Mercoledi Musicale

I realize I have yet to say much about the music we heard at Salzburg last month. Its been a bit of a struggle to catch up with work which is involves writing most of the day and then to come home and continue writing. However I can safely say that the Liedmatinee on the Monday morning given by Joyce DiDonato was the musical highlight of the weekend.  And the highlight of her programme, devoted to Venice, were five of the six songs by Reynaldo Hahn under the title Venezia, chansons en dialecte vénitien. 

Back in May of 2012 I posted an item about that glorious little song cycle and videos featuring Anna Caterina Antonocchi sing five of them.  For some reason Miss DiDonato omitted La Biondina in gondoleta in her set while Anna Cat didn't give us La primavera.

Of the six the most delightful - and most often performed - is La barcheta (the Little Boat).  Rather than given preference to either lady - both of whom I treasure as artists - I thought I'd post a wonderful performance by the elegant French baritone Gérard Souzay. 

A translation of Pietro Buratti's text by Lara Sarti can be found here.

Hahn was a friend of Winnaretta Singer,  Princesse Edmond de Polignac.  The Princesse was one of the great patrons of the arts and humanities in early 20th century Europe.  It was on one of his visits to the Polignacs in Venice that Hahn composed his song cycle. The programme for the Salzburg recital included the composer's description of the premiere:

Madame de Béarn asked me to sing - just me and a piano - on the 'Piccoli Canale'.  Just a few gondolas - one or two friends hastily gathered together [..] I was in one boat, lit up for the occasion, with my piano and a couple of oarsmen.  The other gondolas were grouped around us.  We found a place where three canals met beneath three charming bridges and I sang all my Venetian songs.  Gradually passers-by gathered on the bridges: and audience of ordinary people, pressing forward to listen.  The Venetian songs surprised and delighted this little crowd, which made me very happy.  "Ancora, anocra", they called from above.  These songs that were both light and melancholy sounded well beneath the starry skies and I felt that emotion which reverberates in the composer's heart when it has truly been shared by those around him.

Reynaldo Hahn - without his piano - photographed in a Piccoli Canale much
like the one where he first performed his Venezia song cycle.

If I had money - that old familiar cry - I would love to recreate that moment: a singer, a few gondolas, one equipped with a piano and a small group of friends.   And on a magical night in a quiet canal listen to these "light and melancholy" melodies floating over the waters of one of the cities I love most in the world.   Well music was meant to make us dream!

July 2 - 1777: Vermont becomes the first American territory to abolish slavery.

Mercoledi Musicale (A Day Late)

In all probability I will be waxing lyrical about Venice in the next few days - I've been working on several posts - but in the meantime I thought I'd share one of my favourite artists singing the lyrical praises of one of my favourite cities.

One of the things I miss - amongst so many things - about living in Italy is the opportunity to hear singers like Anna Caterina Antonacci (left).  I was fortunate enough to see her on three occasions during my four years in Europe.  The first was in a searing portrayal of Medea in Cherubini's opera which opened the season in Torino in November of 2008.  Though I had reservations, serious reservations, about the production about Antonacci herself I had none - I loved her.

The second was a semi-staged performance of Gluck's Alceste with Gregory Kunde in Athens the following October.  My dear Fotis had insisted I fly over for it and as well as it being an opportunity to see him and visit my beloved Greece it allowed me to experience another facet of Antonacci's art.  Her grasp of the French style was masterful and the gentle nobility and sacrifice of Alceste - which can often seem, if terribly admirable, also terribly dull dull - had all the doubt and anguish that bargaining with death for the life of a loved one would draw from a human.  It was a remarkable evening made more so by the perfect interplay between Antonacci and Kunde.

It was made even more remarkable because Fotis led me backstage to say hello and congratulation both Mr Kunde and - gasp! - Anna Caterina - her ardent admirers often refer to her as AnnaCat, but as much as I adore her I can't bring myself to call her that.  Now I have a history of being less than tactful when meeting famous opera singers - I still have nightmares about the Marilyn Horne episode in 1986 - and this meeting was no exception.  In my stumbling efforts to say something other than "I adore you!" I muttered  that I really hadn't liked Hugo D'Ana's production in Torino - not her mind you but the production, which it turned out she liked very much!!!!  But Signora Antonacci, ignoring my awkward attempts at retrieval,  flashed me her wonderful smile and said that she would make it up to me by adding me to the guest list for an upcoming private concert in Rome at the American Academy.

