years and 1952-4. Figaro had never been out of the repertoire for longer than two years in all the Festival Opera's years of activity.) In 1965 the production seemed to suffer from a touch of the Macbeths. The cast, which promised well on paper, proved very disappointing in practice. Caballe's Countess was oddly clumsy and inelegant (almost vulgar', said one critic), Gérard Souzay, as Almaviva, was strangely unsatisfactory, for while his performance had several moments of great personal, aristocratic charm, it lacked the ferocity which is such a subtle and important element in Mozart’s characterization.

Except for Lydia Marimpietri's Sumanna, it was altogether a rather colourless performance, for even Gui's direction lacked sparkle and tension. Daniel Leveugle's production showed little of the Gallic wit one expects from a Frenchman; instead, there was the now almost universal inability to resist fussy and distracting stage-business. Comparison with Carl Ebert's last Figaro (1962) was inevitable. In fact, Ebert had been urged to return for the 1965 production and for a time it seemed he would; but on reflection he decided that if he was to come back then it would have to be for an opera had not produced before. There was no opportunity to do this, so his 1963 production of Pelléas et Mélisande remained, sadly, his last work for Glyndebourne.

Once the first night of Figaro was over, the Macbeth virus really took hold. Half an hour before the second performance of Figaro, Soumay suffered a sudden crise de nerf and was totally unable to go on stage. The Count that night was sung by the understudy. John Kitchiner from the chorus. Michel Reux, due later at Glyndebourne for La pietra del paragone, was sent for after the second performance. At the next performance Caballé could not appear because of hay fever or something; she was away for two evenings, when her understudy, Loma Elias from the chorus, appeared.

At this point Gui decided he had had enough for the moment and took a rest from Figaro for a few performances. After three changes of cast, too much temperament, tension and tantrum, poor Maestro Gui was beginning to feel what he used to call “desperated”. Once more, Myer Fredman (still, in his spare time, Chorus Master) took over, and in the course of seven days conducted three performances of Figaro and three of Anna Belena (Gavazzeni had fulfilled his contract and returned to Italy). The reason Mr Fredman rested on the seventh day had nothing to do with working to Mosaic rule. There was just no performance that night.

The inclusion of Macbeth was inevitably accompanied by the traditional load of mischief that had affected all earlier productions of Verdi's opera at Glyndebourne. This time, however, the principal trouble - as always, the role of Lady Macbeth-occurred early enough not to cause havoc with normal preparation. True, the name of the Italian soprano, Linda Vajna, appeared in the programme, but that was because the programme had been printed and distributed well before Macheth went into rehearsal. Miss Vajna withdrew before rehearsals began and her part was sung by Gunilla af Malmborg, a young Swedish soprano, who made a good impression as a singer of considerable promise, with a powerful voice and a striking appearance.

After the final performance of the season, George Christie made his annual end of …..

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…..  described by The Times as 'admirable' and commended for his Act III duet with Constanze and his duettino with Pedrillo in Act I, which 'were some of the major musical delights of the performance'. But the choice for Osmin of Paolo Montanolo, a non- German-speaking Italian without the low notes which are the essence of this unique part, proved an odd bit of casting. Montanolo was altogether too amiable and lacking in the comical frustration that gives the role its flavour and variety. A second Osmin, the Bulgarian, Dimiter Petkov, did no better, and for much the same reasons.

The two revivals of the season were L'Ormindo and Anne Bolena. In the first there was one important change from the original cast of 1967. Hanneke van Bork, a young Dutch soprano, supplanted Irmgard Stadler, who was ill, as Sicle. In the second, the indisposed Leyla Gencer had to cancel the five performances she had contracted to sing, and her place was taken by Milla Andrew, who had been due to sing the last seven performances and now sang all twelve. Which is how it happened that, with the exception of Marius Rintzler, the Rumanian bass, as Henry VIII, the whole of the 1968 Anna Bolena cast was English-speaking. Milla Andrew was Canadian, Patricia Johnson and Janet Coster (both in the original production) were English as was Stafford Dean, who sang Rochefort; George Shirley, the Percy, was American, and Hervey was sung by Peter Baillie from New Zealand.

