Archivarius - Saggi a cura di/Essays by Luca Logi (llogi@dada.it)
rec.music.opera 1999 - My personal archive
by Luca Logi
Accents and Dialects in Opera - Cavalleria Rusticana (the original novel) - Church music in Austria - Emergencies at Performances - First Three Tenors Broadcast - Lucia di Lammermoor - Ricordi
Subject: Accents and Dialects in Opera
For example, is all of Puccini in vulgar commoner's patois, or is it upper crust? Does Mimi have an accent?!
Mimi and all the bohemiens speak in a very elegant Italian. The libretto writers were Illica & Giacosa - Illica wrote the script, but the actual wording of the libretto is credited to Giacosa, one of the best Italian poets and writers at the turn of century. Giacosa found very elegant and poetical expressions, but still very natural and conversation-like. Any accent would be quite vulgar in Mimi speech.
is Scarpia supposed to have a distinct Roman accent in Italian?
Scarpia - as well as Tosca and Cavaradossi - should not have a Roman accent at all. Giacosa wrote, this time, in a higher and nobler Italian than La Boheme, as all these characters are supposed to be larger than life. By the way, in the original Sardou drama we learn that Scarpia is not even from Rome: he is a Sicilian baron working for the Queen of Naples. The only character speaking in Roman dialect is the shepherd boy: his verses were written by the Roman poet Luigi Zanazzo.
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There are not so many instances of actual uses of Italian dialects in opera. For example the Siciliana in CAVALLERIA; curiosly, the Lola stornello in the very same opera sounds much more Tuscan then Sicilian (after all, Mascagni was a Tuscan). In LA GIARA, a ballet by Casella, there is an old Sicilian song as well.
There are a lot of Neapolitan comic operas from the 18th century, going from Pergolesi to Paisiello. Sometimes the country characters sing in dialect while the noble characters sing in high Italian.
A long Italian theatral tradition was the 'commedia dell'arte', in which several characters (maschere) freely improvise on a sketched script. The maschere were always the same, each own having his/her idiosincrasies and speaking his/her dialect. For example, the physician was always from Bologna (the medical school there dates back to Middle Age): this is why maestro Spinelloccio in GIANNI SCHICCHI speaks with an heavy Bolognese accent (for example "Bolognese" sonds more like "Bologneshe").
Sometimes you hear Despina in COSI' FAN TUTTE - acting en travesti as the physician - sung with a light Bolognese accent, and it doesn't sound inappropriate at all. On the contrary, the very same maschere in ARIADNE AUF NAXOS cannot speak their original dialects - it would have been very difficult for Hofmannsthal to render this effect in German - so I find that they somewhat lack individuality and dephtness.
In this century Wolf Ferrari wrote some operas in Venetian dialect (I quatro rusteghi, Il campiello), based on dialectal plays by Goldoni.
Even if it is not written anywhere in the score, I would remind that the true tradition is having GIANNI SCHICCHI sung in an heavy Florentine accent. For example, the letter "c" is often substituted by an aspirated sound ("lo dicono a Signa" becomes "lo dihono a Signa"). Not all singers are able to do this in a natural manner; the old Rolando Panerai, being born few miles outside Florence was (and, now over 70, still is) able to give this comedy extra depht by this dialectal accent.
Subject: Cavalleria Rusticana (the original novel)
The Verga novella was written in 1880. In 1883 Verga wrote a dramatical version of it. Almost all the changes you see between the novella and the libretto are due to Verga, who made them in adapting the subject for the stage. Indeed, most of the dialogues in the opera are summaries of the drama dialogues, and most of the characteristic phrases in the libretto are copied word for word from the drama.
Interestingly, Giuseppe Giacosa (the Boheme librettist) encouraged Verga in having the drama performed, while Arrigo Boito did not like it in a preliminary reading and advised Verga against it. It was so different from any other Italian drama of the time, that the actor-manager of the company did ask Verga to pay for expenses in advance, and refused to perform the Turiddu or Alfio parts, believing the drama would have been a big fiasco. The Santuzza role was created by Eleonora Duse, the best Italian actress ever and still a mythical figure after one century.
I do not think Verga was really at ease with the opera's success. When he was very old, around 1920, he wrote: "Of all I have written, only Cavalleria Rusticana will survive, and not out of me, but out of Mascagni. That few pages are for me like a rope at my neck".