And so I found myself wandering the beautiful grounds of Villa Aurelia on the Juniculum Hill on a cool but pleasant December evening; having coffee and chatting about Rossini with Philip Gossett , one of the leading authorities on 19^th century opera; and sitting with him and 40 other people in the gilt and white grand salon listening to Anna Caterina accompanied by Donald Sulzen in Echi della Belle Époque, a programme of songs by Fauré, Tosti, Cimara, Toscanini, Respighi and Zandonai.  It is an evolving programme that she and Sulzen have now presented in Europe and North America including a rare and much heralded appearance at New York's Lincoln Centre last month.  The programme had been well-thought out and beautifully performed with the Tosti English songs and Resphighi's Cinque canti all'antica as the highlights.

Anna Caterina Antonacci and Donald Sulzen after their concert at Wigmore Hall.
  Sulzen is a brilliant accompanist much in the Gerald Moore vein. At a reception
after the concert he talked a bit with me about how they had chosen the programme
- it was very much a collaborative effort.

The concert had opened with Fauré's Cinq mélodies de Venise so there was a taste of La Serenissima but it wasn't until a few months later that she added Reynaldo Hahn's Venezia cycle.  Of the two I realize that the Hahn is perhaps the more frivolous which is not a word I can ever imagine applying to Antonacci.  However she add a touched of perfumed erotica - and tongue in cheek tartness when needed - to Hahn's postcard-picturesque tales of moonlit nights on the lagoon.
I have only been able to find five of the six songs posted by yukio84 on YouTube; they are taken from a concert in Firenze this past March.  It may seem like quite a few videos but believe me they are worth it - I only wish that Primavera, the final song was available.

Sopra l'acqua indormenzata - Asleep on the water

A young lady is invited to accompany her lover on a gondola ride on the lagoon in the moonlight.  Her inamorata  is afraid that the moon will be jealous of her beauty - a beauty that is only enhanced by the gentle movement of the waves.  But he does warn her that "Tears will come soon enough, so now is the time for laughter and for love."

La barcheta - The Little Boat

Another lovesick swain takes his Ninetta out in the evening air in a gondola piloted by the silent, and obviously discreet, Toni. So discreet that the lover assures his beloved Ninetta that should the evening breezes cause her veil to lift and reveal her lovely breasts, that Toni is much too intent on plying his oar to pay any attention. Why he tells her, its almost like we are along here and anything could happen!

L'avertimento - The Warning

The lovely Nana has obviously broken the singer's heart.  Ah yes there are roses in her cheeks, her breasts are milky white and her voice gentle and sweet "but.. but.. but.. the lovely Nana has the heart of a tiger!"

La Biondina in gondoleta

As their gondola glides across the lagoon the lover rhapsodizes over the beauty of his "blonde" as she lays sleeping, her golden tresses floating in the water.  But he arouses her - from slumber and in other ways also it would appear as he declaims "God what wonderful things I said, what lovely things I did! Never again was I to be so happy in all my life."

Che pecà! - What a shame!

The gentleman assures the still-lovely (and one feels perhaps loved?) Nina that his days of seeing only her are long since gone. After all she is only a woman - and a fickle one at that so who really cares? But all the same "what a shame!"

That big sigh you heard was me - Anna Caterina and Venice!  Two of my treasured memories! 

10 May - 1849: Astor Place Riot: A riot breaks out at the Astor Opera House over a dispute between actors Edwin Forrest and William Charles Macready, killing at least 25 and injuring over 120.

20th Century Blues - Part I

After a weekend of Baroque at Salzburg in May-June, this past month seems to be devoted to the 20th Century with one brief excursion into the late 1800s. Just to be perverse I'll start with the last first - yesterday's trip up to the Festival of the Two Worlds in Spoleto.

This year's Spoleto Festival continued with what seems to be a mini-theme: obscure French musical theatre. Last year is was Albert Roussel's opera-ballet Padmâvatrî, and this year Reynaldo Hahn and Sasch Guitry's boulevard musical Mozart. Created in 1925 by Guitry for his wife Yvonne Printemps, Mozart was chiefly an excuse for her to appear in travesti, gamine and winsome and display her vocal talents. Aside from two brief numbers for secondary characters the music is restricted to an energetic overture, a few pieces of background music and three arias for the title character. As with most Boulevard theatre the story line is rather flimsy and an excuse for bon mot and witty dialogue; the teenage Mozart returns to the home of Baron Grimm in Paris, the scene of his earlier triumphs as a child prodigy. He flirts with four woman in the household and has perhaps seduced ne of them, but we never find out who. He is sent packing before he can do any real damage but three men have been made aware of how important the women in their lives are to them. Perhaps Guitry was thinking of his own wife who was soon to leave him for the younger Pierre Fresnay.

