Divas and Scholars

by Philip Gossett

  16. This point has been made effectively by Webster in “Mozart’s Operas and the Myth of Musical Unity.”

  17. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, 2:161.

  18. This transposition is discussed in Gossett, “The Composition of Ernani,” 38–41. All relevant materials are published in Claudio Gallico’s critical edition of the opera.

  19. For a brief treatment of the transpositions in Stiffelio, see Gossett, “New Sources for Stiffelio,” 32–36.

  20. The compositional history of the Scena e Preghiera Lina is analyzed fully in Hansell, “Compositional Techniques in Stiffelio, 52–59. For further information, see Hansell’s critical edition of the opera.

  21. According to Lawton and Rosen, in “Verdi’s Non-definitive Revisions,” 197–98 and 230–31, this letter was first cited by Radiciotti, “Giuseppe Verdi a Senigallia.” See also Chusid, A Catalog of Verdi’s Operas, 101.

  22. As Smart writes: “it seems likely that the problem was not simply a higher tessitura, but the fact that the Lombardi cabaletta requires the soprano to sing in this high range loudly and with considerable force over a sustained period, while what Frezzolini excelled in was delicate, pianissimo high notes” (“Verdi Sings Erminia Frezzolini,” 22, note 17). It remains noteworthy, however, that in his letter Verdi refers exclusively to the top of her register.

  23. This discussion of keys and transpositions should not blind us to the realization that no one in Europe or the United States can read the text of this scene today with indifference.

  24. Thus, I cannot agree with Powers that in a case like this one Verdi has decided “for one or another reason to allow the passage in question to participate in the web of tonalities in a different manner, but not one that is random or without tonally expressive implications” (“One Halfstep at a Time,” 164). However clever the music analyst might be in inventing an explanation, Occam’s razor tells us that the composer simply set aside tonal matters here in favor of considerations that—at a particular moment—seemed to him more important.

  25. For an introduction to Grisi’s life and career, see Forbes, Mario and Grisi. Don Pasquale is discussed on pp. 59ff. Grisi was the soprano of the legendary “Puritani Quartet” at the Théâtre Italien (Grisi, soprano; Giambattista Rubini, tenor; Antonio Tamburini, baritone; Luigi Lablache, bass), the same quartet (with the substitution of Giovanni Mario, Cavaliere de Candia, for Rubini) for which Donizetti composed Don Pasquale. See also the very helpful article by Kaufman, “Giulia Grisi,” with a chronology of her career and a summary of her repertory.

  26. The parallelism with the composer’s earlier L’elisir d’amore (1832), in which the heroine begins her solo within the opera’s introduction by reading aloud, in that case from the story of Tristan and Isolde (“Della crudele Isotta”), has been noted many times.

  27. See my facsimile edition of the autograph manuscript of Don Pasquale; the manuscript is preserved in the Ricordi Archives in Milan.

  28. The letter is mentioned in Johnstone, “Treasure Trove in Gloucester,” esp. 55–56). Let me thank H. Diack Johnstone for bringing his article to my attention.

  29. The practice of interpolating a high note at the end of this cabaletta is discussed in chapter 8.

  30. And I must insist that thirty years of experience in the theater has made clear to me that singers do make demands of this kind frequently, not because of particular characteristics in their vocal production, but specifically to allow them to interpolate a high note.

  31. The four examples listed below can be verified in Bellini’s original autograph manuscript and the pages on which he made his Neapolitan revision in my facsimile edition of Norma.

  32. Bellini, I puritani, ed. Gossett, ff. 23–47 in acts 2–3, and pp. 51–94 in the appendix (the scene starts on p. 51).

  33. See the first volume in the facsimile edition of the autograph manuscript, where the cantabile occupies ff. 57v–64. In a very early issue of the first Ricordi edition of Norma, where the cavatina has the plate number 5904 and occupies pp. 35–50, the cantabile is indeed in the transposed F major.

  34. The evidence is reviewed in Kimbell, Vincenzo Bellini, 10 and 76.

  35. Example 10.3 is derived from Bellini’s notation in his autograph manuscript. See the facsimile edition.

  36. Will Crutchfield informs me that in the materials rented by Kalmus, the parts include the piece in both F major and E major, and he believes that Zinka Milanov sang it in the latter key in at least some of her performances as Norma at the Metropolitan Opera.

