You may have heard that Roberto Benigni made an extraordinary appearance at the Sanremo Music Festival last week.

Benigni, a comedian, winner of multiple Oscars, and 2007 candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature (for his public readings and commentary on Dante), was invited to the Festival to give an analysis of the Italian national anthem, known as the Inno di Mameli (after the twenty-year-old patriot who wrote its lyrics in 1847). The performance was part of the celebrations for 150 years of Italian national unity. (The official anniversary falls on 17 March 2011.)

Now, this blog is about Verdi, not about contemporary Italian politics—though, heaven knows, Verdi and Italian politics are likely to remain inextricably entwined forever. Let me try to explain to you, though, some of what was moving and dazzling about Benigni’s nearly hour-long monologue/screed.

• Benigni is very literate and smart, and his commentary ranged from the history of ancient Rome to intricacies of poetic meter.
• If you will forgive the euphemism, this is a strange moment in Italian history. Italian national unity is under attack from allies of Prime Minister Berlusconi, who would have the North secede (as Padania or “Po Land”), with “Va, pensiero” as its national anthem. Think about it: Verdi, one of the founders of unified Italy, is spitting bullets in his grave at the Casa di riposo; and “Va, pensiero” is a lament for a lost homeland sung by slaves. (Berlusconi and his allies are asses, ça va sans dire, but this “Va, pensiero” business represents a low point even for them.)
• Benigni was unabashedly patriotic. He entered waving the flag and hollering Viva l’Italia!, and he spoke at length of Italy’s proud cultural and, yes, political history. Careful to denounce nationalism (“a sickness”) and racism (“madness”), he nonetheless spoke of his joy at seeing Italian art (“the patrimony of all humanity”) all over the world and thinking, Io appartengo a questa grandezza—“I belong to this greatness.”
• What’s so unusual about that? Italian national pride goes profoundly against the grain, on both the right (as you have read) and the left. Young Italians, as a group, are the most abjectly self-loathing people I know. (My own bête noire is their compulsive defiling of the language of Dante, Machiavelli, and Calvino with Anglicisms.) They inherited this attitude from their parents and grandparents. Massimo Mila, a scholar and partisan, wrote of the revulsion that post-War Italians rightly felt and feel before My country right or wrong, Deutschland über alles, and similar claptrap. But the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Italy’s collapse in recent decades, from one of the most vibrant economies and cultures on the planet to the putrescence of today, is, I think, in part a result of this self-loathing. (I refer you back to Eco and his complaints about Italy’s failure to promote its artistic and natural heritage. Now, there are many reasons for this—the mafia, other forms of corruption, farnientisme, and unsound policy among them—but one reason without question is the blanket contempt among Italians for all that is homegrown.)

I am looking for a transcription of Benigni’s screed, but I don’t think that it can be translated. Too much of its meaning derives from its extra-linguistic dimensions—his irony, (seemingly) methamphetamine-fuelled delivery, and inimitable gonzo spirit. It is also dense with the kind of knowledge of poetry, history, and art possessed by few in this television-infested, post-Reagan and -Berlusconi world.

But here, at least, are his remarks about Verdi, which come about twenty-two minutes into the clip. (They are not the best part of his monologue—not even close—but they are our concern here at Verdi Duecento.)

Earlier, Benigni had mentioned that Verdi used the Inno di Mameli when he wrote the Inno delle nazioni in 1862. (At that time, the Italian national anthem was the royal march of the House of Savoy; the Inno di Mameli did not become the national anthem until 1946.) Italians traditionally dismiss the Inno di Mameli as a marcetta, a “little march.” But for Benigni, this marcetta had and has the power of art, music, and poetry to instill desire, to inspire people to find new strengths within themselves.

And now for Benigni. He noted that the lyrics themselves have a march-like cadence.

Verdi tried to set them to music. You heard it from Al Bano*, that memorable thing that is “Va, pensiero.” He was prescient, Verdi, he had foresight. You’ve seen the brain drain from Italy: Va, pensiero (“Go, thought”). Verdi was one who… A memorable patriot. A memorable patriot. To think that Mazzini himself… Verdi, marcette—there’s Stravinsky, a great musician, you all know him. He said that there is more substance in “La donna è mobile” than in all of Wagner’s Ring. Alright, he was somewhat provocative, but to say “La donna è mobile,” the Duke of Mantua, Rigoletto. (sings) “La donna è mobile…” In marcette, within them, there can be something that you’re not capable of doing. You have to be bravissimi to do these things in music, bravissimi. So a marcetta can have its [value].

* Al Bano is a dinosaur of Italian entertainment, inexplicably adored in Germany. Don’t ask.

Tune in later this week for more about Verdi and Stravinsky and the Inno delle nazioni.

I think that all of you by now know the latest about Maestro Riccardo Muti—that he is doing well after receiving a pacemaker, expected on the podium in Chicago (and New York) to conduct concert performances of Verdi’s Otello in April, and that his recording of Verdi’s Manzoni Requiem won two Grammy awards.

This post, by request of several friends and colleagues, includes an English-language version of something that I wrote in Italian. Scroll down to read the English.

Ascolto in questo momento la quinta di Ciaikovski (incisione della Philadelphia Orchestra) diretta da un immenso Riccardo Muti. E la cosa mi fa pensare.

