Ravenna, Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy: Day 2

Officially finished with the second day of the Academy! With 7 hours of both piano and orchestra rehearsals, there was absolutely no shortage of learning going on. I’ve probably learned more in one day here than the entirety of my chem classes this past year at UChicago…

…Anyways, rehearsals began at 9AM and ended around 7PM with a mid-afternoon break. (With this type of schedule, it’ll be really easy to get back in the swing of school later on in the month!) We ended up going through a lot of the important parts within the first three acts, but we’re definitely returning to them throughout the next couple of days.

Although I know that Maestro Muti has always emphasized the connection (“vertical relationship”) between the musical text and the written words of the libretto in Verdi’s music, which is also directly related to the Italian language, I was definitely exposed to a deeper and more intensive way of analyzing this relationship today.  There were multiple examples in the opera where it was super clear that Verdi’s music (and words in some cases) exactly represented the words of the libretto sung by the different personaggio. Whether it was the violas playing stormily, as to mirror the torrents of blood (“flutti di sangue scorrono”) sung by Amonasro in Act III or the fact that Verdi himself revised certain portions of the libretto himself to more accurately portray the dramatic situation of Amneris in Act II and to also match the music, I was constantly reminded of the many nuanced complexities that make up Verdi’s works. And yet, although they are complex, Maestro Muti is able to break everything down in such an understandable and accessible manner.

Another big theme was the idea that the opera conductor today is too weak and has given up too much to the hands of the stage director, who in this day and age, reigns as “king.” Of course, Maestro Muti cited the era of Toscanini and other early conductors: conductors who were responsible for not only the music, but as well as the dramatic staging of the opera. There are stage directors who apparently take multiple days of rehearsal to work on the (“exact”) placement of the singer on stage…and yet during the actual performance, everyone in the audience is looking up and reading the supertitles, which means they aren’t paying attention (and probably don’t care) about where the singer is standing. He had mentioned a couple of recent examples, and also cited that Renato Bruson  (my favorite baritone!) personally told him that he hated these types of “regie” directors. 

Maestro Muti also gave many examples of performance traditions, unfortunately perpetuated by the Italians themselves, that are not in accordance with how Verdi conceived the performance of the opera. There are many notes throughout sung by Amneris, Amonasro, and Radames that, in the Italian tradition, are sometimes sustained for far too long than they really should. Invoking a famous instance in Naples from 1954, (in which Maestro Muti surprisingly also referred us to check it out on YouTube), the baritone who sung Amonasro decided to hold a note (“Dei Faraoni tu sei la schiava!”) for far too long, and when the audience demanded an encore, the conductor – Gabriele Santini – refused, which subsequently got a lot of “boos” from the audience. 

Also, this is the first time that I’ve followed the opera along with the score (you can get a pretty decent copy by Ricordi- both the singing and piano parts- for a cheap price on Amazon), and I have to say that the incredibly precise attention to detail in the score by Maestro Muti is really something to marvel at. I’m pretty sure a lot of great conductors do the same (or maybe not…who knows?), but there isn’t an accent, or a legato phrase, a fermata, or a pianissimo that goes unseen by him. It really forces you to take an extremely close reading/examination of the score and that just elevates your understanding of the musical structure that Verdi implemented. Very cool stuff in my opinion. 

Anyways, I’m about to go bike to the theater for the third day of the Academy! I’ll update more later!