MUSIC: Grazie, Italia
Thibodeau, Ralph
GRAZIE, ITALIA MUSIC The occasion was the first performance in the first visit of La Scala to the U.S., a bicentennial gift from Italy to America. The question on everyone's mind was: why...
...And it was indeed a magnificent show...
...The orchestra, going back in our memory to Tos-canini, has received its due acclaim as one of the great orchestras of Europe: it has two seasons of its own, one following the fall ballet season, and another in the summer...
...I would rather you served the poet better than the composer...
...Rumanian soprano lleana Cotrubas as Mimi achieved greatness...
...Add to this Franco Zeffi-relli's mise-en-scene, especially the split-level boulevard-of Act 2, and the distinctive pre-dawn Dammerung of Act 3, and you have a feast for eye and ear alike...
...Italian Ambassador Roberto Gaja, addressing a session of the Music Critics Assn...
...Ambrose, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church, and patron saint of Milan...
...Dara was a dandy Dandini, easily the comic star of this tres gai spectacle...
...Paolo Grassi, general manager, said that La Scala is the anima, the soul, of Italian opera...
...On opening night the singers did seem intent on serving the poet...
...7, the feast of St...
...In her portrayal of Lady Macbeth, La Verrett was capable of anything, literally, as the mad, power-hungry female who drives her reluctant man to murder...
...Because American audiences would be familiar with the story...
...The answer was simple enough, given at a press conference by conductor Claudio Abbado: Macbeth was a new production at La Scala (1975), and in his opinion the best in the current repertoire...
...8, we were observing not only the fifth anniversary of the Kennedy Center, commemorating assassination, but also the second anniversary of the Pardon, the ultimate emasculation of the Constitution...
...and other members of the press, spoke of the La Scala visit as Italy's way of honoring Jeffersonian democracy...
...This is the season when the chorus comes into its own as the anima of the body La Scala, the unsung heroes-if I may be pardoned-of the day, like the corps of a great ballet...
...Puccini's La Boheme, everybody's favorite opera, under the baton of Georges Pretre, became a vehicle for exploring the gamut of emotions in the lives of fin-de-siecle characters of the Left Bank, from the tortuous love of grisette Mimi and her lover, Rodolfo, to the high jinks of the four artists in their garret, to the movement and color of Christmas Eve in Montmartre, to the death of Mimi...
...With all deference to the stars, to incomparable Abbado and his incomparable opera orchestra, I reserve a profound bow for Romano Gan-dolfi and his opera chorus...
...It is only justice to add that the outstanding orchestra and chorus are the anima of La Scala, the very breath of life of the organization...
...It was Verdi's final revision of 1874...
...It is, quite simply, the best opera chorus I have ever been privileged to hear, with infinite subtlety of expression, and the most powerful choral sound imaginable...
...I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this...
...Piero Cappuccilli as Macbeth was impressive dramatically as well as vocally, unsparing of his great energy to make his character credible...
...Everybody had to sing coloratura, from the great mezzo-soprano Cinderella, Lucia Valentini Terrani, to the Prince, tenor Luigi Alva, and, phenomenally, the two basso buffo characters, Paolo Montarsolo as the stepfather (in this version of the story) and Enzo Dara as the Prince's valet, Dandini...
...While we as a nation are 200-years-old, and almost 400-years-old as a new branch of an old western civilization, it is chastening to realize that Italy was always there, that La Scala itself is as old as our nationhood, preparing to celebrate its 200th anniversary in 1978...
...God help us all...
...Rossini's Cenerentola was the big surprise...
...His performance was matched by that of the great Bulgarian basso, Nicolai Ghiaurov, in the role of Banquo...
...he can pardon a man before the man has confessed his sins...
...We felt some sense of poetic justice, and much dramatic irony, in the fact that the "Lady" traveling with La Scala to wish us a Happy Birthday was our own inimitable American black soprano, Shirley Verrett...
...Here then is Macbeth, which I love above all my other works...
...The opera season opens on Dec...
...Infinite care, infinite devotion to every note, every nuance of music as well as text, characterized the performances not only of the principals, but of the orchestra under Abbado, and of the magnificent chorus, functioning variously as witches, assassins, exiles and soldiers...
...Verdi had told Felice Varesi, who first sang the part of Macbeth, "Study the dramatic situation and the words...
...Verdi's own favorite...
...Hidden gold in this early (1847), pre-Rigo-letto work, treasures unmined in Verdi's later Otello and Falstaff...
...With his words fresh in my mind, and with the impact of Macbeth's political sins still ringing in my ears, it was depressing to recall that this very day, Sept...
...The Italians take their opera very seriously, especially at La Scala...
...He wrote to his father-in-law...
...But this Macbeth is Lady Macbeth's show, a whole series of arias from the first-act cabaletta, to the drinking song, to the final, sleepwalking "Out, Damned Spot" (Una macchia e qui tuttora . . . Via, ti dico, o maled-etta...
...It is rarely produced here, possibly because Rossini's great patter arias and ensembles are practically untranslatable (and almost incomprehensible at any rate), partly because the vocal intricacies of this style of bel canto singing are most difficult for singers and audiences alike...
...The question on everyone's mind was: why Macbeth...
...Somehow we have made Jeffersonian democracy work for 200 years, against odds, and we are proud...
...But Verdi was wrong: the music does not come of itself...
...We may even want to sing it...
...RALPH THIBODEAU (Ralph Thibodeau is professor of music at Del Mar College, and music critic of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times...
...As Senator Ervin told a roaring audience at Georgetown: "Ford is mightier than God...
...we are just beginning...
...With thanks for the Italian gesture, we may reciprocate by saying in our turn: Happy Birthday, La Scala...
...Again, it was infinite attention to musical detail which was most impressive, with the conductor literally milking every last drop of pathos-and bathos- out of every line in the score...
...Let us not be puffed up...
...The music comes of itself...
Vol. 103 • October 1976 • No. 21
