Salzburger Zeitung 2014 #3

Though the food, wine and sights of Salzburg are part of what draws me back so often to this lovely city, central to it all has always been the music.

Whither it was in those early years for the Summer Festival, the Mozart-werk one winter or the visits to the Pfingstenfestspeile that started in 2008 the main attraction has always been the music - and the music makers.

As with any Festival there are going to be banner years and then there will be times when the stars - both astrologically and musically - don't quite align.  I'm afraid this year was one of the later.  Given the line-up of performers and works being performed it should have been a success but there was something that didn't quite work.  Perhaps it was the effect of the numerous last minute cancellations for the Stabat Mater and the Rossini Gala; perhaps it was the less than sparkling conducting in the two operas (more of which later); perhaps it was the poor choice of venue for the Otello  - even Verdi's version, as I recall from 1971, did not sit all that well on the sprawling stage of the Grosses Festspeilhaus; or perhaps it was simply that the programme didn't gel the way it was intended to.  Of the six Pfingstenfestspeils we have attended this was the one that had the the least impact musically and left the least impression.

June 8, 2014 - Religiously Rossini

Unlike many of his contemporaries Rossini did not have to rely on the church for his commissions.  He had been a church singer as a child and written several small pieces (a lovely Cantemus domino and the Faith, Hope and Charity triptych) but things of a religious nature - masses, te deums and canticles, Aves and Salves, those corner stones of church music - he composed little.  And oddly, for a composer known for the speed at which he wrote,  the two major "church" pieces that are most often performed took an inordinately long time to complete.  We were to hear both those pieces on, appropriately,  Whitsunday.

Stabat Mater/Libera me - Grosses Festspielhaus 12:00 Uhr

A photo-montage created of Giuseppe Verdi and Gioachino Rossini.
Photo Shop in Paris in 1860. akg-image/De Agostini Picture Lib./A. Dagli Orti

This midday concert had been plagued by cancellations: of the four scheduled soloists only one, Erwin Schrott, actually performed.  As I mentioned previously, several days before the concert the Festival sent out a notice that due to illness Krassimira Stoyanova and Piotr Beczala had been forced to cancel; and that Elīna Garanča felt it was too soon after her encouchement to return to singing.  Maria Agresta, Lawrence Brownlee and Sonia Ganasssi had graciously agreed to replace their ailing colleagues.  Not a bad set of replacements - though it was interesting to note that all three have very different voices from the singers they were replacing - particularly Brownlee.

I'm not sure if this - or the acoustics in the Grosses Festspeilhaus - was the reason that on several occasions Antonio Pappano and his Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia overpowered the soloists.  In more than one post I have expressed my fondness and admiration for Santa Cecilia - they were my "home" orchestra for four years but I have also remarked on more than one occasion that Pappano does have a tendency to occasionally pull out the stops and swamp his singers.  However in the past the Orchestra and Chorus  have given me quite a few memorable moments and  I will include this concert - and the one that followed - amongst them, particularly in the Verdi Libera me.

A facsimile of Verdi's  autograph score of the 1869 Libera Me composed for the unperformed
Messa per Rossini.  Later it was to become the starting point for his 1874 Requiem.

Verdi wrote this first attempt at a passage for a Requiem in 1868-9 as his contribution to a commemorative Messa per Rossini  that had been commissioned by Giulio Ricordi as an observation of the first anniversary of the death of the Swan of Pesaro.  Each section of the Requiem was to be composed by a different hand and Verdi choose and completed the concluding words.  Unfortunately a combination of political, financial and "artistic" difficulties meant the mass was never performed.  Verdi was to use the Libera Me as the foundation of his 1874 Requiem to commemorate the death of Alessandro Manzoni.

My friend David mentioned that he had heard Maria Agresta in the difficult and thankless role of Abaigaile in Nabucco in Palermo and asked if, in my opinion, this was the right repertoire for her.   I wasn't sure if he meant the Verdi or the Rossini but frankly she seemed more comfortable in the later than the former.  Given the late replacement she may not have had enough rehearsals in what is a tricky hall but she didn't seem to have the power to ride over the chorus and orchestra.  There was an emotional coolness in her performance - in my mind this work needs some fire and brimstone:  we aren't talking redemption here but being saved from hell fire!  Though by the end she had gained power for that final pleading cry of Domine.   There is nothing quite like the Santa Cecilia Chorus in either its hushed entry after that frightened and frightening soprano entry or in full cry of terror at the day of wrath - I have heard them in the complete Verdi  Requiem three times and this is music that is in their soul and it shows forth even in this brief piece.

Antonio Pappano, soloists and the Orchestra e coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia accept the applause after Sunday's performance of a Verdi/Rossini programme at the 2014 Whitsun Festival.   (Photo: Sylvia Letti - Salzburg Festival)

The Rossini Stabat Mater also had a difficult birth: Rossini composed it on commission from Manuel Fernánde Varela.  Rossini revered the Pergolesi setting of the medieval hymn and did not wish to be seen as challenging the older composer.  One of the conditions of the commission was that the manuscript remained with Varela and was not to be published.  Ill health meant that he had not completed the work by the time of its scheduled premiere on Good Friday, April 5, 1833 and half the piece was composed by Rossini's friend Giovanni Tadolini. Rossini was not to complete the work until 1841 and the work that premiered, to great acclaim, on January 7, 1842 was all Rossini.

