Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924)
Fanciulla100 is a media-rich website created to celebrate this important landmark. Fanciulla 100: Celebrating Puccini is the name of a symposium that will be held on 6 December at Boston University. Participants include Harvey Sachs, David Rosen, and Deborah Burton.
I, alas, have other commitments that day, but I look forward to hearing and reading the reports of attendees.
Hector Berlioz, c. 1863
. (Most translations at Verdi Duecento are by me unless otherwise indicated.)
This letter is from 1882; Berlioz had been dead since 1869.
…Berlioz was a poor, sick man, furious with everyone, bitter and malicious. His talent was very great and acute. He had a feeling for instrumentation, and he anticipated Wagner in many orchestral effects. (The Wagnerites don’t admit it, but it is so.) He lacked moderation. He lacked the calm, and what I call the equilibrium, to produce complete works of art. He always went to extremes, even when he created something praiseworthy.
His success for the time being in Paris is in great part justified and merited, but reaction has even more to do with it. He was so badly treated when he was alive! Now he is dead! Hosanna!!
By the way, Berlioz reportedly attended at least one of the concerts that Giuseppina Strepponi gave after she moved to Paris in 1846 and admired her greatly.
Giuseppe Verdi tweets!
Please follow “Giuseppe Verdi” and “Peppina Verdi” on Twitter at verdi2013 and peppinaverdi. I mostly tweet phrases from the letters of Verdi, Giuseppina, and their friends and colleagues; I also tweet Verdi Duecento updates. If there is sufficient interest, I will translate the “authentic” Verdi and Giuseppina tweets into English.
I also blog about Maria Callas (on Blogspot for now, though the blog will migrate to WordPress). My main website, a portal to my various projects, is mondo marion.
Again, welcome to all readers, and Viva Verdi!
The bass Pol Plançon (1851–1914) studied under Gilbert Duprez, who created the rôle of Edgardo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and was renowned for his do di petto (high C sung “from the chest”) and splendid enunciation. Duprez passed the latter gift along to Plançon, who was a complete operatic artist, by which I mean a master of words who also possessed all the basic skills of singing, including command of legato, trills, gruppetti, runs, and the like.
Maria Callas was right about this, you know:
A singer is no different from an instrumentalist except that we have words. You don’t excuse things in a singer you would not dream of excusing in a violinist or pianist. There is no excuse for not having a trill, for not doing the acciaccatura, for not having good scales. Look at your scores!
Plançon claimed to have modelled his vocal technique on Jean-Baptiste Faure’s. Faure created the rôle of Rodrigue in Verdi’s Don Carlos as well as several other major parts.
This portion of Philippe’s “Elle ne m’aime pas” does not show off Plançon’s agility but does showcase his aristocratic style, crystalline enunciation, and beauty of tone throughout his range.
Philip Gossett (Cav. Gr. Croce)
Where do we stand with editions of Otello and Falstaff? Many people are not aware that Verdi made significant revisions to these, his final operas.
We can’t do them yet. While the Verdi family has been helpful with some things, they do not currently want to cooperate.
Gabriele Baldini, The Story of Giuseppe Verdi
).
Baldini was neither a trained musician nor a Verdi scholar. He was a professor of English literature, a specialist in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He died in 1969, before completing Abitare la battaglia. Though long in print in both English and Italian, the book is not so well known as it deserves to be, in part because some specialists look down upon Baldini’s “amateur” approach to Verdi and his operas.
That said, I recently shared Abitare la battaglia with a professional musician who is both a deep reader and a celebrated Verdian. His response: Baldini è un genio.
Gioacchino Rossini died on 13 November 1868 at the age of 76. According to biographical notes taken by Arrigo Boito, Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and L’Italiana in Algeri were among the very first operas that Verdi heard as a boy. Verdi’s admiration for Rossini’s music, while not unconditional, was immense. Upon learning of the elder composer’s death, Verdi proposed that a group of Italian composers write a Requiem for Rossini to be performed once, on the first anniversary of his death, with each composer contributing a movement. The performance never took place, and Verdi later used the “Libera me” that he had composed for Rossini in his Manzoni Requiem.
Philip Gossett (Cav. Gr. Croce)
What, in your view, are some of the greatest surprises to have come out of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi?
When you find that in Rigoletto, Ricordi printed a score that Verdi then changed in rehearsal, and never redid their initial work, you are astonished. When you learn that censors modified Verdi’s texts (the famous “Una stanza, e del vino” replacing “Tua sorella, e del vino” for the Duke in Act III of Rigoletto is just the tip of the iceberg), and that there are still singers who are singing censored texts, you are truly astonished. Are we really still going to be controlled by censors from the 1840s and 1850s?
Verdi, c. 1893
Dear Mascheroni,
Congratulations, Congratulations, and more congratulations to you, the Third Author of Falstaff!
And who might the fourth be? Perhaps Pini Corsi.
And the Fifth? The Merry Wives.
Speaking of the Merry Wives, I received an adorable and, above all, very kind letter from la Zilli. Thank her on my behalf and tell her that I shall answer later, because right now I am very busy putting the final touches on an opera in twelve acts plus a prologue and an overture as long as the Nine Symphonies of Beethoven all together; what’s more, with a prelude to each act with all of the Violins Violas Cellos Double Basses playing in octaves a melody not in the style of Traviata, Rigoletto, etc. etc. but a modern melody, one of those oh-so-beautiful ones that have neither beginning nor end and hang suspended in the air like the tomb of Mohammed… I don’t have time now to explain to you how the Singers must perform the accompaniment, and I hope to imitate with the Gentleman and Lady Singers the crash of cymbals… I will tell you some other time. Addio.
To the world, as to the nation he helped to found, Verdi left an enduring legacy of music, charity, patriotism, honour, grace, and reason. He was and remains a mighty force for continuing good.
Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, Verdi: A Biography
