Divas and Scholars

by Philip Gossett

  6. See the famous letter from Puccini to Toscanini of 23 June 1910, inviting him to review and correct the dynamic levels, slurs, etc., so that he can finally have “a definitive Manon.” The letter is printed in Gara, Carteggi pucciniani, 377. For La fanciulla del West, consult Dotto, “Opera, Four Hands.”

  7. On the occasion of the performances at the Teatro Comunale of Bologna in the fall of 1993, Riccardo Chailly reintroduced the “canzone” most effectively. See Mandelli, “I ‘fiori’ ritrovati, che Puccini non voleva eliminare.”

  8. At least one scholar has made a case for the primacy of the printed score of Falstaff: see Hepokoski, “Overriding the Autograph Score.” My own position would tend to favor a mixed approach to the editing of Falstaff: choosing the autograph as a copy text, but accepting later modifications that can reasonably be attributed to Verdi. It will be up to the editor of the critical edition, however, to make a final determination.

  9. Vaughan, “Discordanze.”

  10. Vaughan, “Discordanze”; Gavazzeni, “Problemi,” 68.

  11. To the extent that it is possible to distinguish Verdi’s f from his ff, not always an easy task, the markings are as follows: ff in piccolo, clarinets, trumpets, timpani, violins, and cello; f in the second pair of horns, violas, and double basses; nothing in the other parts. Vaughn failed to realize that Verdi habitually (but not exclusively) places his dynamic markings beneath an instrumental staff.

  12. See Verdi, Messa da Requiem, ed. Rosen, 119.

  13. The passage discussed by Vaughan and Gavazzeni occurs several pages later, when the theme is embedded in a complex ensemble (mm. 645–49, printed in the critical edition on 122–23). See Vaughan, “Discordanze”; Gavazzeni, “Problemi,” 67.

  14. Vaughan, “The Inner Language of Verdi’s Manuscripts,” 80.

  15. Verdi’s autograph manuscript was issued in facsimile, La Messa da Requiem di Giuseppe Verdi, in three hundred copies, in 1941, on the fortieth anniversary of the composer’s death. There is no better way to understand these problems than to consult this passage directly, as it appears in the composer’s hand.

  16. The recording was issued by the Decca Record Company, London (425-520-2). Patané’s statement “A traditional recording of Barbiere” is archetypical of the inability of some artists to differentiate the contents of a printed score from performance decisions quite properly made by interpreters.

  17. There had been important publications of documents pertaining to the librettos and their genesis, however, including those in Abbiati, Giuseppe Verdi; Luzio, Carteggi verdiani; and a host of individual studies, such as Pascolato, “Re Lear” e “Ballo in Maschera.”

  18. For those who aspired to work in this field, the appearance of Ashbrook’s first book on the composer, Donizetti (1965), and of Weinstock’s Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy, Paris and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (1963) was a revelation.

  19. The fruits of Lawton and Rosen’s research was published in their fundamental study, “Verdi’s Non-definitive Revisions.”

  20. See Gui, “Storia avventurosa.”

  21. These problems will be addressed in the critical edition of Il barbiere di Siviglia that I am preparing.

  22. New York Public Library, *MSI, Special Collections. A manuscript in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale (Fonds du Conservatoire) in Paris was once thought—without any justification—to be Rossini’s original manuscript (Mss. 8330–8331). A page of that manuscript was even published as representing Rossini’s handwriting, in Hürlimann, Musikerhandschriften von Schubert bis Strawinsky, facsimile 14.

  23. Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ed. Zedda.

  24. Ibid., Commento Critico, 15.

  25. For a good introduction to the problem of critical editions of music, see Grier, The Critical Editing of Music. Grier’s book, however, is primarily devoted to the editing of music written before 1800.

  26. The comment is found in his letter to Camille Bellaigue of 2 May 1898, published in Luzio, Carteggi verdiani, 2:312.

  27. See, for example, the cabaletta melody “Sventurata, anch’io deliro” in Imogene’s cavatina in Il pirata, where Bellini experimented with two entirely different accompaniments in the upper strings, first writing out the entire section with a continuous arpeggiation, then crossing out these string parts and substituting a series of chords off the beat. See the facsimile edition of Il pirata, ff. 74r–77r.