This is not strictly true. Verga is still considered as the best Italian writer at the end of 19th century and still widely read.
Subject: Church music in Austria
In Vienna you will find a bunch of street sellers in nice uniforms selling you tickets for different concerts (probably Strauss and Mozart).
I do not think they are really worth the price (you are paying for the costumes, not for the music).
The best quality/price ratio for music in Salzburg is Sunday Mass in the Cathedral and in the Kapuzinerkirche, usually with choir and orchestra and a selection from the classical repertory (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert). Free (but do not forget to be generous at the offertory) and usually crowded (be there half an hour earlier). Do not forget this is a sacred service and not a concert; but this is also the true and authentic setting for a Mozart of Haydn Mass (much more than a concert room).
Subject: Emergencies at Performances
Anybody else have a story?
There was in the 70ties a pasticcio of baroque arias to be performed at Teatro della Pergola in Florence. The whole idea was having the harpsichord player in the very centre of the stage, in the place of the prompter box, with the singers acting around him.
After the last reharsal and the last visit to the harpischord by the tuner, the RAI television troupe recording the piece asked for lighting to be reinforced - all the thing was too dark. So a big spotlight was placed just above the harpsicord, turned on, and during all the afternoon all light cues were reharsed again and changed, ending just half an hour before the beginning of the performance. After a full afternoon under the heat of a spotlight, the harpsicord began to unglue.
Then comes the show. Applauses. The harpsicord player, in 18th century costume, comes out and sits down at the harpsichord. Silence. He tries playing the first chord, but the harpsichord sounds like an old piece of rusted scrap iron. He tries to pull in a different register, but the register handle detaches from the body of the instrument. He tries another couple of chords, and the harpsichord collapses under his hands.
Subject: First Three Tenors Broadcast
I was backstage in Caracalla that night (I am immortalized forever in a couple of video shots), as I was working (I still am) with the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Of course I'll be flamed for reporting this, but it was really a magic night, deeply satisfying for everybody involved in the show. As you point, nobody - not even bean-counters at Decca - was able to anticipate what would really develop from this, and it was strictly a sort of gala concert, the general atmosphere being quite relaxed.
I have subsequently worked in other 3 T projects, but I never find again the same general atmosphere. Everybody was expecting for something to develop (if possible, a lot of $$$). I suspect that most people - even if they are not able to understand technical or musical or vocal matters - are able to uncounsciosly unterstand this in watching the videos.
I recall reading the foreword to the Jesus Lopez Cobos edition of the Lucia score (which is not, at present, available for sale, but only for rental from Ricordi).
Donizetti did write Lucia thinking to a heavier voice. Curiously, the tonalities of the main numbers sung by Lucia were originally higher (e.g.'Regnava nel silenzio' was originally in Eb, not D major; the madness scene was originally in F, not in Eb); this way the general balance of the part, dispensing with unwritten high notes and unwritten variations, was well suited to the range of a good dramatic soprano.
These numbers were later transposed in order to interpolate higher notes and variations and giving extra working space in the high register to canary singers. It was possible also to add some extra E flat. But the balance of the part was severely altered).
I haven't heard it, but I suspect that the latest Andrea Rost recording of Lucia restores the original tonalities.
BTW, the Lopez Cobos edition also transfers the solo at the beginning of the duet #6 from oboe to clarinet (apparently, an early copyist failed in counting the number of staves and assigned the solo to the wrong instrument).
The sales department was run, till some years ago, in a quite strange way of doing business ('You do not really want this book, what you want is this other one, which I happen to have 3500 extra copies to sell').
Than the whole firm was raided and merged with the Italian branch of BMG. There still were, at the time, some competent and experienced persons who were very quick to look for retirement or a job in some other place. Now the business seems to be run by temps, apprentices and people like that. Even if you personally know them, and phone them every day and even send flowers to the girls - as I did in a desperate case - they will give you an hard time all the same.
They have a web site at http://www.ricordi.it or something like that, where you can find also some e-mail address. I actually asked them if they read their e-mail ('Of course we do'), but I would not bet on it.
Aggiornata al 12 gennaio 2000 - Last adjourned Jan. 12th, 2000 - (C) Luca Logi 2000