  37. It is strange that Bini and Commons, in their excellent treatment of the initial performances of Lucia in Le prime rappresentazioni delle opere di Donizetti nella stampa coeva, 513–32, make no reference to these transpositions; nor do they treat Donizetti’s own 1839 revision of the opera for Paris as Lucie de Lammermoor. The transpositions are mentioned by Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, 376. While he does not assess their significance, Ashbrook prints an example from “Regnava nel silenzio” in the original key (377). Smart, in “The Silencing of Lucia,” cites the two solo scenes for Lucia in their original keys, but nowhere calls attention to the fact that those keys neither appear in modern editions nor are used on most recordings of the opera. In her critical argument, Smart invokes moments where Donizetti makes precise tonal references in his original keys, but she does not mention that in most performances these tonal references are disguised by the transpositions. Indeed she goes so far to silence the problem that she “corrects” her quotations from McClary’s Feminine Endings, 90–99, making it appear—quite mistakenly—that McClary cites the music in its original keys. Jésus Lopez-Cobos was responsible for editing a version of the opera based on the readings of the autograph manuscript and using the original keys, which he has now conducted for several decades. I am grateful to Maestro Lopez-Cobos for several illuminating conversations about his work.

  38. Gabriele Dotto, who together with Roger Parker is preparing a new critical edition of Lucia di Lammermoor, informs me that in the earliest Neapolitan edition of the opera, published in 1835 by the firm of Girard, the duet for Lucia and Edgardo “Sulla tomba che rinserra” is also transposed down a half step, but this transposition never made its way into later editions of the opera or into the modern performing tradition. Dotto and Parker’s edition was performed for the first time at London’s Covent Garden on 29 November 2003.

  39. The facsimile of the autograph is widely available in major libraries; the manuscript itself today resides in the collection of the Fondazione Donizetti in Bergamo. A copy of the first complete Ricordi edition (plate numbers 10076–10094) is in my collection. Although Ricordi had published excerpts from Lucia by October 1835, the firm did not issue the complete opera until the summer of 1837, confirming Ashbrook’s point that Lucia was not immediately popular after its premiere. See his “Popular Success, the Critics and Fame.”

  40. See Ciarlantini, Giuseppe Persiani e Fanny Tacchinardi, 108–13, as well as the same author’s “Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani.” See also Kaufman, “Giuseppe and Fanny Persiani.”

  41. Although Donizetti’s modification never made it into the Ricordi edition, it does appear in some other sources, and modern performance practice tends to adopt it.

  42. See Ciarlatini, Giuseppe Persiani, 75–76, and “Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani,” 139–41, as well as the list of Fanny’s operatic appearances in Kaufman, “Giuseppe and Fanny Persiani,” 140–41. On the broader problem of aria substitution in Lucia, see Poriss, “A Madwoman’s Choice”; on “Regnava nel silenzio,” see 2–3. What is most remarkable in Poriss’s study is her demonstration that the mad scene itself was often replaced in early performances of Lucia, usually with a composition taken from Donizetti’s Fausta, first performed at the Teatro San Carlo of Naples on 12 January 1832.

  43. Donizetti may have provided yet another variant, substituting a g for the high d, but he may also have made other changes in the following two sixteenth notes, changes not altogether clear from the facs
imile of the autograph manuscript. I trust that the forthcoming critical edition will help clarify the matter.

  44. Although Natalie Dessay used the lower transposition of the mad scene in her debut in the role at Lyric Opera of Chicago in January 2004 (she had earlier sung only Donizetti’s French revision of the opera), she sang “Regnava nel silenzio” in its original key with no apparent difficulty.

  45. The transposition, which—as Gabriele Dotto informs me—is found in the early Girard Neapolitan print, is independent of Donizetti’s original instrumentation of the mad scene with a solo for “armonico” or glass harmonica, which he changed in his autograph manuscript to a flute, already for the original performances. This problem in the instrumentation of the mad scene will be discussed in chapter 12.