  28. For a balanced approach to Schumann’s orchestration, see the article by Brian Schlotel, “The Orchestral Music,” especially 313–23. While most orchestras today use Schumann’s own orchestrations, the problem continues to exercise musicians, critics, and scholars.

  29. Performances with “early” instruments, while fascinating, do not make all such problems disappear; see chapter 12.

  30. D’Amico, “C’è modo e modo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi di Bellini nella revisione di Claudio Abbado).”

  31. Some sense of Abbado’s approach can be gleaned from the studio recording he made shortly after with Deutsche Grammophon, 2561 214-216. It includes several members of the La Scala cast (Teresa Berganza as Rosina, Luigi Alva as the Conte d’Almaviva, Hermann Prey as Figaro, Paolo Montarsolo as Basilio, and Stefania Malagú as Berta), with the London Symphony Orchestra.

  32. Patané’s recording was cited in n. 16 above.

  33. For complete details of the operation, see my review of the recording of L’assedio di Corinto on Angel Records, which preceded by several months the Metropolitan Opera performances and featured all the same principal singers (Gossett, Review of Gioachino Rossini, L’assedio di Corinto).

  34. The section in question is a cabaletta near the end of the third act, “Parmi vederlo ahi misero,” added anonymously for Giuditta Grisi when she performed the role of Pamyra at the Teatro La Fenice of Venice during the carnival season of 1829, beginning on 17 January 1829. The next year, on 11 March 1830, Grisi created the role of Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the same theater. Although propaganda for the performance and the edition hinted that Rossini was responsible for this addition, there is not a shred of evidence that this is the case. See my review (cited in n. 33 above), 637.

  35. There have been several recent studies of the Rossini Neapolitan operas, with particular attention to Maometto II. An early and significant contribution was Isotta, “I diamanti della corona” (1974). Later studies include Grondona, La perfetta illusione (1996) and Tortora, Drammaturgia del Rossini serio (1996). See also my “History and Works That Have No History.”

  36. See the fine treatment of the relationship between the two operas in Osborne, Rossini, 237–42.

  37. The Greek revolt against their Turkish rulers in the 1820s had caught the imagination of much of Europe. Byron’s sojourn in Greece and his death at Missolonghi in 1824 are well known. While the poet’s 1816 verse tale The Siege of Corinth gave its name to Rossini’s opera, the poem has only a rhetorical resemblance to Le Siège de Corinthe; witness Byron’s first invocation of the city (stanza 1, lines 46–49): “Many a vanish’d year and age, / And tempest’s breath, and battle’s rage, / Have swept o’er Corinth; yet she stands, / A fortress form’d to Freedom’s hands.”

  38. Rossini may have overcompensated in his effort to suit what he believed to be French taste. As Damien Colas has shown, in his study of singers’ parts at the Bibliothèque de l’Opéra, individual performers at the Opéra often returned to the original florid lines or interpolated other, equally florid passagework. See Colas, Les Annotations de chanteurs dans les matériels d’exécution des opéras de Rossini à Paris (1820 –1860), particularly the musical examples related to Le Siège de Corinthe in 4:103–19.

  39. It should come as no surprise that during the revolutionary movements in 1848, this music was arranged (not by Rossini) as a “National Hymn by Francesco Ilari, dedicated to the mobilized civic legions of Rome.” The text begins, “Italiani! È finito il servaggio! Dio ci chiama la patria a salvar!” (Italians! Our ser
vitude is over! God calls us to save the homeland!). A copy of the publication is in the Library of the Conservatory “G. Verdi” of Milan (A-55-222-40).

  40. To be honest, Rossini himself had inserted this piece into Mosè in Egitto in its first Neapolitan performances during 1818, but when he returned to the opera in 1819, he wisely removed it. The situation with this inserted cabaletta for Sills was even worse, however, since the copy of the aria used as the basis for what she performed lacked the horn and trumpet parts certainly written by Rossini, making the orchestral fabric even sparser; the question is treated fully by Charles Brauner in the preface and notes to the critical edition of Mosè in Egitto.

  41. Some of this talk was subsequently published in my review (see n. 33 above) of the recording cited in the same note.

  42. Wills, “Gorgeous Sills.” It is not altogether certain whether I was the direct or indirect object of Sills’s scorn, since a number of New York critics quoted my words.

  43. Interview published in the Corriere della Sera (Milan), 28 November 1982, 28. Presumably it is under this rubric that he can justify to himself a relatively liberal approach to matters of tempo and dynamics.