Again I'm not sure if it was my seat in the Grosses Festspielhuas - about half way back centre - or perhaps a question of balance because of the change of voice timbres from the originally announced singers but there were several instances when again Pappano's orchestra overpowered his singers. This is not to say that it was less than satisfactory performance though perhaps not as self-satisfying as Schrott seemed to find it.

Maria Agresta, Sonia Ganasssi, Antonio Pappano, Lawrence Brownlee and Erwin Schrott seem as
pleased as their audience was with this performance of the Rossini Stabat Mater. (Photo: Sylvia Letti - Salzburg Festival)

I have heard more powerful Cujus animam than Brownlee's but I doubt I will ever find one that touched the heart so closely - the piercing sword was one of sorrow.  Sonia Ganassi is a singer that I heard and enjoyed often during our years in Italy however the last few times I heard her she seemed to have developed a roughness to her singing - whatever the problem was it has been overcome and she was back to a sound like black velvet shot with silver.  Her voice blended well with Agresta in the Quis est homo and both singers gave fine accounts of their respective aria - though again a touch more fire from Agresta in the Inflammatus would not have gone amiss. Schrott (Hot Schrott to his many admirers) gave a heft to the Pro peccatis - rather amusingly being a tall athletic man he  towered over his colleagues and conductor and seemed to take secret delight in it.

Once again the Coro di Santa Cecilia proved to be the backbone of the performance particularly in the hushed delicacy they brought to the lovely "paradisi gloria" passage of the final quartet and chorus.  Aside from those odd moments when the balance favoured the orchestra Pappano conducted a good if,  perhaps, not Festival standard performance.

Petite Messe Solennelle - Stiftung Mozarteum - Grosser Saal - 17:00 uhr

 

Pappano, Brownlee and a small group of the Coro were on double duty for the day with a performance of the Petite Messe Solennelle  scheduled just a few hours after they had finished the midday Stabat Mater. 

As has often been said the work is neither "petite" nor particularly "solenelle" - however it was intended more as a chamber work.  Rossini had set it for 12 singers including four soloists accompanied by two pianos and a harmonium.  It was meant for a church setting however the Papal ban on mixed choirs in church (castrated men where acceptable - fully equipped women not!) meant that it could not be performed as a liturgical act.  Rossini had been in correspondence with Pius IX in an attempt to get the ban lifted but without success.  Fortunately the edict did not apply to private chapels and the first performance took place in the personal chapel of Count and Countess Pillet-Will.  It was intended for family and friends - with Auber, Meyerbeer and Thomas being amongst the later.

The title page of the autograph manuscript of the Petite Messe Solennelle - Rossini specifies the
number of singers and instrumentation he intended. In 1866-67 Rossini expanded the work
for performance by larger forces and orchestra.

The work was  orchestrated by Rossini in1866-67 but the first performance of this expanded version did not take place until three month's after his death on February 28, 1869 - the closest date to his birthday in a non-leap year.  For the Festival performance Pappano choose to use the original chamber version with a larger chorus and four soloists.  Though the Grosser Saal of the Mozarteum may not be as "homey" as the chapel chez Pillet-Will the atmosphere was still intimate.

Pappano led from the piano (Pamela Bullock was the second pianist and Ciro Visco, the chorus master, played the harmonium) and in the Offertorium Ritornelle proved to be an accomplished pianist.   It was a simple, clean and intimate performance - just as Rossini intended.

Michele Pertusi, Lawrence Brownlee, Vesselina Kasarova, Eva Mei, Pamela Bullock, Antonio Pappano and
Ciro Visco acknowledge our applause after the Whitsunday performance of the Petite Messe Solonnelle. 
Several members of my beloved Coro di Santa Cecilia are in the background.  (Photo: Sylvia Letti - Salzburg Festival)

There is a quote somewhere - attributed to I know not who - that all this work requires is a small space (√ the Grosser Saal) two pianos ( √ Pappano and Pamela Bullock), a harmonium (√ chorus master Ciro Visco) a small chorus (√ Coro di Santa Cecilia) and the four greatest singers on earth .....  there we run into a slight problem.  Eva Mei, Vesselina Kasarova, Lawrence Brownlee and Michele Pertusi are all well-known names in opera circles and are fine singers all but on this occasion two of them seemed out of their element.  I knew Mei by reputation and a TV-cast of La Traviata live from Zurich Central Railway Station which I recall enjoying but here found her voice pinched and colourless.  Perhaps Pertusi needs a character to hide behind: on stage he can be dynamic but on the three times I have seen him in concert he has proven, as he did here, bland and one dimensional.  If the day's double duty gave Brownlee any problem it wasn't obvious here - an exceptionally fine nuanced performance that was matched by the artistry of Vesselina Kasarova who's Agnus Dei embodied everything that Rossini put into this  "last of my péchés de vieillesse".

