Thanks for the recommendation on Shaw. I do own the complete musical criticism of Bernard Shaw. Yes, he is a classic, well worth reading. I also own some Euripides and, of course, all of Proust.

I looked in the index of my Shaw for ‘Di quella pira’. Let me quote. “In the same way, if you check your excitement at the conclusion of the wedding scene in Il Trovatore to ask what, after all, Di quella pira is, the answer must be that it is only a common bolero tune, just as Stride la vampa is only a common waltz tune. Indeed, if you know these tunes only through the barrel organs, you will need no telling. But in the theatre, if the singers have the requisite power and spirit, one does not ask these questions: the bolero form passes as unnoticed as the saraband form in Handel’s Lascia ch’io pianga, whereas in the more academic form of the aria with caballetto, which Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti accepted, the form reduces the matter to absurdity. Verdi, stronger and more singly dramatic, broke away from the Rossinian convention; developed the simpler cavatina form with an integral codetta instead of a separated cabaletto; combined it fearlessly with popular dance and ballad forms; and finally produced the once enormously popular, because concise, powerful, and comparatively natural and dramatic type of operatic solo which prevails in Il Trovatore and Un Ballo.”

Shaw continues as always, I agree with you, in a most genial way. I was looking for, though, to more of a performance history on the matter of the high C, something that Porter often did, so that is why I mentioned I wished I had his works with a good index.

Talking about Il Trovatore and going back to Maria, of whom Shaw reminded me by mentioning in the quoted passage the “requisite power and spirit” of the singers, I have to mention the incredible, absolutely out of this world rendition of Maria outside the prison in the pirated recording at the San Carlo in Naples, I believe circa 1954. Breathtaking is the only word for that performance, and the words of JJ in the above article also come to mind as when he says, “More important that that, I think, was what she did with the voice; how she used the voice as an expressive instrument.” I think Verdi would have been very glad, had he been alive, to have an artist as Maria of such power, spirit and expressiveness to make some of his opera characters come alive on stage.

Yes, I use my own judgement and I have expressed it in my posts, but I’m afraid I’m getting too repetitious on the main subject of our interchanges. As to Andrew Porter, I remember all I have read of his has been informative and I have learned many things from him, just as I often learn things at parterre. My judgement will not tell me what is going on in the world of opera, and what went on in the past. For example, I might be curious about a certain performance of Gina Cigna and Porter might just happen to get into it in depth. I always found him instructive, and fun to read. Andrew Porter might have more on the history of that high C at the end of Di Quella Pira that Verdi did not write in the score. If so, I would find that interesting to read. I do like to read about music now and then. Sometimes the reading is tough. Just now I am reading Wagner, and he is a difficult author, not as easy to enjoy reading as his music is to enjoy listening to, but certainly fascinating for those who like his operas.

Richard,

Thanks for reminding me of those volumes -I believe there are five?- with the criticisms of Andrew Porter in the New Yorker. I remember every week in those years in the past reading his criticisms, but I don’t own the collected volumes you mentioned. I will look for them and get them eventually, the Juilliard book store maybe has them. Even if I probably read most of them long ago, it would be a pleasure to re read them and have them for reference.

I love Verdi and Callas, but don’t give hairy rat’s ass about anything you have to say on any topic!

Are you the vile, “Emily Webster”?

have come to hear . One sometimes forgets
when writing in , that there
is here what
I term “The Necropihlia Society”
ever on the watch that a certain soprano- (oh! what the hell- Callas)remains perfectly embalmed
for the ages -they are much like those Boris Karloff movies of old,
the perfect specimen of female
virtue forever sealed in a casket somewhere in cellar- none can touch – worshipped as the
irreplaceable one . But as a lesson to the society Boris does go mad .
They avoid thought at all costs
as they dash off to cemeteries to
dig up other bodies that might or might not have sung a note Verdi wrote, but this is done
only to protect the embalmed one.
The tampering point is avoided as much as possible – “if verdi only
could have heard it ! I.m sure he wouldn’t have been annoyed etc. etc . How do I know what he wanted ? Well I do and any self respecting musician does, since
after 30 years time and countless sopranos he did not alter the score or make a notation to
insert notes at singers discretion .
And Toscanini was his watch dog .
As for figaro – I have worked with many composers and creative artists ,some names you might know and they would have laughed you out the front door with your “purist rant ” comments . You know not of what you speak. C Farrell
it wasn’t about Callas it was about
honouring the creator of a work .
It is Chopin commenting on Liszt
playing his work with added touches -”It was brilliant
but if he can’t play it the I wrote it
then he should leave it alone .”
As for open ears , be sure you are not mistaking open ears for vacum
between them .I don’t give a rats
ass about Callas,but I bow to Verdi

It’s far from everything Porter wrote but his reviews
for the New Yorker magazine (mid 70s-early 80s) were collected and printed in three volumes. Music of Three Seasons, Music of Three More Seasons, etc.

These were probably prime years for Porter’s work . Reading the reviews in sequence he comes off as a bit fussy over some pet peeves such as stage lighting. But he makes many very striking points in how he feels music should be performed. And he sprinkles in lots of performance and musical history.

That would surely take up a few shelves. Lovely thought, though.

All the preceding paragraph is just to justify myself that I’m not a lunatic thinking Verdi might have liked the note in the triumphant scene. Had he been alive and in Bellas Artes, one can fancy, he would later in the night tell La Strepponi, “Cara, at one time I would have written that for you and you would have out-Abigaile the Babylonian princess”. We will never know. Angela Peralta did sing La sonnambula for the king Vittorio Emanuele in Turin and got 32 curtain calls; she also sang Lucia at La Scala. Not every soprano can sing Aida and also bel canto roles, but many in the nineteen century did. I look at the E flat in Aida as a remnant of bel canto. I guess sopranos should be glad and thankful to Verdi that he did not write it into the score. Today we have the opposite problem, we have E flats written in scores that are not sung. Now, that is a real reason to gripe about a soprano. I’m not mentioning names, but we all know who they are

People have mentioned here that her rapid weight loss probably played a role in the vocal changes/decline, but I don’t know how that would affect it. Is it the weight loss, or the speed of the weight loss, that affects a voice?

On the contrary, it seems to me that most other Verdi singers (not even worth being called “interpreters”) just do what they can with the notes, most of them lacking the ability to pay close attention to the composer’s markings, because they are lazy / caught in the thrill of the “drama” / or simply unable technically to cope (by this I don’t necessarily mean vocal range or dexterity, but so many other things, for example the ability to colour the sound, so very important in Verdi, cf “Con una voce lontana” in Otello).

No, most singers will get away with “a beautiful sound” or some bag of tricks (cf Caballe’s pianissimi), alongwith a generalized sense of drama. So few of them take the trouble to provide us with an acute musical interpretation. Singers are, alas, supposed to be musicians too, and if somebody like Hilary Hahn would have walked on the concert platform and played Sibelius’ voilin concerto the way Caballe, or Sutherland, or L Price for example have approached and performed an opera, well such a violinist would have been booed off the stage in 5 minutes for odious and ludicrous, vulgar tampering with the music. No matter how sweet their sound and how dazzling their technique. So few singers, like Callas or Scotto or Seefried or Varnay or Farrell, are actually musicians and have respect for slurs, note values, dynamic markings and all the rest of the craft of music making.
But, again, basing a whole critique upon a single, maybe unsanctioned high note is ridiculously easy, irrelevant and speaks of a very dull mind indeed.