  44. I will return to the question of French opera in Italian translation in chapter 11.

  45. The loggione, the uppermost tier of seats in a traditional Italian theater, is known in Italy as the home of the “true” opera lovers, and winning their approval is considered fundamental to the success of a singer in Italy. It needs to be said, though, that denizens of the loggione, the so-called loggionisti, tend to be among the most conservative members of the operagoing public, and they often object vociferously to any stylistic or textual modification from the music they know and love (usually from mid-twentieth-century recordings). I cite Bentivoglio’s article after Beghelli, “Per fedeltà a una nota,” 296.

  46. Verdi, Il trovatore, ed. Lawton.

  47. For a full discussion of the problem, see Beghelli, “Per fedeltà a una nota.”

  48. The situation is not quite so simple, since there is a significant problem in Verdi’s autograph at this point. For further details, see ibid., 306–10. Although I do not think Beghelli’s solution is correct (see his example 3 on 309), he does point out an inconsistency in the critical edition.

  49. Baucardé himself is said to have introduced the high c in a reprise of Il trovatore in Florence at the Teatro della Pergola in October 1853, just a few months after the premiere of the opera (see Rescigno, Dizionario verdiano, 85–86). A few years later, when seeking to arrange a cast for the premiere of Aroldo (Rimini, Teatro Nuovo, 16 August 1857), Verdi refused to consider Augusta Albertini, the wife of Baucardé. As he said in a letter to Piave of 31 October 1856, “I had more than enough with her husband, and I want nothing more to do with lunatics.” We don’t know if his feelings had anything to do with high c! The letter is printed in Morazzoni, Verdi: Lettere inedite, 42.

  50. The anecdote is related in Budden, The Operas of Verdi, 2:98–99, who says that he heard it in a public lecture given by Giovanni Martinelli. Clearly Verdi did not disdain Tamberlick’s high c, since he constructed the end of the third act of the original version of La forza del destino in order to highlight it.

  51. The anecdote—which refers specifically to Tamberlick’s c#—is related by Giuseppe Radiciotti, in his charming Aneddoti rossiniani autentici (Rome, 1929), 67.

  52. Interview published in the Corriere della Sera (Milan), 28 November 1982, 28.

  53. Indeed, when he first projected this finale, Verdi did not plan to include even the cantabile (“Infelice! e tu credevi”) for Silva. For more complete details, see the introduction, xix (English) and xliii (Italian), as well as the commentary, 48–49, in the critical edition of Ernani. Verdi’s earliest version, without a cantabile, is reconstructed in skeleton score in appendix 1B. of the edition, 420. The cantabile was added before the Venetian premiere.

  54. For Budden’s commentary, see The Operas of Verdi, 1:167–69.

  55. Parker announced his discovery in his article “ ‘Infin che un brando vindice.’ ” See also the introduction to the critical edition of Ernani, xxi–xxii (English) and xlv–xlvi (Italian), as well as appendix 2, where the added cabaletta is printed, together with the revised measures leading up to it. Verdi’s letter to Marini, written on 15 November 1841, was sold at the Sotheby’s auction in London of 9–10 May 1985 (lot 218). The letter was then deposited at the Pierpont Morgan Library of New York. Today it forms part of the Koch collection at the Beinecke Library of Yale University.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1. It would be both presumptuous and inappropriate to attempt to provide a list of works devoted to the history of textual criticism in literature. Those interested in pursuing the questions raised here should consult Greetham, Textual Scholarship, for both an introduction to the most important issues and an extensive bibliography. In the following notes I will cite only the sources most relevant to my concerns.

  2. The standard theory of traditional textual criticism is laid out in Greg, “The Rationale of Copy-Text.” See also Bowers, “Greg’s Rationale of ‘Copy-Text’ Revisited.”

  3. The introduction of computer-based editions using hypertext, allowing the reader to move freely between one version of a text and another, has given impetus to this approach. Mc-Gann and his colleagues at the University of Virginia have done remarkable work on the poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. For a theoretical statement concerning his aims, see McGann’s Radiant Textuality.

  4. McGann, A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism.

  5. Among statements about the aims of the new editions, see Martin Chusid, Claudio Gallico, Philip Gossett, and David Lawton in Nuove prospettive nella ricerca verdiana. See also Parker, “A Donizetti Critical Edition in the Postmodern World.”