And again that remarkable choir from Santa Cecilia proved the backbone of the performance:  joyful, rambunctious (is there anything jollier than that Cum Sancto Spiritu?) and quietly - almost whisperingly - reverential.  And as a sidebar there was an entire cheering section from the larger Coro behind me greeting their colleagues with bravi and foot stomping - as indeed had the audience.  One of the ladies had to tell me that they were part of the Coro; when I said I had lived in Rome and heard every concert they had given during that time and how much I thought of them she gave me a kiss on the cheek and said: Grazie.  A rather nice way to end a performance that was seemed indeed to be for family and friends.

Postscript:  In his preface to the work Rossini wrote:

Good God—behold completed this poor little Mass—is it indeed sacred music [la musique sacrée] that I have just written, or merely some damned music [la sacré musique]? You know well, I was born for comic opera. Little science, a little heart, that is all. So may you be blessed, and grant me Paradise!

Why do I think if I had one of those mythical dinner parties he would be amongst the guests I would want at table?

July 13 - 1814: The Carabinieri, the national gendarmerie of Italy, is established.

Mercoledi Musciale

This past Saturday was the first of our season's concerts at the Accademia and it was nice to exchange greetings with a few of the regulars who we recognize from past seasons including the rather courtly gentleman who sits to our left. However we noticed that the pleasant couple who always sit in front of us weren't there - I know they had a full concert series (26 concerts) last year maybe like us they decided to only do one of the half series.

Our series got of to a good start with Antonio Pappano conducting the first in a string of all Russian concerts under the umbrella title Passione Russa.

The evening began a trifle slowly with Anatoli Lyadov's The Enchanged Lake - a morose little tone poem that set both Laurent and our friend to the left into the land of Nod. There didn't seem to be much passion - Russian or Italian in either Lyadov's composing or Pappano's reading though the strings had their accustomed shimmering tone.

The last item on the programme was the Tchaikovsky - I love the Italian spelling Čajkovskij with a little moon over the C - Symphony n. 4. If the programme notes are correct this was the 82nd time the orchestra had tackled the work since they first performed it in 1910. It was their second time under Pappano the first being in 2006. I often find Pappano's conducting a bit over the top - too much molto forte, to much pianissimo, not much in between - and this was again the case. But he coaxed a wonderful reading of the pizzicato Scherzo movement from the players. I had never been more aware of the humour in the extended section for plucked strings. It was almost tongue-in-cheek in its light-heartiness. After such a subtle reading of that movement it was rather jarring to hear Pappano's bombastic treatment of the Finale. A good performance that could have - had the other three movements been as brilliant as the Scherzo - verged on great.

Sandwich between was the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 4 performed with the Norwegian pianist Lief Ove Andsnes. Even though Rachmaninoff is not to my taste - I find his music often seems too "Hollywood" - Andsnes gave amble proof as to why he is considered one of today's top young pianists.

Here he is playing the Greig Piano Concerto No. 1 with the BBC Symphony at one of the Proms concerts.



Granted Slatkin isn't really a conductor that sets the world on fire - he could use a bit of Pappano's bombast - and there are times when the balance needed between orchestra and piano for a concerto are missing but damn Andsnes is one fine pianist. And sort of cute looking too!

04 november - San Carlo Booromeo

Forever Faithful

On Saturday night many of us in the audience at the Sala Ste Cecilia weren't so much applauding the performance we had just witnessed of Kurt Weill-Bertolt Brecht's Seven Deadly Sins as the sheer existence of the star performer. We were applauding her and ourselves for still being around. Like Marianne Faithful we had got through the past 40 years a bit battered, a bit bruised but still able say to the world "We're here!"

Faithful has reinvented herself several times now - as a singer, an actress, a writer and now as what they use to call in the old days a diseuse. It is interesting to note that though the programme note told us we were hearing the arrangement for contralto, she was listed simply as "voce" or voice. And even someone as steeped in nostalgia as I have to admit there really isn't much of a voice left - but what she has is an incredible ability to communicate. Using a variation on the Auden-Kallman English translation she sang-spoke Brecht's story of Anna, a little girl from Louisiana who goes to the big cities to make her fortune. She sends all her money home to her moralistic pontificating family so they can build a little house on the Mississippi.

Originally conceived as a ballet-opera Brecht uses the conceit of two Anna's - Anna I, the singer, who by her own admission is "realistic" and Anna II, the dancer, who is "the one with the looks." All the while her travels - through St Louis (Sloth), Memphis (Pride), Los Angeles (Wrath), Philadelphia (Gluttony), Boston (Lust), Baltimore (Avarice), San Francisco (Envy) - are commented on by her family - in the form of a barbershop quartet. Brecht's intent is satirical: Anna II only does wrong when she refuses to commit the sin required to earn the money. She tries to do the right think but is always brought back to "reality" by Anna I and her hypocritical family. The only thing the defeated Anna II ever says is "Right, Anna."

Under Ingo Metzmacher the Orchestra treated Weill's music to the glowing performance it deserved - I happen to believe Weill is one of the 20th century greats. And it would be hard to imagine better harmonies than those produced by Mark Bleeke, Eric Edlund, Peter Becker and Wilbur Pauley - the Hudson Shad Quartet. Special praise to Bleeke, who despite a few wayward notes, sang Weill's particularly difficult tenor line effectively. Though the text was printed in the programme the skill of all the performers in delivering the English text made it almost unnecessary.

