How lucky for O.C. that she didn’t have to travel back
in time and enroll herself in college again just to hear the world’s foremost expert
on Italian opera, Dr. Philip Gossett (Jr, jr) do his thang. So no time travel
in the DeLorean back to University of Chicago, where Uncle Phil currently lectures as the Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor of Music…that is, when
he’s not traveling around the world, researching centuries-old scores in
guarded tombs, compiling critical editions -- we like to call him the Indiana Jones of classical music. And with the possible exception of the latest issue of Vogue Nippon, of Lorenzo Da Ponte's Memorie, and Hans Werner Henze's autobiography, there's no book more often present at Opera Chic's bedside table than Gossett's "Divas
& Scholars".
Milan’s
Conservatorio di musica “G. Verdi” (you know, the ones who didn't accept young Giuseppe because he had apparently flunked his admission test, a slight he never ever forgave, and probably rightly so) wooed the elusive Herr Doktor as oratore for their weekend-long conference, which is the fourth & final
stop of a 6-month touring conference, organized for the 150th anniversary
of Giacomo Puccini’s birthday. The conference circuit spanned from Milan (where he studied and lived for many years and worked) to Lucca (where he was born) to Torre del Lago (where
he lived & built his villa), and brought in experts from every field to
discuss all things Puccini. Philip Gossett treated the audience to a hour-long
discussion, all in Italian language, on his vast work in the critical editions of
Puccini’s manuscripts.
With a Steinway to his back, Gossett highlighted
many musical examples by sight-reading passages with a theatrical flair. Gossett explained all the variables that go into common, accepted versions of scores being passed around, and how even stylistically, alterations to the original scores were done simply to ease certain interpretations, to adapt them into something that's generally considered more agreeable to the ear. One cool example that particularly caught OC's attention? In the opening notes of Puccini's Madame Butterfly overture, for example, the composer noted the violins with much less connectivity and legato, diverse from the way we've come to know it today.
Puccini had different phrasing, implementing a disconnected, staccato notation, which carried a much heavier, drowsier sense -- a sense of doom, of impending disaster. And frankly more modern -- much less "classical" -- to our 21st Century ears. But the legato simply was the way it was marked in the Ricordi version, and thus becomes the standard.
OC deems Philip Gossett a scholar worthy
of his rock star status, as he wooed the audience and panel alike. After his presentation,
he fielded a spontaneous Q&A session, also in Italian language. Young and
old stepped up to the microphone, praising the doctor for his work.
Another highlight of the conference was the work
of Ms. Gabriella Biagi Ravenni, President of Centro studi Giacomo Puccini, who
displayed many of Puccini’s handwritten letters to his family, which were
written in a very curious style. Young Puccini was terribly poor -- a Bohemian, really -- and therefore would only buy postcards to
write to his family so he could save on postage rates. Because of space
confinements, he would actually write his letters in two directions:
first in a normal horizontal way as this post is written, but then he
would write over it vertically.