Riccardo Muti è stato cacciato dalla Scala non a causa dei tagli-alla-cultura o per colpa del cosiddetto Cavaliere (facili demoni!), ma per la deficienza dei dipendenti della Scala, condita (diciamolo pure) da un bel pizzico di razzismo contro questo “meridionale spocchioso e trónfio” (come lo hanno sempre definito e lo definiscono tuttora non pochi italiani di mia conoscenza).

Oggi, per i 150 anni dell’unità d’Italia, per i quasi 200 anni di Giuseppe Verdi, il Teatro alla Scala è nelle mani di mediocrità forestiere. (A ognuno puzza il barbaro dominio a Palazzo Chigi, ma quello scaligero maleodora anch’esso a modo suo.) E scusatemi se ve lo dico, italiani-sempre-pronti-ad-idolatrare-lo straniero, ma Barenboim che dirige Verdi è una cosa infame, un delitto contro la musica. E c’è chi lo osanna. In Italia. Nel paese di Verdi e dell’opera, di Muti e della Scala.

Sorge subito l’accuso di razzismo: Solo italiani a dirigere Verdi? No, per carità. Ma nei limiti del possibile, solo verdiani a dirigere Verdi. E di verdiani, per fortuna, ce ne sono di tantissime nazionalità.

Ma quando di verdiani si parla, appunto, non si può prescindere dal verdiano più grande, più esigente, più serio, e più magistrale dei nostri tempi, il Maestro Riccardo Muti. Un italiano cacciato dalla Scala da italiani.

Chiudo qui perché questo mio blog non lo legge nessuno, e preferisco che un o una collega giornalista tratti questo soggetto in modo serio e per esteso.

English

Under the spell of Muti’s intoxicating recording of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, I went into Oriana Fallaci mode. I doubt that it will work in English, but I’ll try.

A tiny bit of background: All of my Italian friends, and many intellectuals, are up in arms about proposed cuts in funding to the arts, and also generally disgusted with their prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Now, don’t get me wrong: Berlusconi is supremely disgusting. Still, it seems to me naïve, even dishonest, to lay the blame for all of Italy’s woes at his feet. My view is that he is a symptom rather than a cause of Italy’s stunning national collapse in past decades.

Three glosses: il Cavaliere is a popular nickname for Berlusconi; Palazzo Chigi is the prime minister’s official residence; and the “barbarian tyranny” bit is an allusion to Chapter XXVI of Machiavelli’s De principatibus.

Right now, I am listening to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony (the recording by the Philadelphia Orchestra) conducted by Riccardo Muti in staggering form. And it got me thinking.

The culture-funding-cuts did not drive Riccardo Muti out of La Scala, nor was the so-called Cavaliere to blame (facile demons both!). He was driven out by the idiocy of La Scala’s employees, seasoned (let’s be honest) by a healthy pinch of racism against this “self-important, arrogant southerner” (as many Italians of my acquaintance have always labelled him and continue to label him).

Today, as Italy celebrates the 150th anniversary of national unity, and two years before the Verdi bicentennial celebrations, the Teatro alla Scala is in the hands of foreign mediocrities. (The barbarian tyranny at Palazzo Chigi stinks in all nostrils, but the La Scala variety, too, smells funky in its own way.) And excuse me if I say it to your face, Italians-ever-worshipping-at-the-altar-of-foreigners, but Verdi conducted by Barenboim is an abomination, a crime against music. Yet there are those who acclaim him. In Italy. In the land of Verdi and opera, of Muti and La Scala.

You will immediately accuse me of racism. Should Verdi be conducted only by Italians? No, of course not. But Verdi, whenever possible, should be conducted only by Verdians—and, happily, Verdians come in many nationalities. And when speaking of Verdians, it is impossible not to mention the greatest, most demanding, most serious, and most masterful Verdian of our time, Maestro Riccardo Muti. An Italian driven out of La Scala by other Italians.

I shall end here because no one reads this blog, and I would prefer that one of my journalist colleagues cover this topic, seriously and in depth.

My Italian post concludes with a reference to Roberto Benigni’s magnificent monologue/screed at the Sanremo Music Festival, of which more anon.

The clip from Falstaff is from a 2001 performance conducted by Riccardo Muti. Two quick observations: Even the great Juan Diego Flórez, in the bloom of youth, struggles fleetingly with this deceptively simple-sounding music. And this is one of the most intensely meta-musical moments in all of opera, with references to lips, song, silence, notes, chords, and more.

The final scene of Falstaff makes me weep from first note to last.

Maestro Riccardo Muti, who had to cancel his fall residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra because of exhaustion and “extreme gastric distress,” fainted during a rehearsal yesterday and has been hospitalized.

Auguri di pronta guarigione to Maestro Muti, the greatest Verdian of our time!

The clip shows Maestro Muti leading the prelude to Attila at La Scala. Hear more music from Attila.

Renata Tebaldi was born on 1 February 1922.

I am a hardcore orfanella callasiana, so it is not surprising that I, perhaps unfairly, tend to neglect Renata Tebaldi, whom I generally find stucchevole and too ladylike for my taste.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I heard this ferocious, balls-to-the-wall 1951 performance of music from Giovanna d’Arco. (1951 marked the fiftieth anniversary of Verdi’s death.)

Along with Tebaldi, you will hear Rolando Panerai and the great Carlo Bergonzi, who had recently made the transition from baritone to tenor.

Fierce stuff!