Laurent was not as enamored of the performance as I - which could have something to do with those clouds of nostalgia - and at one point muttered that he wanted his Weill sung the way Teresa Stratas or Ute Lemper does it - not croaked. And though I am a big Stratas fan, I was more than happy with the experience. It is funny how nostalgia can alter perception.

28 aprile - San Pietro Chanel

Angels and Demons in Concert

The season at Accademia Santa Cecilia is almost over and it has been a good one - I'll be posting something on last Saturday's concert later today. Sure there has been at two or three clinkers - Lorin Maazel leading the most leaden Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette I've ever heard, an uninspired Verdi Requiem under Antonio Pappano and a dull evening of Debussy and Ravel led by Heinz Holliger - but its been a season of some fine - in some cases outstanding - performances and interesting programming. The list of conductors and soloists has been impressive and the chorus and the orchestra are, in MHO, the best in Italy and amongst the best in Europe.

Amongst the highlights have been:

• A slightly dowdy looking Martha Argerich sitting down at the piano and suddenly becoming the most beautiful woman on earth as she showed us how the Beethoven Number 1 should be played.


• The Labèque girls - Katia in scarlet party-girl flounces, Marielle all matronly somber black - under the fatherly eye of Georges Prêtre in an exciting reading of the Poulenc Concerto for two pianos; preceeded by an enchanting performance of his Les Animaux modeles.


• Pappano, who I find so disappointing in the more classical repertoire, tearing the place apart with a wonderfully noisy Mahler 6th - sledge hammer and all. Then further proving he knows his way around 20th century music by conducting some of the finest performances I've heard of Bartok, Sostakovic and Ligeti.


• That wonderful chorus helping Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos finding new things in Orf's shopworn Carmina Burana one week then giving a Broadway umph to Porgy and Bess the next. Plus being all Germanic solemn and sanctimonious in Medelssohn's Elijah, a first rate peformance with Rene Pape of a second rate work and barbarically Polovesian in Borodin's Prince Igor. The later under Gennadi Rozdestvenskij who coupled it with a lush reading of the Tchaikovsky Pathétique.

And speaking of the chorus - Norbert Balartsch's forces will get quite the workout this coming week with the Verdi Te Deum and the prologue to Boito's Mefistofele in a concert under the title Angeli e Demoni.

The bright lights at the Accademia's publicity department are capitalizing on the forthcoming movie of the Dan Brown pot boiler for the general public and the current golden couple of opera , Anna Netrebko & barihunk Erwinn Schrott*, for the more hard core classical music fans. Both the photo and the English blurb advertising the concert on the website are as cheesy as my home made lasagna. Aside from the fact that its really badly Photo Shopped, it looks to me like Antonio's using some of that sweat he works up conducting to repel Erwinn's Devil. I'm a bit disappointed that Erwinn is fully clothed as there are some fine pictures out there of him showing what abdominal exercises can do - I mean for the voice, of course.

We almost always tend to picture the Devil as a horned monster. In a word, repellant. But if he has the capacity to seduce us with all those temptations for which we humans promptly fall, he must be equipped with superior intelligence, to begin with, and he must also be irresistibly attractive.

Therefore, Uruguayan bass Erwinn Schrott is made to play Mephistopheles. Dazzling as a fallen angel (and the fortunate consort of equally gorgeous Anna Netrebko, the celebrated Russian soprano who recently gave him a son) Schrott will sing the title role in the Prologue to the opera Mephistopheles by Arrigo Boito, the pièce de résistance in the first concert in May conducted by Antonio Pappano.

Still the thought of the forces at Santa Cecilia plus Erwinn - even if he remains fully clothed - doing one of the most fun pieces in Italian opera has me eagerly anticipating this weekend at the Parco.

*My dear friend OC has posted some great shots of Anna, Erwinn and operadom's favorite baby. You have to admit they make a really pretty family.

28 aprile - Luigi Maria Grignion de Montfort

Bess, Sei La Mia Donna Ora ...

Or as they say in English "Bess, you is my woman now ..."

Saturday night was our regular subscription night at the Orchestra of the Accademia Ste Cecilia. As part of a big Jazz Festival happening at the Auditorium this month, they were presenting a concert suite of George Gershwin's 1935 folk opera Porgy and Bess. The Sala Ste Cecilia was almost full and the audience was an interesting mix of regular subscribers and jazz fans.

Conductor Wayne Marshall, a local favorite, had arranged a suite of numbers - vocal and instrumental - from Gershwin's groundbreaking opera. All the favorites were there - Summertime, It Ain't Necessarily So, I Got Plenty O'Nuttin', A Woman is a Sometime Thing - sort of like a highlights album. Four singers, Marshall conducting and on ragtime piano, the full orchestra, chorus and children's chorus gave us 90 minutes of some exciting, if loud, music making.

Marshall has Broadway experience and it showed but at times he tended to forget he was conducting a full symphony and not a pit band. The sound he got from the Accademia - though never less than musical - at times swamped both the singers and the audience. Rodney Clarke and Indira Mahajan, singing the lead roles, suffered the most from Marshall's enthusiasm, being at times totally inaudible. It would be unfair to judge either singer based on this performance because much of what they did was lost. Angela Renée Simpson and Ronald Samm in supporting roles were able to ride over the wall of sound with Samm (as Sportin' Life) and the chorus garnering cheers after a great version of "It Ain't Necessarily So."

