Opera Chic

Warming-up with Carlo Maria Giulini

This month of all months, OC chose to visit her state-side, tri-state family and spent the last week bundled in Givency sable, reading Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch by firelight while plowing through rapidly-defrosting refrigerators, listening to Hurricane Sandy's electricity-sucking aftermath on a battery-powered radio and reintroducing herself to a well-loved Schirmer library on her Steinway & Sons baby grand -- like ye olde timey days when women made curtains from last season's tailleur and men set their watches to passing trains.

Now that we're back online (and sending heat, internet, cable, hot water, light and refrigerated-food-filled thoughts to our less-fortunate tri-staters), we want to share this gem of our most revered Carlo Maria Giulini losing his sh*t in a way that makes us thankful for the transcendent powers of Beethoven's Ninth. Tl;dr-ers can fast forward to 3:40. Keep your handkerchiefs handy.

He Ain't Even Gotta Try To Put The Mac On: Beethoven's Fifth, Carlo Maria Giulini, LA Phil

"Serving Genius", Carlo Maria Giulini's Bio

 

 Tim Mangan alerts us that the Carlo Maria Giulini biography, "Serving Genius", by Thomas D. Saler, is coming out this month.

Poor Giulini :-( :-(((

On a recent stop at the ginormous Los Angeles Virgin Megastore on Sunset Boulevard, a perusal of the Classical music section made Opera Chic take a ride on the lollercoaster --where she lolled and then cried...and then lolled again.

Oh noes! The team at Virign have a Republican agenda. GO TEAM RUDY! YAY 4 STUPID!!!

Giulini In Orange County: Tim Mangan To The Rescue

Mad props to the gentleman that is Tim Mangan, OC Register critic, musicologist, blogger, and fellow Giulini fan, who after enduring with great kindness Opera Chic's pestering has been so nice that he reposted a most precious document, his interview with maestro Carlo Maria Giulini for the late great conductor's 90th birthday in 2004.

The gorgeous interview is here.

Our post from earlier today is here.

Two Years Without Carlo Maria Giulini

One thing about Milan that always surprises Opera Chic, is that this is a city of ghosts.

And in Opera Chic's own neighborhood, it's especially a city of the ghosts of great musicians.

Walking down the via San Marco, you see the church of San Marco where Giuseppe Verdi conducted the first performance of his Requiem, and in the monastery of that church almost a hundred years earlier young Mozart had stayed with his father, and had written the (now lost) aria Misero Tu Non Sei (a few years later, in Milan, he would write and perform for the first time Exsultate Jubilate).

A few blocks from San Marco church to the right and you walk down via Borgonuovo to find the Grand Hotel Et De Milan, where Verdi -- who would take long strolls each morning walking up and down via Manzoni -- wrote parts of Otello and most of Falstaff (his desk is still in that suite) and where he died in 1901, the surrounding streets paved with hay so that the carriages would not make too much noise, disturbing the last days of the maestro.

It's the same hotel where, the following year, Enrico Caruso had his first recording session; and where Rudolf Nureyev loved to stay during his la Scala engagements.

If instead you walk left from San Marco, it's just three blocks and you find yourself in front of the building where Giacomo Puccini lived and finished Edgar and wrote Boheme and Manon Lescaut and Tosca. Three blocks south from there and you arrive to Arrigo Boito's house, where he used to greet unannounced visitors who had sneaked through the doorman's post by pointing a shotgun in their faces. It's nice to picture those poor saps who just wanted to pitch an idea to the great, cranky poet run down the stairs and breathlessly find refuge in the via Montebello.

From the church of San Marco it's only a ten minute walk north -- maybe less -- to reach Cimitero Monumentale, the cemetery where Boito and Francesco Maria Piave and Toscanini and Vladimir Horowitz and Catalani and Amilcare Ponchielli and -- for a brief period before being moved in the little church in the home for the elderly he built with his own funds, Verdi himself -- all rest.

But Opera Chic's favorite ghost is Carlo Maria Giulini's: the stories that Opera Chic's Milan friends and neighbors often tell, that the maestro, tall and handsome to the very end, always in a three-piece suit, double-breasted chalk-stripe charcoal-grey overcoat and black fedora in the winters, used to walk around the streets of Brera, a few steps from la Scala and his own apartment, often to go to Church, and politely acknowledge a "buonasera, maestro" from a particularly bold passerby, or respond with a smile of recognition to a friendly nod from people who saw him during his passeggiata, all proud of their concittadino.