Director-Designer Pier Luigi Pizzi set the action squarely in the period of the work's creation, the 1920s. His art deco set in blacks, whites and grays enclosed the action perhaps too closely forcing some of the staging down onto the auditorium floor which made for some odd dynamics of sound as did the placement of the Orchestra J Futura. His costumes were marvels of period clothing - many reflecting the influence of Erté and other designers of the French Music Hall - with glorious splashes of color, purples, oranges and for the period clad Mozart pinks amongst the blacks and whites. My friend Simonetta knew she could carry off that daring first little number in black worn by Orianne Moretti as La Guimard, the ballerina - and if anyone I know could it would be her. The problem with Pizzi's setting came mostly for the dance numbers - choreographed and danced by Gheorghe Jancu and Moretti they were awkward attempts to fit Charleston and 20s dance steps to pastiche 18th century music.

Of the actors the obvious standouts were Jean Morel (left), still handsome at 75, as Baron Grimm and Marie-Therese Keller as Madame d'Epinay - both seasoned performers with the lightness of touch to deliver Guitry's slightly dated lines with grace and wit - Keller positively throbbing with passion as much when she received Mozart's attention as when she avowed her love for the Baron. The rest of the supporting cast were fine but could have taken a few notes from their seniors. Boulevard theatre requires a style that most performer today lack.

But ultimately Mozart was written as a vehicle for a star like Printemps and as fine as Sophie Haudebourg was she didn't have that "je ne sais quoi" that is need for the part. Perhaps it was Pizzi's direction but she played the part on one, perhaps two, notes with too much boyish laughter. Her vocalizing was good if at times slightly wayward but again placement for her arias - on the auditorium floor for two - may have worked against her. And Mozart's final exit with the bravado declaration that someday the world would recognize his genius went for little - something I'm sure Printemps as an actress and Guitry as a director would never have let pass.
Pier Luigi Pizzi and the cast of Mozart - note that rather daring dress on Orianne Moretti.
At the end of the performance I chatted briefly with Alberto Testa, the renowned Italian dancer-choreographer-author - who has a fondness for the Paris of Printemps and Guitry. He remarked on how light and charming the work was and how captivating in its innocence and despite the drawbacks I've mentioned I must agree with him. Yes it is a period piece but as entertainment it works and though there aren't stars like Printemps in our day to give it that final lift, it made for an enjoyable afternoon's entertainment.

Postscript:

A violent thunderstorm that lasted almost 2 hours meant we had to forgo an after performance walk around Spoleto and forced us to sit on an umbrellaed terrace drinking aperitvo and consuming copious nibbles proffered by the thoughtful barrista - there are worse ways to spend a late Saturday afternoon.

One thing we did manage was pranzo at La Pecchiarda, my favorite restaurant in town. Sitting on the terrace in their garden (above) we were well looked after by a wonderful waitress - how can you not love someone who recommends a wine by saying that "ladies seem to develop a tenderness for it" - we tucked into a splendid menu of antipasti, secondi, desert, coffee and wine for four at half the price you would pay in Roma.




I had their wonderful take on Melanzane Parmigiana followed by real Chicken caccitore (we must talk about the abomination they serve under that name in Canada one day)along with wonderful roast potatoes; Simonetta favoured a thick and tasty bean soup and a local beef dish with grilled zucchini; Ben went for a truffled bruschetta and strangozzzi with porcini; and Laurent tried the truffle fritta (a creamy scrambled egg flecked with earthy truffles)and a beef dish with ruccola and shavings of Parmesan cheese. The only less than magnificent items were the rather ordinary pana cotta and semi-fredo that ended the meal. A really wonderful lunch made that much more enjoyable by the company.

And that wine that invoked such tenderness was a light, slightly fizzy white from Cantina Baldasarri in the region. If a lady could develop a tenderness for it I could see a few people developing an outright passion.

05 lulgio - Sant'Antonio Maria Zaccaria