And the glory of the evening was the chorus - two weeks ago they sang Mendelsson's Elijah, two weeks from now it will be Orff's Carmina Burana but Saturday night they were denizens of Catfish Row, Charleston, Sud Carolina (U.S.A.) as the programme told us. Initially there was the incongruity of an all white Italian chorus in their smart formals singing I see'd him in de mornin' wid his work clo'es on. But then is it anymore incongruous than watching an American chorus as Egyptians singing in Italian in Aida? They proved once again that they are one of the finest choral groups in Europe singing the great chorus pieces with style and a touch of American omph.

The audience response was enthusiastic and the applause went on for a good ten minutes at the end of the concert. Several opera houses - Parma and Palmero - have included Porgy in their recent seasons. As satisfying as it was to see this fine performance, it would be nice to see a fully staged performance here in Rome.

20 novembre - Santi Avventore, Ottavio e Solutore

Miss Jones, There's a Conflict in My Schedule

Okay I've got a real schedule conflict on May 30, 2009. We have tickets for two concerts that day at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival and its also the last night of our regular subscription at Accademia di Santa Cecilia. MAY 30, 2009!!!!!

The fact that I know about this conflict already scares the hell out of me. I've never planned my life that far in advance in the past sixt fift few years. Six months or so sure but I bought those Salzburg tickets as the 2008 Whitsun Festival was coming to an end - one year before the event - one friggin' year. I mean how the hell do I know if I'll still be in Italy in May 2009 or alive for that matter. Of course optimism is the best approach to this sort of thing but one year in advance?????

So why not buy tickets to events closer to the dates? Well there are two good reasons for that:

1. Often the things we want to go to sell out very quickly or at least the good seats do. Example: the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, on June 22 the best we could do for a performance on August 22 were two high stool seats in the back row of a third tier box, actually two separate boxes.
2. If we don't take subscriptions to things we talk about going and then when we finally decided find out it was two days ago.

So last night I sat down with our kitchen calenders (2008 and 2009 - yes we have that one already) and marked down dates. Keeping in mind that the tickets for next year's opera season will go on sale in November so at that point we'll have plans through to December 2009.

I'm just being optimistic!

18 lulgio - San Frederico

Parlo del Piu e del Meno

• Sunday was beautiful and sunny but the apartment still had a damp cold feel to it - our building is concrete with marble and terra cotta floors - so we left the house with jackets on. Totally unneeded! If the neon sign at the Farmacia was right it hit 31C by late in the afternoon. We wandered through the neighbourhood, stopped for a gelato, did a quick detour into the 3rd Century Basilica of Santa Constanza (though its just next door Laurent had never seen it) and sat in the condo complex park for a while. A nice way to spend a Sunday.

• Though it wasn't part of our normal Saturday subscription we decided to catch Handel's Alexander's Feast at the Academia this past Saturday night. Handel isn't really in the Italian blood so though it was a fine performance it missed the spark needed to set the piece on fire. However I must admit the young Slovak tenor Pavol Breslik was pretty to look at and he could sing too.
  
  Its been years since I'd heard it and while rereading John Dryden's text I was struck by the following passage on the fallen Darius, dead on the battlefield:
  

  Deserted at his utmost need
  By those his former bounty fed
  On the bare earth expos'd he lies.
  Without a friend to close his eyes.
  

  Surely that last line is one of the saddest in English poetry.

• It is estimated that 50% of the people who ride the buses in Rome do so without a ticket. If caught there is a hefty fine - EURO150.00 or about CAD225.00 - but as the enforcers normally announce their intentions by congregating in uniform at the bus stops ...
  
  Though Romans complain about their transit system we've found it exceptional, if at times crowded. A ticket costs E1.00 ($1.50 CAD)and is good for unlimited travel on any combination of transit for 75 minutes. A monthly pass is E30.00 ($45.00) - though I was asked two months ago if I qualified for the E20.00 Seniors Pass - the bitch! I understand that back home in Ottawa its now $3.00 per ride and a monthly pass is $73.00.
  
  Saturday night the only option for getting around town was public transit. We tried to get a taxi from the Parco della Musica but there were none to be had. So we hopped on a Number 2 tram with a gang of football fans returning from a Roma game, changed at Piazza del Popolo to Metro A and again at Termini to Metro B. It only took us 30 minutes; the traffic was so bad that if we had waited for that taxi we'd probably still be sitting somewhere along Via Flaminia with a two days growth of beard.

• We were headed for I Fiori di Cina (Flowers of China) to meet our friends Vin and Larry for a late (well late by North American standards) dinner. By the time we got there it was 9:30 and the place was packed - so packed we couldn't get a table on the gay side!
  
  The gay side???? Yeah I guess that does sort of require a bit of explaining. As our friend Kevin said after Laurent's birthday dinner: Well I guess I can cross eating at a Gay Chinese Restaurant in the Historic Centre of Rome off my list of things to do before I die. Its not that its officially gay, its just that its very, very, very gay friendly. The hostess knows most of the clients and seats people pretty much according to perceived sexuality - lesbians and gays to the right, straights to the left and undecideds where ever there's a free table.
  