The conductor was Italian. Gardelli restored many of the passages cut by Gavazzeni in 1965- including the overture (whose quality, you will remember, a critical analphabet could not judge without hearing), which sounded just as trivial and tedious as Shawe-Taylor had said it would. When asked why he had put it back, Mr Gardelli replied: "Because Donizetti wrote it." An unanswerable answer, of course. But it didn't improve one's opinion of Donizetti.

1969

This was to have been Berlioz Year, commemorating the centenary of his birth by a production of Beatrice and Benedict. That it did not materialize was not surprising: it has always been a problem opera. It is in two short acts, which do not properly fill an evening, and most curtain-raisers involve a second cast and are, therefore, costly. There was, above all, the problem of finding a cast of singers capable of speaking the dialogue in a French less horrifying than the sort spoken in the 1978 Carmen at Edinburgh.

That singing French was an easier matter for foreigners than speaking it was shown by the cosmopolitan casting of the two French operas that shared the 1969 season with two by Mozart. Wether opened the festival with a new Charlotte, sung by Josephine Veasey, an experienced and popular Glyndebourne artist since her 1957 début in L'italiana in Algeri. The new Sophie was the young Canadian, Annon Lee Silver, and Schmide was sung by the francophone Hagues Comod

The revival of Pellar et Mande should have been directed by Denise Duval, who had been Glyndebourne's unforgettable first two Mélisandes, but she was not well enough. Instead, the opera was produced (still with the Montresor décor) by Pierre Médecin, a member of the famous Nice family whose distinguished part in the civic life

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of the city led to the Avenue de la Victoire, formerly the Avenue de la Gare, being recently renamed the Avenue J. Médecin.

Duval's successor as Mélisande was Ileana Cotrubas, an attractive Rumanian from Frankfurt, making her British debut at the beginning of an international career that has so far (1980) allowed her to sing at Glyndebourne too seldom for the audience's taste. In the last four of nine performances of the 1969 Pelléas, Mélisande was sung by Jill Gomez in her first principal role at Glyndebourne, which she came to after joining the chorus in 1966 and singing Adina in L'elisir d'amore on the first tour in 1968

With the two new Mélisandes, two new Genevièves (Jocelyne Taillon and Margaret Lensky), a new Golaud (the excellent Jacques Mars) and a new Yniold (Anne-Marie Blanzat), there was also a new Pelléas: Peter-Christoph Runge, the young German who left pleasanter memories than either his predecessors or successors in the part at Glyndebourne. The only member of the original 1962-3 casts who returned for this Pelleas was Gus Hockman, the Dutch bass, whose recommendation for the part of Arkel had originally come from Pierre Fournier, the great French cellist. Or so the Glyndebourne files said. In fact, it turned out to have been the French conductor, Jean Fournet; distortion can occur in the best-kept archives.

John Pritchard, now described simply as Musical Director, conducted Pelléas for the first time and sent Gui a touching cable: 'On the occasion of the restoration of Pelléas to Glyndebourne Festival repertoire, we all send affectionate greetings with remembrances of its unforgettable impact under your direction." Pritchard didn't let his master down.

While Gui returned to the festival after his two famous Pellas series, Debussy's opera was Carl Ebert's definite farewell to Glyndebourne as a producer. June Dandridge, who joined Glyndebourne as a stage manager in Busch's last season, 1911, and since 1956 has been Production Manager (except that until 1960 it was called Stage Director), had exceptional experience of Ebert at work. Whatever his faults, she said, he was one of the greatest of all producers: "He had good taste (insofar as his German sense of humour allowed), and he knew the music. He was an actor and understood actors' problems, he was a musician and understood singers' problems. And he rarely misunderstood a composer's intention.

Understanding the composer's intention was precisely what Jani Strasser had in mind when he once defined the difference between 'musical and 'musicianly' as the difference between the gifted amateur and the competent professional:

The first [he said] enjoys music profoundly, distinguishes by instinct what he likes and dislikes without being able to give precise explanations; he becomes instinctively appreciative of some finer nuances when they are pressed to him; he will not be able to discover them otherwise, or from the score/orchestration and so pass them on to others.

A musicianly person can and should do this. I might use the simile of the difference between the student of Italian and the student of Italian literature. The former will be able to understand colloquial Italian, but the purport of Leopardi or Moravia will remain hidden to him, even if he grasps the literal meaning of the words. The latter will be able to explain and interpret the hidden meaning behind the words to the former.

