THOUGHTS ABOUT MUSIC

Evening Star, Issue 25678, 29 December 1945, Page 8

THOUGHTS ABOUT MUSIC

(By L.D.A.) Another very interesting letter—especially to lovers of opera—has come to hand from my friend, Trooper John Gray, who is now awaiting repatriation from Italy. Under date of October 30 last, he writes : " Dear ' L.D.A.,' —Perhaps, you can use a few notes on opera as practised in Italy. lam afraid that no other form of music has come my way since last I wrote, and until the winter season opens there is little prospect of any. However, the opportuntiy of hearing both standard and out-of-the-way operas has been much appreciated. " The first thing noticed is that opera is certainly the people's art; the audiences < are largely composed of those who, in English-speaking countries, are found flocking to the cinema. Moreover, opera goes on, even at the sumptuous Theatre Reale in Rome, without the assistance of a dress and diamonds parade, though it must be admitted that these are hardly normal times and that the sessions begin at a socially inconvenient hour—6 o'clock v But it is_ also to be noted that the aver-* age Italian audience manages to combine adherence to the art with a minimum of intelligence and a maximum of had manners. It is hard to reconcile a devotion to opera with such occurrences as the futile, childish hissing in which people are wont to indulge. in with the apparent object of making other people keep quiet, or the illtimed bursts of yelling and applause, not merely at the ends of stock arias, but after a particularly loud and sustained piece of vocalism delivered by someone right in the middle 61 a scene. I have witnessed disgraceful exhibitions on the part of the house ere an encore to such an aria as Tosca's ' Vissi d'arte ' has been finally granted; but strangely enough only once do I recall the converse having taken place, that is, a storm of abuse meted out to a singer whose efforts definitely did not please the public. This rare circumstance name about in the middle of ' Aida ' ono night, when the tenor made a desperate bid for a top note, missed it, and was howled at for some seconds. How often have we all lacked courage to do just this at the appropriate time?

" At Rome's Royal Opera productions are put on the stage with a completeness and a wealth of detail which in the more spectacular works is apt to be a little overwhelming. I saw an ' Aida ' which would have made Cecil do Mille green with envy; the amount of paraphernalia carried on in the triumphal scene, not to mention the hundreds of personnel marshalled on the stage, provided the spectacle of a lifetime. At the moment there are two opera seasons running parallel in Rome, and there is much understandable rivalry between the two theatres in question. One hats the services ol Renaimino Gigli, the other Tito Schipa, and each plasters the town with posters lauding its particular star attraction. Between the two of them they keep Home's operagoers very busy indeed.

" The repertoire keeps very largely to the old favourites, and it would seem that ' Tosca,' ' Traviata,' and ' Boheme ' are by far the most popular operas with the local populace.. Mascagni's death was seized upon as calling for some special commemoration, which manifested itself in a revival of his ' Iris,' which was given the advantage of a first-rate cast, and some imaginative staging. I was fortunate enough to be present at the opening performance, and found myself thinking that if ' Iris ' is really typical 20-odd " failures " Mascagni churned out after ' Cavallena,' then it is time we heard a few more. Truly an exquisite work, helped, of course, by its picturesque Oriental setting. The only other of his lesser operas which maintains some kind of hold on the Italian repertoire, by the way, is the delicate ' I'Amico Fritz,' which has been given frequently this year.

" Gigli is still the leading favourite and.his every appearance is a signal for a roar of welcome. The great tenor has been in splendid voice of late, and is heard to fine advantage in an opera like Verdi's ' Masked Ball,' in which he has a lyrical part, and moreover, is not required to play the young lover. To see Gigli in 'La Boheme ' nowadays is faintly amusing, the more so as his daughter sings with him as Mimi, but no sooner has he begun to sing than one realises that here is the one and only'Gigli, and if a faint dimming of the light is evident, one is still very thankful to have heard him in his greatest roles. The new star among the tenors, however, is Ferruccio Tagliavini, whose excellence has already won him engagement with New York's Metropolitan Opera. He is heard to advantage in a lyrical part such as that of Des Grieux, in ' Manon,' and_ his singing of the ' Dream ' song in the former resulted in one of the hysterical scenes of adulation such as I described earlier. The third person worth naming here is a remarkable young baritone called Gino Bechi, also bound for New York and in some ways the biggest personality on the Italian opera stage at the moment. His ' Rigoletto ' is almost sensational, and savours of what we would doubtless call " over-acting," but his extraordinary voice is more than adequate for his personality. A notable feat on his part was to turn even 'II Travatore ' into a triumph for the baritone, and it will be recalled that the other singers in that opera have plenty of opportunities.

"An interesting production was that of Verdi's ' Forza del Destino,' surely the silliest opera ever written from a dramatic point of view, but musically a real achievement and at the moment we are awaiting Bizet's ' Pearl Fishers,' which is to be presented to mark the seventieth anniversary of the composer's death. .This will be an event in the* sense that normally, the only non-Italian operas one hears in Italy are ' Faust,' * Carmen,' and 'Manon,' and that not very often. The Italians are among the most chauvinistic of people, musically speaking, and the average Italian operagoer is supremely uninterested in other schools, even Wagner being represented only by ' Lohengrin,' and that (again) not very often. .In Wagner's case, of course, one has to take into account the political upheavals of the last few years, for during the German domination of Italian musical life his works were given fairly often, so a natural reaction has set in by now.

" Outside Rome, the productions range from excellent, in the larger towns, to deplorable, in the smaller ones. It is interesting to note, however, that whatever the standard of actual production, the audience's reaction to its favourite arias is the same. With the Italian, the singing still conies first, orchestra, costumes, and settings are merely there as a background."