  But as I said on Saturday it was so packed we could only get a table on the left side - along with a table of 8 twinks - who were replaced by 8 daddy bears, a table of 4 hairdressers, two or three tables of gay couples and a table of 4 lesbians. The Straight side??? Yes! There was a table beside us and there was a straight couple sitting there.

• Yesterday (April 21) Rome officially turned 2761. Yes back on April 21, 751 BC Romulus and Remus tore themselves away from pulling on She-wolf nipples and founded a village on the slopes of the Palatine Hill. Buon compleanno Roma, you don't look a day over 2000!

22 aprile - Santa Leonida

100 Years to the Day

On February 16, 1908 the Orchestra Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (in those days is was the Reale Accademia di Santa Cecilia) played its first concert at the long vanished Anfiteatro Corea. It was a Sunday afternoon and Guiseppe Martucci conducted a very mixed programme:

Rossini - The Siege of Corinth Overture
Beethoven - Symphony #3 - Eroica
Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Wagner - Siegfried Forest Murmurs and Tannhauser Overture

On Saturday - 100 years to the day - Antonio Pappano led the current orchestra in the same programme in the stunning Salle Santa Cecilia of the Parco del Musica.

Pappano has a way with Rossini - as witness his Guillaume Tell earlier in the season - so The Siege of Corinth Overture had a certain sparkle and panache. Sadly that didn't carry over to a flabby performance of the Beethoven - the title of the second movement "Funeral March" was taken to literally for my taste and the rest was all climaxes and crescendo and little else. It doesn't give me great hope for the 9th in April. After the intermission the remarkable string section gave a light and pleasant reading of the Mozart favorite. Then the full orchestra and Pappano let lose with the Wagner. The Forest Murmurs was well judged and the wind section outdid themselves. For the Tannhauser Overture even the normally wayward French Horns seemed to be in total agreement with their conductor and his interpretation. It was a real dual between Christian and Pagan love - the core of Wagner's opera. The recurring Pilgrims Chorus, which can often have a sanctimonious heaviness to it, was uplifting, at times even joyous. And the Venusberg music had an insinuating sensuality about it. It was a very Italian reading and the most satisfying music of the evening.


The concert was given in the presence of Giorgio Napolitano, the much respected President of Italy and this led to a little scene that could only have happened here.

As he entered most of the audience stood and applauded. The woman next to me - of a "certain" age, spun sugar blond hair, heavy make-up and a slight smell of mothballs and body odor to her black wool dress - refused to stand, loudly proclaiming that he should do something about the disgraceful garbage strike in Naples. The woman behind sharply rebuked her for bad manners and the lady in front of her demanded to know what she thought the poor President could do about it - go and pick up the garbage himself? She retorted that she had paid for her ticket and when he started paying for his she'd stand for him. Fortunately the orchestra broke into the National Anthem at this point.

As the stirring - and very operatic - Fratelli d'Italia played I gave a sigh of recognition - Canadians aren't the only ones who don't know all the words to their National Anthem or make half-hearted stabs at singing it. I would dare say a good half the audience didn't know the words and those that did mumbled them self-consciously. It was just like being back home.

I noticed that President Napolitano seemed to be singing heartily, the Lady beside me mumbled!

19 febbraio - San Mansueto

Io Sono Ammalato

Now just imagine that said with a throb in the voice and a clutching of the throat - sounds better than "I'm sick" doesn't it? I was all set to post about the glorious day in the spring-like weather on Tuesday with pictures of happy patrons at outside cafés etc when this flu hit Wednesday morning.

And of course it couldn't have come at a worse time - we've got a lot going on in the next few days.

• Tonight is our first subscription ballet night - a rather strange evening built around works designed by the Greek-Italian Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico.
  Set design for Bacchus e Ariane by Giorgio de Chirico (Source: Rome Opera)
  
  Its a varied programme involving the disparate talents of Igor Stravinsky, Albert Rousell, Vittorio Reiti, Serge Lifar, George Balanchine and Luigi Pirandello. Aside from the Stravinsky-Lifar Appollon I can honestly say I only recall reading about the other ballets as Ballets Russefootnotes. Next week we'll be getting three ballets designed by Picasso.



• Tommorrow night is our regular night at the Academia de Santa Ciecila and the promise of the Brahms Symphonies 1 and 2 conducted by Antonio Papano. The season thus far has been plagued with cancellations and not all that memorable.
  However last month's concert with Maurizio Pollini doing the Brahms Number 1 Piano Concerto was a truly moving experience. He's such an unassuming man - slightly stooped and almost apologetic as he approaches the piano. Then he sits down, his fingers touch the keys and he becomes a Titan. Jack tried to get a few shots with his Cell camera during the curtain calls but none of them turned out except this one of Pollini with his back to us.