It seems incredible that it's been already two years exactly today since Carlo Maria Giulini died, isn't it?

And because we don't really want to be sad today, because today at Opera Chic is a all-Giulini-CDs day, in memory of that humble giant of classical music, we'd like to point out that, among his countless achievements, one of the greatest conductors of all time also managed to tame, of all people, Kathleen Battle (and oh how we love to hear Battle anecdotes):

Once, during a rehearsal with soprano Kathleen Battle, he left the podium and stood a few inches away from her face,"Your singing is very beautiful, but your acting is too human," he said quietly. He proceeded to conduct her from a distance of six inches, and she sang like the angel he expected.

Grazie Maestro.

***************************

Update

Reader "rompicolleone" (who's anything but) has this fantastic personal anecdote in the comments:

The month I spent playing Falstaff with Giulini in Florence was like working with God. Talk about concentration and intention! --but also an incredibly profound love and respect for the music. During a rehearsal he stopped once, pointed to a guy a few rows in front of me, and sternly said, "Suona meglio!" I swear to God if it had been me, I would have left the rehearsal and thrown my instrument into the Arno, basta, finito. Before each performance, before a note had been played, the Florentines gave him a standing ovation as he entered the pit. A friend in the LA Phil told of one of his friends auditioning for the orch during Giulini's time there. After the guy played, Giulini leaned over to my friend and asked, "Is he a good person?" "Oh yes!" my friend answered, and with that, Giulinli let him in the orchestra.

Say It Aloud: Giulini = Teh Best

Words of wisdom from the Dallas Morning News on the Giulini Royal Opera House Don Carlo:

       Mr. Giulini caught the elegance and grandeur of this score as no other conductor ever has.

Right awn!

Stabat Donkey Kong: aka, A Rossinian WTF

Opera Chic buddy & Scala GM Stéphane Lissner, with his magnificent obsession for dress codes, would have pewpd his tailormade Frenchypants.

Because Opera Chic was watching an amazing Carlo Maria Giulini 1981 concert -- OC has for Maestro Giulini the kind of devotion that Catholics have for saints -- a truly transcendent Stabat Mater (Rossini), with the beloved maestro tall and gaunt and gawky and so handsome with his superlong arms, soaring with the music and singing along -- as he liked to do, a habit that would baffle us if it were not him -- with the huge Philharmonia chorus that obviously worshipped him (as they should btw).

And then the director cut to the audience & we saw the infidel:

a super-nerdy d00d in muttonchops & a Donkey Kong or Magilla Gorilla* or whatever T-SHIRT!!! "Prince Alberts"?

*(Opera Chic wasn't even born back then, giv it a rest)

Why oh why???!!!

For reals, man, you're getting out of the house to go listen to the greatest Stabat Mater like, ev4r -- couldn't you wear something really formal like a shirt? Shoes, even? (he was clearly wearing sandals). And LEAVE THAT BONG AT HOME!

Anyway: the music was otherworldy, and a radiant Katia Ricciarelli (OC is a fan) totally looked like a plumper happier Hannah Schygulla without the creepy Fassbinder moments.

And Giulini, well, Giulini...

A++++ WOULD WATCH /LISTEN TO AGAIN!!! AN ASSET!!!

i am teh highlander. there can only be one. Carlo Maria Giulini Still RulZ Milan

(If you are looking for the latest-breaking Teatro alla Scala news, go here  and here for the most recent thang: Robert Carsen's production of Lenny's Candide ousted from its future billing at Teatro alla Scala.)

My dear lovely readers, how I've missed you all! I shall nev4r abandon you again!

This Christmas holiday, Opera Chic found herself among gracious company in Cortina, Italy, high on the fresh and frigid Dolomite air, wrapped in the warmest of warm M. Bardelli cashmere, and practicing her (horribly rusty) German.

I hope that everyone's holiday wishes came true and you were all treated to a lovely end-of-the-year orgy of food and gifts. My Xmas gifts were pretty :coal: because I got a wii, an xbox 360 *and* a ps3. ha ha j/k.

