Volume 10 Issue 7 - April 2005

BooK Shelf
BY PAMELA MARGLES
I was pleased to read Charles Brauner, in the Cambridge Companion to
Rossini, exploding the myth of Maria Callas single-handedly reviving bet
canto, and giving Marilyn Home her due. About Horne he says, 'No
singer comes near her in importance for the Rossini Renaissance. ' The
·callas mystique mystifies me, although I never heard her live.
The wonderful soprano Elena Kelessidi, who 'died' most exquisitely in
the recent Canadian Opera Company production of La Boheme, tells (in
Diva: The New Generation by Helena Matheopoulos, 1998) how her teacher,
Professor Pavlov, who had studied with StanislavsK'y, emphasized the
need to die beautifully. This is nothing like the way it's done in real life, or
even the theatre. Operatic gestures, he would tell her, can't be natural
because you need to coordinate with the music. But Linda and Michael
Hutcheon look at the 'positive valuing' of death from the opposite perspective,
the libretti, in their study Opera: The Art of Dying.
if Richard Somerset-Ward had continued his study of the high voice,
called Angels and Monsters: Male anti Female Sopranos in the Story of
Opera, into the twentieth century - and let's hope he does - he would
have found in Horne the peifect example- of the star opera singer influencing
the composer. But, although a number of comemporary composers
did write for her, her greatest impa(:t was on the rediscovery of works by
composers long dead. Two indelible yet very different images of Horne
are reinforced by her autobiography, The Song Continues. There's the
diva in full battle gear struuing across the stage of the National Arts
Centre in Rinaldo almost thirty years ago, and, during a master-class just
a couple of years back at the University of Toronto, there's the decidedly
non-diva-like teacher pushing the piano across the stage of Walter Hall to get
it into the position she wanted. invincible certainly, but an angel nonetheless.
The Cambridge Companion
to Rossini
Edited by Emanuele Senici
Cambridge University Press
280 pages illustrated, $31.95
These fifteen essays
from the
world's top Rossini
scholars dispel
the prevailing misconception
that
Rossini was . lazy -
after all, he wrote 1
thirty-nine operas in nineteen years
- or that he willfully retired from
composing to live a life of luxury.
Indeed he never stopped composing,
even if he no longer wrote operas.
Richard Osbourne sets the tone with
a concise, elegant summary of Rossini's
life. Charles Brauner examines
criticisms of Rossini's operas, and
looks at why most of the works, especially
the serious operas, totally
disappeared from opera houses.
Philip Gossett shows how the manuscripts
reveal the extraordinary
clarity of Rossini's thought. Marco
Beghelli describes how, in Rossini,
'it is the voice that "makes the drama'',
more than the character who
acts it out'. Heather Hadlock describes
the genesis of the various
endings for Tancredi. Damien Colas
traces Rossini's vocal style to the
technique of the castrati. Mercedes
Viale Ferrero's study of the early
stagings of the operas is accompanied
by fascinating
illustrations.
contemporary
If you love Rossini, this comprehensive
study is essential reading. If you
don't, this book could make you realize
what you are missing.
Opera: The Art of Dying
By Linda Hutcheon and Michael
Hutcheon
Harvard University Press
245 pages illustrated, $35.95
Linda Hutcheon, a
professor of English
literature at
University of Toronto;
and Michael
Hutcheon a
medical doctor, set
out to show that in
opera, unlike modern life, death is
'not sad, bad or unwanted'.
For the one-hundred-and-eightythree
pages of text in their book Opera:
The Art of Dying, they have supplied
forty-three pages of notes. But
there is barely any mention of music.
So when they call the death of
the Prioress in Dialogues des Carmelites
'one of the most harrowing
scenes in opera' they ignore how
Poulenc's music makes it so.
Their literal retellings and analyses
of opera plots treat them like reallife
situations - but what is the Ring
after all but a fantastic, epic myth?
What makes it so revealing of the
human condition is the music. Puccini,
who is discussed at length here,
freely rewrote libretti to make them
work. I don't know of a librettist
ever rewriting the music.
A terrific image from a production
of Masked Ball illustrates the
cover f this book. But Verdi is not
addressed, even though no composer
ever treated the art of dying more
frequently, or more profoundly.
Their approach to opera will leave
most music lovers, musicians, musicologists,
and opera producers
wondering -where's the music?
Angels and Monsters
Richard Somerset-Ward
Yale University Press·
339 pages illustrated, $38.50
In his study of
how opera composers
were influenced
by the singers
of their time,
Richard Somerset-Ward
focuses
on singers in the
higher registers - not just sopranos,
but castrati; mezzos and contraltos.
He has no trouble rustling up enough
bad behaviour among them to justify
the word 'monsters'. There's the
cross-dressing bisexual arsonist,
Mlle de Maupin, who killed three
men in duels, or the thoroughly outrageous
Cuzzoni, who Handel called
'a veritable devil'. The castrato
Marchesi insisted on always making
his first entrance plumed and
armed in battle regalia, singing his
signature 'portmanteau aria', no
matter what the opera, composer, or
storyline.
The 'angels', like Wagner's niece
Johanna, were more elusive. In reality
she was not the 'heroic' figure
her uncle imagined, but nonetheless
inspired him to create Elizabeth, Elsa
and Briinnhilde.
Somerset-Ward's research
in
contemporary documents and singing
manuals is thorough; making this
a fascinating history of the rise and
fall of bel canto singing from he
perspective of its higher-voiced creators.
WWW. THEWHOLENOTE.COM
'His organization by composers
and countries requires some jumping
back and forth, but his enthusiasm
wins out. The illustrations in-
,
elude the truly bizarre swimming
machines Wagner designed for the
Rhinemaidens.
Marilyn Horne: The Song
Continues
By Marilyn Horne with
Jane Scovell
Baskerville Publishers
296 pages illustrated plus CD,
$49.95
Marilyn Horne
published her autobiography
twenty
years ago.
Since
retiring
from singing, she;:
has updated the
narrative for this
welcome reissue. Co-author Jane
Scovell has apparently been involved
at every step, but H.ome's forthright,
determined voice comes through.
'No nonsense, that's me' - but plenty
of heart.
She was a pioneer, bringing longburied
Rossini and Handel operas
back to opera houses around the
world. But could she have pulled that
off today, when 'great singing, intentionally
or not, is being de-emphasized'?
Obviously she minds that
the director has more power than the
singers and conductor. Tm all for
invention and innovation, but they
should SERVE the masterpiece, not
distort it.'
She is candid about her relationships,
especially with her husband,
conductor Henry Lewis, and, after
her marriage ended, with bass Nicola
Zaccaria, her struggles with her
weight, racial problems being married
to a black man, and above all
her cherished relationship with her
daughter. 'Being a mother was far
more difficult than being a Tancredi'.
Baskerville has provided an extensive
discography, and, even better,
enclosed a CD of previously
unreleased live recordings, including
her singing early soprano roles.
Richard Taverner
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APRIL 1 - MAY 7 2005