• As this horrid flu was starting to take affect I turned to some of my favorite bloggers (many of whom seemed to have the same thing - could it be a real computer virus????) for solace and comfort. OC, that divine diva of Opera Bloggers, had just come back from opening night at La Scala of Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac with Placido Domingo. Even before she had her Prada heels off she was writing a quick review that sent me running to the La Scala website. There were a few tickets left for this Tuesday's performance. Snapped one up real quick like; navigated the shoals of the treacherous TrenItalia website to book a train (its only 4 hours 30 minutes) and used travel points to get a hotel near the opera house. When I read her complete review I knew I had made the right choice. As OC observes Domingo is approaching his 70s and we can't expect him to go on forever, so this may be the last chance I'll have to see him on stage. I know it won't be the voice I heard in 1976 in SFO or Paris in 1986 but I do know that he is still the greatest tenor around and it will a spectacular event. I am getting antsy with anticipation.
  
  (Photo from Royal Opera House Covent Garden - Catherine Ashmore)

So I really have to pull myself together and get right over it. None of this wallowing in self-pity that man-flu would normally demand; though when I'm sick I just like to be left alone. So just let me go and die in my own manner just promise me the body will be given a decent burial.

01 febbraio - San Orso

Extravagance ... and Optimism

In a gesture of extravagance and optimism I purchased a box for the Opera and Ballet for the coming year. Extravagance because a box is five seats and we are only two but this way we can invite friends or visitors to come out for the evening with us. And I'll never had this chance again - our own box (10D) at the opera! Damn the expense I say! Optimism because I am saying that on December 11, 2008 I'll be alive, well and able to attend Otello. But to be honest if I don't book subscriptions we will end up not going. Its happened so often in other places: Oh look the bus-truck production of the hit musical In Cold Blood is coming to town, we must get tickets. Oh damn that was last week.

Okay Roma isn't La Scala - hell I guess its not even La Fenice or San Carlo - but at least here you have a chance of getting a seat as most transactions still have to be done at the box office. There are a few other opera houses, that will remain nameless, were the only people who seem to have seats are the scalpers. The minute seats go on the Internet they are snatched up - and how exactly at 2 per customer do those totes outside the theatre end up with rolls of 10 to 12?? The big subscription booster this year is the Muti Otello scheduled to open December 6, 2008 - on the strength of that one production alone the subscription series appear to be sold out and all five performance will be standing room only. I guess I'm not alone in my optimism.

So we now have subscriptions to the Opera, the Ballet and the Accademia Ste Ceciela which guarantees that at least three times a month we'll turn off the fascinating Italian quiz shows, get off our asses and get out on the town. However friends and acquaintenances should note, we are still available the rest of the month for dinner parties, cinema and pizza forays.

06 decembre - San Nichola di Bari

Do Tell

At the end of the first half of Saturday's evening's concert performance of Guillaume Tell, I would've been more than happy to board a Number 2 tram and head for a restaurant at Piazza di Popolo. An animated Antonio Pappano had conducted a peppy version of the (in)famous Overture and was driving the performance along at a good pace but the evening just wasn't catching fire - the french horns which have a lot to do in Tell were having a real off-evening, missed entries and some out of tune playing. The chorus, under 80 year old Norbert Balatsch, was proving one of the glories of the evening. But the soloists were largely uninvolved with the proceedings and big moments went by unnoticed.

Suddenly at the beginning of Act 3 the whole thing took off. Singers who had been, for the most part, glued to their music stands and scores became involved - the air practically crackled with tension during the the Apple Shooting scene and the action and music drove on to an exciting Act 4 and triumphant finale.

Within the next two hours Michelle Pertusi (Tell), who had been totally uninvolved for the first two acts, gave a heartbreaking performance of Sois immobile and American tenor John Osborn (Arnold) became a Rome favorite. Pertusi had been the worst offender in the first half - going through the motions, sprawled out in his chair and examining his nails when not required to sing. Maybe Pappano had given him a pep-talk during the intermission but it was suddenly apparent why he is one of the Rossini basses of choice these days. Osborn had been singing well all evening, his (and Pappano and his orchestral and choral forces) efforts to bring some drama into the Call to Arms and Gathering of the Cantons at the end of Act 2 had floundered on the laisse-faire singing of Pertusi and Alex Espisito (Walter Frust.) But the duets with a slightly underpowered but dramatically involved Norah Amsellem (Mathilde)had been fine and at the beginning of act 3 exciting. He opened Act 4 with a beautiful account of Asile heréditaire then set the place on fire with Amis, Amis secondez ma vengance. The bravos and applause went on for a good three or four minutes and the ovation that greeted his appearance at the end was thunderous.

And though Laurent and I agreed that maybe another rehearsal may have been in order and those music stands and scores had to go, we were on our feet with the rest of the house.

It will be interesting to hear the live broadcast of the last of the three performances this coming Wednesday on RAI3-Euroradio. If Pappano can get that first half to equal the second it will be one of those great nights of opera.

26 novembre - San Corrado

Beatlebaum

We've just returned from a concert performance of Rossini's Guillaume Tell and I intend to comment on it tomorrow but in the meantime:

**

In spite of tonight's peppy performance by the Accademia Santa Cecilia of the Overture lead by an energized Antonio Pappano I'm afraid I just can't get this Spike Jones version out of my head. For that I can thank my brother who tried out his Jones imitations on me when I was four years old - which could account for why I am the warped little nipper I am today.