RADIOCORRIERE.TV             

1982.08.01

IL PICCOLO     

1982.09.10

IL PICCOLO     

1982.10.07

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LAS VOCES TEATRO COLON, BUENOS AIRES        

1983

1961

Fue considerable el número de cantantes invitados que hicieron su debut en el Teatro Colón en esta temporada. Como siempre, el grupo era bastante heterogéneo en punto a calidad; pero afortuna- damente y pese a algunos reparos, varios de sus integrantes eran de indiscutible valía.
 
Leyla Gencer. Tal es el caso, indudablemente, de esta distinguida soprano turca que, a partir de su debut en 1954, en el Teatro San Carlos, de Nápoles, había conquistado rápidamente un lugar des- tacado entre las sopranos lírico-dramáticas del momento. Sus cualidades vocales eran tan indiscutibles como la aguda inteligencia con que se servía de ellas y la penetrante intención conque se ex- presaba. Hacía galas de una notable propiedad estilística, aunque llevada a veces por su temperamento, solía trasponer los umbrales de la arbitrariedad. Su voz abarcaba una amplia gama y era cálida y envolvente, aunque en los forte se tornaba acre. Sus filados y smorzandi eran, en cambio, seductores. En materia de agilidad vo- cal sorprendía por una limpidez que ocasionalmente se empañaba en forma inexplicable porque Gencer poseía la técnica adecuada para afrontar los pasajes de bravura, como lo demostró después de su azaroso debut con Rigoletto (Gilda) que cantó con Raimondi, MacNeil, Mazzoli, Burello. d.o. Quadri. Su segunda ópera de la temporada fue I Puritani (Elvira), con Raimondi, Ausensi, Mazzo- li, Bartoletti. d.o. Quadri.
Gencer regresó al Colón en 1964, para Simon Boccanegra (Maria), con MacNeil, Cossutta, Wildermann, Mastromei. d.o. Bartoletti, y Norma, con Adriana Lazzarini, Bruno Prevedi, Wildermann. d.o. Bartoletti.

OPERA MAGAZINE            

1983 February

Venice. The 1983 season at the Teatro La Fenice: La prova di un'opera seria (np) (Gnecco). With Leyla Gencer, Patrizia Dordi, Luigi Alva, Giancarlo Luccardi, Francesco Signor, Mario Bolognesi, c. John Fisher, p. and d. Pizzi. 

THE NEW GROVE (The Master of Italian Opera)

1983 February

CLARION MAGAZINE    

1983 May

1 9 8 4

DONIZETTI SOCIETY JOURNAL No.5            

1984

A hard-to-find volume published by The Donizetti Society. This is number 24 from a limited-edition of 1000 copies. "Notes on the Interpretation of Donizetti's Queens" by the great Leyla Gencer is only one of numerous articles, which concern Maria Padilla; Gemma di Vergy; the cantata "in Morte di M.F. Malibran de Beriot"; Giorgio Ronconi; Il Campanello di Notte; Le Duc d'Albe; and more. Authors include William Ashbrook, John Black, and Jeremy Commons. Illustrated with musical examples.
 
The Donizetti Society
Journal No.5, 1984
Editor: Alexander Weatherson

Alexander Weatherson            Editorial

Alexander Weatherson            Donizetti and Romantic sensibility in Milan at the

                                                 time of Maria Padilla

Roger Parker                           Maria Padilla; some historical and analytical remarks

Thomas G. Kaufman               Lucrezia Borgia - various versions and performance history

John Black                              The revival of Gemma di Vergy at the S.Carlo of Naples 

Gene J. Cho                             Donizetti's Laudate Pueri

John Black                              Élisabeth d'Angleterre, il conte d'Essex and Roberto Devereux

John Black                              Code of instructions for the censorship of theatrical works

Alexander Weatherson            Lament for a dead nightingale: the cantata 'in morte di 

                                                Malibran

Thomas G. Kaufman              Giorgio Ronconi

Leyla Gencer                          Notes on the interpretation of Donizetti's queens

Fulvio Lo Presti                      Maria Stuarda regna felicemente sulla renaissance 

                                                Donizettiana

J.Commons & J.Black            Il campanello di notte: further evidence, further questions

Fulvio Lo Presti                      Le Duc d'Albe: The livret of Scribe and Duveyrier

Thomas G. Kaufman              A bibliography of opera house annals

BAY AREA REPORTER        

1984.02.16

LA STAMPA            

1984.05.19