  46. There is no hint of the transposition in Donizetti’s autograph. Nonetheless, even taking into account the transposition, there are very few errors in the vocal line in printed editions, except for the measure immediately preceding Donizetti’s written-out cadenza to the cantabile. For that measure, modern editions distrust Donizetti’s notation, in which Lucia begins a third below the flute, then crosses over the flute line to conclude a third above. In its place, these editions substitute a more banal melodic line that keeps the vocal line strictly a third below the flute. Two measures earlier, where the flute and voice begin to come together in thirds and sixths, Donizetti actually wrote in his autograph, “If [the singer] does not want to be united with the flute, it is possible to stop the flute and continue a piacere.” Needless to say, this phrase has never made its way into printed editions of the opera!

  47. Rather than being an adjustment for the soprano, this transposition may have reflected the particularly high tessitura for the baritone in the original key. Even in comparison with Enrico’s solo in the introduction, the duet in A major lies in the baritonal stratosphere. And, of course, should Enrico wish to conclude the duet by ascending with Lucia to a high note at the end of the cabaletta, high g, in the transposed version, is one thing, high a quite another!

  48. Dotto, in a private communication, has suggested that the transpositions may have been intended only for salon usage, not for the theater. Yet ornamentation for Lucia’s solos is present in the album of the English singer Adelaide Kemble, and all of it is in the lower keys.

  49. The autograph manuscript is housed in the Archivio Ricordi of Milan, now deposited at the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense. According to Lippmann, in Adamo and Lippmann, Vincenzo Bellini, 540, the manuscript was issued in facsimile by the Reale Accademia d’Italia in Rome in 1934, but copies are difficult to find.

  50. See Giazotto, Maria Malibran, 198.

  51. See Graziano, Cinderella (1831) adapted by M. Rophino Lacy from Gioacchino Rossini’s “La Cenerentola.” See also Rogers, “Cenerentola a Londra.”

  52. Fragments from three letters supposedly written to Florimo by Bellini from London were published by Florimo. They are reprinted in Cambi, Bellini: Epistolario, 363–66. Cambi refers to them as being “of doubtful authenticity.” The letter quoted here is in Florimo, Bellini: Memorie e lettere, 137–39, where it is specifically referred to as an “anecdote derived from a Bellini letter” and is not included in the section of the book devoted to actual letters. The words “Ah! m’abbraccia!” are part of Amina’s final cabaletta, “Ah! non giunge uman pensiero.”

  53. The most judicious and yet devastating presentation of the evidence is by the distinguished historian John Rosselli, in The Life of Bellini. On Florimo’s forgeries, see 6–13; on the Malibran incident, 9–10.

  54. Let me thank Emanuele Senici, who, on the occasion of a conference concerning Bellini held at the Accademia Chigiana of Siena in May 2000, where we both presented papers, kindly shared with me some of his research into the transpositions for La sonnambula, including information about this early Boosey print. His essay is now available as “Per una biografia musicale di Amina,” in Della Seta and Ricciardi, Vincenzo Bellini, 297–314.

  55. There is a considerable literature about Rubini. A good point of departure is Brewer, “Il cigno di Romano—Giovan Battista Rubini,” which includes a summary of his repertory and extensive information about his performing career, as well as Gara, Giovan Battista Rubini nel centenario della morte. See also Huber, “Giovanni Battista Rubini als Donizetti-Interpret,” and Johnson, “Donizetti’s First ‘Affare di Parigi,’ ” esp. 340–42.

  56. I examined a copy of this vocal score in the library at the “Santa Cecilia” Conservatory in Rome.

  57. Senici (“Per una biografia musicale di Amina,” 305) identified only one vocal score that diverged from this publishing tradition; Boosey, in 1849, printed both pieces in their original tonalities.

  58. See the composer’s letter to Florimo of 24 October 1834 (Cambi, Bellini: Epistolario, 462), another document that must be treated with great caution: “To give him [Rubini] greater mastery of his part, I lowered his cavatina from B major to A major.” Even if Rubini’s voice had changed since Bellini had written the part of Elvino specifically for the tenor, the Ricordi edition had already lowered the piece to A major, so that bringing it to A major was neither novel nor significant. There is no indication in the letter, furthermore, whether Bellini personally made revisions or merely handed the aria to a copyist with instructions to bring the piece down.

  59. Of course, it depends on which kind of tenor and using what kind of vocal technique. Excluding the highest of the high Rubini notes, like the infamous high f in I puritani, a singer such as Juan Diego Flórez could sing with relative ease most of this music at its original pitch level. The tessitura, after all, is rarely higher than most of the music Rossini wrote for Giovanni David during the 1810s and early 1820s in Naples, a repertory that Flórez has mastered.