  6. In addition to the critical edition itself, see Chusid’s “Editing Rigoletto,” in Nuove prospettive nella ricerca verdiana, 49–56. For the documentary evidence pertaining to the following paragraphs, see the introduction to the critical edition, as well as Conati, La bottega and Budden, The Operas of Verdi, 1:477–87.

  7. The history of Stiffelio is considered in full in the introduction to Verdi, Stiffelio, ed. Hansell.

  8. Letter to Carlo Marzari of 14 December 1850, printed in Conati, La bottega, 232–33.

  9. The relevant passage from this letter is printed in Conati, La bottega, 251.

  10. Letter of 18 December 1886, printed in Carteggio Verdi–Boito, ed. Medici and Conati, 1:118.

  11. Among important writings are Ingarden, The Work of Music and the Problem of Its Identity; Goodman, Languages of Art; and Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. For a recent collection of essays, see Talbot, The Musical Work.

  12. This is decidedly not the case with every work by Verdi: often there are multiple sources providing information, not simply the basic autograph manuscript. But I have chosen Rigoletto as an example here precisely because it represents the problem in an extreme form.

  13. Letter of 14 January 1851, printed in Conati, La bottega, 243–44.

  14. The passage is found in the critical edition in the Introduzione (N. 2), at mm. 389–393, on pp. 34–35.

  15. In some cases Verdi uses a shorthand, indicating that one part should be derived from another.

  16. The passage is found in the critical edition in the Scena ed Aria Duca (N. 8), at mm. 89–93, on p. 168.

  17. I have reflected on some of these matters in “Editorial Theory, Musical Editions, Performance.”

  18. The manuscript is discussed in the preface to Rossini, La gazzetta, ed. Gossett and Scipioni, xl. On Noseda and his collection, see Moreni, Vita musicale a Milano 1837–1866.

  19. The Bologna manuscript (UU 5) also bore what should have been an authoritative attestation, “Full score, partly autograph, of the Stabat Mater, entrusted in deposit to the city [of Bologna] by the family of the Marchesi Bevilacqua.” The Bevilacquas were an important Bolognese family, and Gherardo Bevilacqua Aldobrandini was a cl
ose friend of Rossini’s who worked with the composer on librettos for Adina and Eduardo e Cristina, and even provided some verses for Semiramide. See the prefaces to the critical editions of Adina (xxvii–xxxi) and Semiramide (xxx–xxxi).

  20. I reported my findings in 1968 in “Rossini in Naples.”

  21. To Rossini scholars, Michotte is primarily known for his two books of memoirs, Souvenirs personnels: La Visite de R. Wagner à Rossini (Paris 1860), and Souvenirs: Une Soirée chez Rossini à Beau-Séjour (Passy). For translations, see Weinstock, Richard Wagner’s Visit to Rossini (Paris 1860) and An Evening at Rossini’s in Beau-Séjour (Passy) 1858 by Edmond Michotte. For bibliographical information about the Rossini literature, see the invaluable work of Gallo, Gioachino Rossini.

  22. The verso of this page, with the dedication to Vaëz, is reproduced in Gossett, “Rossini in Naples,” facing 331.

  23. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, 1:262–63.

  24. See Lawton and Rosen, “Verdi’s Non-definitive Revisions,” 206–7 (English) and 236–37 (Italian). For a fuller discussion of the Attila romanza, consult Gossett, “A New Romanza for Attila.”

  25. See Seebass, Musikhandschriften in Basel aus verschiedenen Sammlungen, item no. 61. At the time, the aria was in the collection of the widow of A. Wilhelm. Its present whereabouts are unknown.

  26. Azevedo, G. Rossini, 259. On the other hand, we recently learned that the composer’s autograph manuscript of the third-act finale of Moïse is found in the collection of the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in Berlin.

  27. See Gossett, “Der kompositorische Prozeß,” 175–76. Verdi apparently gave this seven-page sketch for the “Grande scène de la dégradation” to Gilbert-Louis Duprez, the tenor for whom the scene was written.

  28. Fortunately the existence of the microfilm made it possible for Rebecca Harris-Warrick to prepare the critical edition of La Favorite, but many matters will remain unclear until the autograph itself resurfaces.

  29. See the Christie’s catalogue for its sale of 4 April 1979, under lot no. 136.

  30. See Rossini, Quelques Riens pour album, ed. Tartak.