Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera

698 Pages·2008·4.06 MB·English

by  Philip Gossett

DIVAS AND SCHOLARS

Divas
and
Scholars
(cid:2)
performing
italian
opera
philip gossett
the university of chicago press
chicago and london
Philip Gossett is the Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor
in Music and the College at the University of Chicago.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2006 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2006
Printed in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13:978-0-226-30482-3 (cloth)
isbn-10:0-226-30482-5 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gossett, Philip.
Divas and scholars : performing Italian opera / Philip Gossett.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes.
isbn0-226-30482-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Opera. 2. Opera—Production and direction.
3. Opera—Performance. I. Title.
ml1700.g7397 2006
782.10945—dc22
2005032151
(cid:2)(cid:2)The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Perma-
nence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992.
to harold gossett,
My father and most enthusiastic supporter

CONTENTS
Preface ix
PROLOGUE
1
Mare o monti:Two Summer Festivals 3
PART I KNOWING THE SCORE
2
Setting the Stage 33
3
Transmission versus Tradition 69
4
Scandal and Scholarship 107
5
The Romance of the Critical Edition 133
INTERMEZZO
6
Scholars and Performers: The Case of Semiramide 169
PART II PERFORMING THE OPERA
7
Choosing a Version 203
8
Serafin’s Scissors 241
9
Ornamenting Rossini 290
10
Higher and Lower: Transposing Bellini and Donizetti 332
contents / viii
11
Words and Music: Texts and Translations 364
12
Instruments Old and New 407
13
From the Score to the Stage 443
CODA
14
Two Kings Head North: Transforming Italian Opera
in Scandinavia 489
Notes 533
Glossary 605
Bibliography 621
Index of Principal Operas Discussed:
Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, and Verdi 643
General Index 655
PREFACE
This book, written by a fan, a musician, and a scholar, is about performing
nineteenth-century Italian opera. It is addressed to all those who share my
passion for the music of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. I trust that fans
will be intrigued by an occasional technical explanation, musicians will find
something of value in the social and textual history of their art, and scholars
will indulge me the backstage gossip indigenous to the opera house.
While these three elements of my operatic being are now hopelessly
merged, they developed consecutively. My earliest exposure to opera was the
Metropolitan Opera’s weekly broadcasts, and my father assures me that as a
child I sang along with gusto. Unfortunately, my vocal skills have not im-
proved with age. The first opera I actually saw was Carmen with Rise Ste-
vensat the old Met, during the mid-1950s, but memories of this event have
long been inseparable from family anecdote. An opera-loving uncle, Jules
Schwartz, collected early LPs, which we devoured together. Having studied
piano since the age of five, I frequented Juilliard Preparatory Division in up-
town Manhattan during my high school years (from 1955 to 1958) for piano
lessons and theory classes. By noon on most Saturdays I caught the subway
downtown to join the standing-room queue at the Met. I must have heard all
the great singers of the period, and there were many, but at that age I was not
very discriminating about voices: it was the extraordinary music and drama
that captured my imagination.
Heading off to Amherst College in the fall of 1958, I brought along my
trusty reel-to-reel tape recorder. Tapes of Uncle Julie’s LPs and others bor-
rowed from the New York Public Library were my constant companions, and
they ranged from Mozart through Verdi and Wagner to Berg and even Brit-
ten: indeed, it was a recording of Peter Grimesthat convinced me that opera
remained a living art. On our first New York date, I brought my Smith Col-