  60. On f. 32v of his autograph manuscript, Bellini wrote, “Rec. e Cav. Elvino”; and on f. 48r, at the beginning of the next composition (which Bellini referred to in a letter as “la sortita di Rodolfo”), he wrote, “Dopo la Cavatina d’Elvino.” The indication “Duetto” is found already in the first Ricordi vocal score, prepared during the summer of 1831 (see p. 38, pl. no. 5275, “Rec. e Duetto”), and that title continues to appear in all later Ricordi vocal scores until the present. Too many critics have been fooled, including Rosselli, The Life of Bellini, 85–86.

  61. In the cantabile of “Prendi: l’anel ti dono,” the voices come together in sixths at “Caro/a! dal dì che univa,” the melody sung by Elvino, with Amina a sixth above. Senici (“Per una biografia musicale di Amina,” 37–38) has documented how singers, including Maria Callas, frequently changed the design by moving Elvino down a third (hence, an octave below the part originally written for Amina), while Amina sang Elvino’s part an octave higher. The result was a series of tenths, with a considerable distance between the two voices and Amina definitely “on top” in Elvino’s cavatina, an unsatisfactory solution both musically and dramaturgically.

  62. See Cambi, Bellini: Epistolario, 161–65; the reference is to 161. This is an authentic letter, and Cambi verified its contents with Bellini’s autograph manuscript in the Library of the Conservatorio di Musica “S. Pietro a Majella.”

  63. For an astute analysis of the opera, its sources, and its singers, see Lippmann, “Su ‘La Straniera’ di Bellini.”

  64. The original text of the letter is found in Cambi, “Bellini: Un pacchetto di autografi.”

  65. Milan, Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica “G. Verdi,” Ms. 20: this is the manuscript of La straniera reproduced in the Garland series Early Romantic Opera, ed. Gossett.

  66. Example 10.9 is transcribed from vol. 1, p. 315, of the Milanese manuscript, in La straniera, ed. Gossett.

  67. The original version is taken from the modern Ricordi vocal score of La straniera; the Rubini version is transcribed from the manuscript, vol. 2, p. 113, of La straniera, ed. Gossett.

  68. In a concert performance of La straniera on 7 February 1993, with the Opera Orchestra of New York under the baton of Ev
e Queler, Gregory Kunde performed the role of Arturo in the Rubini version. Although most attention was focused on the Straniera herself, a young Renée Fleming, Kunde managed his role in what Bernard Holland, reviewing the performance for the New York Times, described as “a calm control and a musical forthrightness in a part that weightier modern tenors might have approached with some terror.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  1. The recording was issued in 1985 by Deutsche Grammophon, 415316–1.

  2. Thus, Alan Blyth in the pages of Gramophon (December 1985), consulted online at http://www.tenorissimo.com/domingo/Articles/cdreviews2.htm: “All the singers here have made a valiant attempt to sing idiomatic French but none, I feel, Domingo possibly excepted, actually makes much of the language.” There is similar criticism by William Huck in the pages of the Opera Quarterly, 5, nos. 2–3 (1987), 234: “It must be noted that the ‘Frenchness’ of this recording is severely impaired because Abbado’s singers, uniformly more accustomed to singing in Italian, rarely use the French text dramatically.”

  3. Crutchfield, “Crutchfield at Large.” The following paragraphs are adapted from my study “Critical Editions and Performance.”

  4. The passage is in the Aria Manrico (N. 11) at 294; see also the critical commentary, 93 (note 70–72).

  5. Crutchfield was responding to an article by John Rockwell that had recently attacked the stereotypical opera fan for glorifying “idiot sound.”

  6. I quote this interchange in the translation from Smith’s The Tenth Muse, 162–63. Salieri’s divertimento teatrale had its premiere at Vienna, in the Orangerie of Schönbrunn Palace, on 7 February 1786 on the same occasion as Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor. For a full discussion of the opera, see Rice, Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera, 376–84.

  7. This incident is related in chapter 7 in the subsection “Practical conditions of modern performance.”

  8. For a precise timetable, see my introductory essay to the facsimile of Rossini’s autograph manuscript, 16–19 (English), 68–72 (Italian)