**Thanks to LungWizard1 for posting this on YouTube.

24 novembre - Santa Flora

Rossini Roundup

The second LP I owned (this was back in 1959) was the 1953 Glyndebourne La Cenerentola in an Italian pressing from Cetra. It was three thick vinyl records, a two page leaflet in badly translated English and the old Riccordi pocket Italian libretto that they still sell today. It has since been replaced in my collection by the CD reissue and at least two other versions of Rossini's Cinderella opera. My taste in music has grown since then to include pretty much everything from Monteverdi to Berg but Rossini still remains one of my favorite composers. And next week I'll be going into Rossini overload: two of his more serious works Guillaume Tell and Mosè in Egitto are on the boards here and, of course, we have tickets for both.

Saturday coming the Accademia Santa Ceceila is presenting a concert version of Tell, his final stage work written for the Paris Opéra in 1829. This will be the first time that it has been performed in French in Rome. Antonio Pappano is scheduled to conduct which is pretty damned exciting and I can only hope that he's recovered from his recent problem- apparently baton waving can result in workplace injuries. It's going to be a long evening as this is French Grand Opéra at its grandest - the performance starts at 1700 so I think I'll pack us a picnic lunch and a decent bottle of something red and wet.

I'm familiar with Michele Pertusi who will be singing the Tell and Pharaoh in the Mosè, but the rest of the singers are, to me at least, only names. I've heard some good things about American tenor John Osborn who'll be singing the killer part of Arnold. Its a role associated with some of the great tenors of the past so there will be a few ghosts hanging around this Saturday including the remarkable French tenor Georges Thill. Here he is singing Arnold's big aria Asile héréditaire.



And next week the Teatro dell'Opera starts a series of the Mosè - the Italian version from 1819 - plagues, parting of the Red Sea and a love story to boot. Its not often produced outside Italy so this is an opportunity to see another relatively rare work. In 1829 Rossini rewrote it extensively for Paris under the name Moise et Pharaon. Though he cut some of the numbers that had been big in Naples he wisely kept the most famous number the Preghiera or prayer of the Hebrews as they stand on the banks of the Red Sea. Here it is in the French version from La Scala back in 2003. Muti takes it a little slow (sorry Opera Chic) for my taste but its still an beautiful piece of music.



For the 2008 season everybody seems to be doing Barber of Seville but there's always the Rossini Festival in Pesaro next August for my Rossini fix.


21 novembre - Presentazione di B. V.

Parlo del Pui e del Meno

• Saturday evening was the first concert in our subscription series that we were able to attend at Accademia Nazionale S. Cecilia; we missed Ennio Morricone last week. The venerable Accademia (founded 1908) moved a while back from its old hall at the Spanish Steps to il Parco della Musica at the end of Via Flamminia. The complex is modern and includes a bookstore and CD shop that I'm going to have to spend some time in. Laurent tells me that during the daytime the area is alive with people and it is very much a Music Park. The sound in the Salle S. Cecilia is splendid (all that wonderful American cherry wood) though I wouldn't want to get out of there in a hurry with all the steps and landings and corridors.
  
  

  English conductor Jeffrey Tate was to conduct but called in sick and assistant conductor Carlo Rizzari had to fill in on a few days notice. That's always difficult when a conductor has not chosen the programme but Rizzari had most likely been leading the preparation rehearsals and it was obvious the players where 100% on side for the home boy.
  
  The programme was 20th century: Ravel's Ma mère l'oy Suite, Copland's Clarinet Concerto and the Prokofiev Seventh Symphony.
  
  The Ravel is more commonly heard these's day in the Piano 4 Hands version and it was good to hear the full orchestral setting. I had forgotten how lovely the Conversation Between Beauty and the Beast section is - the growling, slightly dissonant sounds of the Beast turning into a waltz theme as he falls under Beauty's spell. Principal clarinetist Allessandro Carbonare gave a fine performance of the Copland (written for Benny Goodman) and encored with a technically brillant jazz-classical cadenza.
  
  Poor Prokofiev, his death was overshadowed by Stalin who died the same day he did and over the past decade his music has fallen under the shadow of Shostakovich. Its nice to see that several of his works - including the Ivan the Terrible score - are being included in this year's programme. Rizzari didn't have the measure of the entire piece but the Vivace finale was beautifully handled - it would have been interesting to hear the piece end as Prokofiev intended it too rather than with the State imposed Coda.
  
  Looking over the programme for the rest of the season I was struck by the fact that it is heavy on the Russians, Germans and French with very little Italian music. But as our friends Larry and Vincenzo remarked at dinner - another fine feast hosted by our friends Robert and Walter - later that night: Well for Italian symphonic music there's Respighi then there's..... Respighi. Not really fair but.....
  




• Also a topic of conversation Saturday evening was the brutal rape and murder of a Navy captain's wife by a Romanian skinhead. Sunday morning this poster appeared on billboards in town:
  
  

  An Italian Woman violated and murdered by Gypsies
  Italy pays in blood for the stupidity of Immigration
  Out with the Gypsies
  

  Being a guest here I will not comment except to say that this poster is disturbing on many levels.

06 novembre - San Leonardo di Limoges