{"id":889,"date":"2017-12-14T00:10:02","date_gmt":"2017-12-14T05:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=889"},"modified":"2017-12-14T00:10:02","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T05:10:02","slug":"aida-at-the-met","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2017\/12\/aida-at-the-met.html","title":{"rendered":"Aida at the Met"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When I was a teenager, my mentor in all things operatic was Conrad L. Osborne. I read him religiously in High Fidelity<\/em> Magazine. I thrilled to his encyclopedic erudition, to his impassioned advocacy, and (not least) to the ruthless thoroughness with which he documented and assessed a devastating decline-and-fall in standards of performance. I never met him, never glimpsed him. I envisioned an eminence gris<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Low and behold, C. L. O., age 83, now has his own blog.\u00a0 The omniscient graybeard I had envisioned was at the time a young adult in his thirties. After a long silence (he is also the author of a sensationally stylish, hilarious, and acute 1987 opera novel, O<\/em> Paradiso<\/em>), he may be read regularly at http:\/\/conradlosborne.com\/blog\/. And he\u2019s about to publish his magnum opus, a mega-book on a topic he rigorously pursued in High Fidelity<\/em> decades ago, when classical-musical conditions were somewhat less dire than today: the transformation of operatic art into a generic anodyne performance product. He will also have something to say about what to do next.<\/p>\n

Osborne\u2019s coruscating take on the new Met Norma<\/em> begins by dissecting defects in the pit. He writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is crucial, even in the presence of fine singing, that urgent sounds, sounds that insist on the music\u2019s dramatic significance, emerge from the alliance of pit and podium. The Met\u2019s maestro, Carlo Rizzi, did for this score what he has done for all I\u2019ve heard\u00a0 him conduct\u2014turned it down from a boil to a simmer, and thence to Superlow. There was little sonic presence, except at the biggest moments. The slow accompaniments died, the quicker ones chattered harmlessly along. There was no suspense, no tension, no sense of dramatic construction, not a trace of grandeur.\u201d<\/p>\n

My own most recent Metropolitan Opera experience with the standard Italian repertoire was a dormant Aida<\/em>. I can remember a time when the Met could capably double-cast this grand opera. The cast I encountered was provincial top to bottom. The glamourous trappings \u2013 the world-class orchestra and chorus; the fulsome production (live animals) \u2013 created a surreal self-contradiction. Without a viable Aida or Radames or Amneris or Amonosro, Aida<\/em> is reduced to unbearable pomp.<\/p>\n

Though I\u2019m old enough, I never heard Leontyne Price or Franco Corelli (my obsession was Wagner). So my point of reference, for Verdi at the Met, is the broadcast recordings of the thirties and forties led by Ettore Panizza. It was once possible to access all these performances on youtube (including La traviata<\/em> with Rosa Ponselle and Lawrence Tibbett, Tibbett\u2019s Rigoletto and Boccanegra, Jussi Bjoerling and Zinka Milanov in Masked Ba<\/em>ll, and \u2013 the peak achievement \u2013 Giovanni Martinelli\u2019s Otello), but they\u2019re frequently removed. (The Panizza Aida<\/em> is up right now, as of four months ago; you can listen here<\/a>. Panizza\u2019s Otello<\/em> is permanently lodged on the audio site accompanying my Classical Music in America<\/em><\/a> \u2013 right here.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Some months ago, no longer finding my favorite Aida<\/em> online, I \u00a0purchased it via amazon. That is: I now own on CD the Feb. 6, 1937, performance conducted by Panizza, with a cast comprising Gina Cigna, Giovanni Martinelli, Bruna Castagna, Carlo Morelli, and Ezio Pinza. I just listened to the whole thing, beginning to end.<\/p>\n

Every singer is vocally and dramatically commanding. But the binding imprint of this singular performance resides in the pit. I cannot improve on what I wrote in Classical Music in America<\/em>. Panizza\u2019s orchestra is an Italian powderkeg surpassing any opera band to be heard today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe membership was overwhelmingly Italian, including a few, such as principal oboist Giacomo Del Campo, who had played under Toscanini [at the Met] before World War I. . . . With Toscanini\u2019s departure, the Met\u2019s Italian wing was entrusted to superior leaders: first Tullio Serafin, then Ettore Panizza. The latter (today not even a name), born in Buenos Aires and trained in Milan, from 1921 to 1931 conducted a La Scala, where Toscanini esteemed him (as did Richard Strauss, who arranged for him to conduct Elektra<\/em> in Vienna). His Met years were 1934-43. Given his extensive European career, which also included Covent Garden, it bears emphasis that he considered that Met\u2019s \u2018as fine a theater orchestra as I have seen in the world.\u2019 . . . Compared to Toscanini, he favors a broader play of tempo. But the velocity and precision, the taut filaments of tone, the keen timbres, the clipped, attenuated phrasings are all Toscanini trademarks. Like Toscanini, Panizza will bolt suddenly to the end of a scorching musical sentence; like Toscanini\u2019s, his musicians are lightning respondents. And Panizza is a master of controlling the show while showcasing his cast; calibrating Martinelli\u2019s titanic climaxes and magisterial breadth of phrase, he achieves a unity. Encountering this memento of times past is a humbling experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The live recordings of Maria Callas singing Aida in Mexico City are famous for a reason; no subsequent soprano has made such a wrenching impression in the Nile Scene. But for a complete rendering of this episode \u2013 the human heart of Verdi\u2019s opera \u2013 Panizza is irreplaceable. No other conductor in my experience deploys such a range of tempo or secures so vital an interpretive template. His wicked accelerandos and lavish cadential ritards are always at the service of the singers and of the drama at hand (no other Radames conveys such confusion and shame as Martinelli does here). Panizza\u2019s razor\u2019s edge balance of abandon and control, vital to Verdi, is actually a lost art.<\/p>\n

This recording should be inflicted on all present-day singers, conductors, and (god help us) stage directors attempting Aida<\/em>. Many would find it revelatory. Too many others simply wouldn\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a teenager, my mentor in all things operatic was Conrad L. Osborne. I read him religiously in High Fidelity Magazine. I thrilled to his encyclopedic erudition, to his impassioned advocacy, and (not least) to the ruthless thoroughness with which he documented and assessed a devastating decline-and-fall in standards of performance. I never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-el","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":897,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions\/897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}