One of my actual, IRL, for real gifts was the Fall CD release (from BBC Legends) of Giulini's London Philharmonic performances of Hindemith, Dvorak, and Beethoven. After just one listen, it was apparent that Giulini successfully washed each performance in that dark, creamy, emo sound that only he was capable of mastering. And while I enjoy Giulini's embrace of symphony, I am more about his opera, and his recordings get heavy rotation in the Opera Chic house. Favorites? Giulini's 1961 EMI Le Nozze di Figaro with Taddei, Moffo, Schwarzkopf, and Cappuccilli; his 1955 EMI Live La Traviata with Callas and Di Stefano; and his 1982 Deutsche Grammophon Live Falstaff with Bruson, Nucci, and Ricciarelli.

Giulini's presence remains palpable throughout Milan (especially nella zona where I live, which is coincidentally where Giulini himself lived for decades), and his reputation as an enormously talented and distinguished gentleman continues. After Giulini retired, he devoted his leisure time to instructing the young musicians of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, which is comprised of the student orchestra that hails from Conservatorio di Milano. He doted on them sweetly with rehearsals and master classes. His care towards nurturing the students was lauded and recognized.

One of the stories from the witnesses who were with Giulini during his later years is that during his very last rehearsal with the laVerdi Orchestra (before he passed away in the summer of 2005), he took more than twenty minutes to individually tune each players' instrument within the orchestra. Aside from watching Barenboim with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (I was at the September 1, 2006 concerto at La Scala, where Barenboim individually congratulated each and every player for close to fifteen minutes during the final applause), there is no other conductor that doted so lovingly and with such great patience on their orchestra.

Giulini perpetuates an honorable legacy throughout the music scene in Milan, where he has been duly sanctified; and if you have the occasion to go to Auditorium di Milano, you can find in the lobby, both his first violin (it's so tiny!), along with one of his treasured batons that he donated (and then came back to the foundation via auction) to the Auditorium. Here's an image of his baton from the lobby, which I took almost one year ago, while I was in attendance of the Capodanno concerto at Auditorium on Largo Gustav Mahler for the Blomstedt Beethoven's Ninth.

Giulini wrote: Ho sempre avuto un legame affettivo e scaramantico con le mie bacchette. Ne ho possedute poche, ma le ho custodite con grande cura ed attenzione. Questa è una di esse.

Ne faccio dono all’Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi con l’augurio di continuare l’importante lavoro di divulgazione musicale in questa Città e nel mondo.

C M Giulini, Marzo 2004

Translation: I have always had a link of love/affection towards my batons, as well as attributing to them the power of lucky charms. I have only had a small amount [of batons], but I have kept them each with great care and attention. This is one of those.

I give it to the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi with the wish that they continue the important work of spreading music in both this city and in the world.

C M Giulini, Marzo 2004

How kewl is that? Here is a picture of his violin, but the quality is pretty shady. But nevermind that...I will be returning to Auditorium this upcoming Capodanno concerto to hear Maestro Slatkin conduct Beethoven's Ninth, and will snap a better picture...

Anyway, before I left Milan for the holiday, I made a trek down to the Teatro alla Scala bookstore, and witnessed that lo spirito musicale of Giulini still thrives.

The La Scala bookstore contains two large albums, filled with 8x10 glossy press-shots of the musical geniuses that have graced the La Scala stage, that one can buy and frame. Between the portfolios, filled with popular artists, conductors, and ballet dancers, there remained only one photograph that had been sold out. That glossy was the capture of Maestro Carlo Maria Giulini. FINITA!

Another marvelous trinket this holiday season was a gift subscription to Classica satellite channel so during this long, grey, cold winter, I can watch awesome things on the plasma. Already, the channel is teh r0x0r.

But they've been looping Nikolaus Harnoncourt's conducting of Nozze di Figaro from earlier this year at the Salzburg Festival, and aside from Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and Anna Netrebko, it's an embarrassing disaster. Tommasini panned it in a NY Times review, as did every music critic in Italy when it ran. And I can bear witness that it really does suck.

Before I embarked on the journey to the heart of the Dolomites, I caught the ending of a HD Renée Fleming holiday special, and she's all decked-out in festive gear. She was singing among a nativity scene, but I was too lazy to check the credits. Here's a screenshot:

Okay, luckily during my holiday, Alagna didn't show up in Milan playing his tiny little violin that weeps canzonette about his low blood pressure and conspiracy theories. I returned to Milan full of frico, crespelle, and stinky truffles. And a new pair of puma kicks to herald a newly-invoked (and much needed) schedule of exercise.