Riccardo Muti leads the Vienna Philharmonic in a 2005 performance of the overture to La forza del destino.

In terms of the clairvoyance of conductors, and creation at every performance… This is a principle that leads directly to the baroque and to the false… I read frequently in the papers of effects not imagined by the composer, but I, for my part, have never, ever encountered such effects… I cannot sanction in either singers or conductors the power to create which, as I said before, is a principle that leads to the abyss… Do you want an example? You cited earlier, with praise, an effect that Mariani drew out of the overture to La forza del destino, making the brass enter fortissimo in G. Well then: I disapprove of this effect. Those brass instruments at mezza voce in my concept were supposed to—nay, could express nothing other than the friar’s religious song. Mariani’s fortissimo completely alters their character, and the passage becomes a warlike fanfare, which has nothing to do with the subject of the drama, in which the warlike episodes are utterly episodic. And here we are on the road of the baroque and the false.
—Verdi to Giulio Ricordi (1871)

I was at the Metropolitan Opera for this 2004 performance of I vespri siciliani, when Sondra Radvanovsky stopped time with her gorgeous singing of “Arrigo! Ah, parli a un core.”

Someday, perhaps, the Met will give Vêpres and not Vespri. The 2004 revival was reportedly the last outing for the beautiful, Josef Svoboda-designed production, which is a pity. (Svoboda considered himself a “scenographer” and not a designer. He is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love the strength and rigor of his settings.)

In recent years, Verdi’s Messa da Requiem per l’anniversario della morte di Manzoni 22 maggio 1874 has been part of two extremely high-profile and desperately sad occasions.

The first was the 6 September 1997 funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. The Messa had been one of the late princess’s favorite musical works, and apparently its inclusion as part of her funeral caused consternation within the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family. According to Beatrix Campbell, Queen Elizabeth has an especial dislike for Verdi’s music. Jeremy Paxman, instead, chalked up the monarch’s misgivings to her “low-church spiritual convictions:” “She was uneasy that part of Verdi’s Requiem [sic] was played at Diana’s funeral… because Protestants do not attempt to intercede with God on behalf of the dead.”

Whatever its theological implications, the “Libera me,” beautifully sung by Lynne Dawson and the BBC Singers, was one of the most wrenching and memorable parts of the public farewell to Diana.

The Messa was also performed by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and the Westminster Symphonic Choir in September 2002 to mark the first anniversary of the 9/11 atrocities. Maestro Zdeněk Mácal led the very fine performance, which took place in Liberty State Park and featured soloists Sylvie Valayre, Dolora Zajick, Salvatore Licitra, and Samuel Ramey.

Licitra, who passed away a few days ago following a motorbike accident, was in his early thirties in 2002 and not on top form for the Messa. In truth, it is hard to understand how anyone could have kept their emotions in check that evening. On 10 and 11 September 2002, a fierce and otherworldly wind blew in the New York area. The Messa had been scheduled for tape-delayed telecast on the eleventh, but the dress rehearsal had to be shown, because the wind was simply too strong on the evening of the anniversary.

The performance that was broadcast, then, took place before rows and rows of empty seats, against our mutilated skyline. I can remember very well watching the telecast and weeping the whole time. Maestro Mácal, a naturalized American citizen, called the Messa “the ultimate expression of both mourning and hope.”

May I say, looking at the orchestra and chorus, how very proud I am of our beautiful and diverse metropolitan area?

UTET have created a new site about Verdi, part of their Passione per la cultura series. One of the Leibig figurine shown on the site is on the cover of Gundula Kreuzer’s wonderful study Verdi and the Germans.

The Catholics are still trying to claim Verdi as one of their own. Nice try! Remember what Boito wrote of Verdi: “In the ideal, moral and social sense he was a great Christian, but one must be very careful not to present him as a Catholic in the political and strictly theological sense of the word: nothing could be further from the truth.”

Apparently Verdi figures in a children’s book about a Venetian cat.

An exhibit entitled “Giuseppe Verdi, musical glory of the Risorgimento” is travelling the world, visiting Beirut, Ciudad de México, Seoul, and other cities. And in the meantime, some fourteen months before the event, Italy has not yet funded the bicentennial of Verdi’s birth.

A Wall Street Journal writer is the latest to propose a Shakespeare-and-opera festival. Personally, I would be happy if we New Yorkers could see respectable and carefully prepared productions of Macbeth, Otello, and Falstaff—leaving Papà Shakespeare, with all due respect, to fend for himself.

These are the last weeks of an exhibit I sorely wish I could see, “Hayez nella Milano di Verdi e Manzoni,” at the Pinacoteca di Brera.

Júlia Várady, the Nagyvárad-born soprano, turns seventy today.

This clip from a 1995 staging of Nabucco at the Opéra national de Paris shows her as a formidable Abigaille alongside the Fenena of Violeta Urmana and the Ismaele of José Cura. (Some cast, that! Check out the clip of Urmana singing “O, dischiuso è il firmamento” from the same production for proof of the old platitude that there are no small parts, only small players.)

Abigaille is often said to be a voice-breaker, impossible to cast, and all the rest, perhaps because it seemed to hasten the vocal decline of the very first Abigaille, Giuseppina Strepponi. Yet I think that Várady shows that an intelligent singer with a moderate-sized voice and (yes) real vocal chops—the kind of chops one needs to sing, say, Fiordiligi, Donna Elvira, or Vitellia (though not necessarily Isolde or Turandot)—can sing this rôle quite effectively.

Today’s clip includes part of the Act I finale, and the “Dischiuso” clip includes the opera’s finale, with Abigaille’s death scene. All in all, this Paris Nabucco looks to be one of the better ones out there, and I look forward to viewing and hearing it in full.