Opera Chic

Mascagni Will Knock You Out: Raging Bull's Intermezzo

Probably, the best use of opera in a movie, ever (and on Blu-Ray, Raging Bull is 57% off)

Gordon Willis On The Godfather Films As "Gangster Operas"

"I would not classify The Godfathers as gangster movies... more like gangster operas, if you will".

Maestro of cinematography Gordon Willis shares his insights in a rare interview, in Splice Today.

As amazing as The Godfather series -- and Willis's work in it -- is, Opera Chic's favorite use of an opera piece in the movies is probably Scorsese's in the opening sequence of his black and white epic poem on human brutality, Raging Bull, Michael Chapman -- another maestro -- director of photography.

Mariss Jansons K.O.s The Snobs

Give it up for the great maestro Mariss Jansons, who last night amazed la Scala with his Bayerischen Rundfunks, aka "The Fieldmarshals Of Funk" (j/k), in a program that boasted 
Also sprach Zarathustra, the Tristan prelude, and Bartok's Miracolous Mandarin.

But the coolest part is that, as an hommage to Italy, he also chose -- as a surprise -- the Intermezzo from our beloved Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, horrifying the many snobs here who consider Mascagni, with Cilea, too "popular", too "lowbrow", too "crude" -- when, in fact, Mascagni and Cilea are obviously anything but (I mean, Herbie Von Karajan was one of many famous huge Mascagni fans).

And also, the heartbreaking Intermezzo represents the best use of opera by a film director, like, evar.

Well done sir!

Mascagni Conducts Mascagni: "The Most Direct Possible Interpretation Of My Opera"

A marvelous friend once related to Opera Chic a great Karajan anecdote: once, a clueless acquaintance had had the bra$$ ball$ to point out to Karajan how his choice of tempi for Cavalleria Rusticana had been a bit -- surprisingly -- on the slow side.

With all the sneering  contempt the great maestro was capable of (ie, an awful lot), he explained like you would do to a developmentally challenged three year old that he had followed Mascagni's own tempi.

Because, thank goodness, some performances conducted by Mascagni remain to this day: our good friends at mascagni.org, an indispensable, repeat, indispensable online resource for anyone interested in the great underrated composer, point us to a series of delicious little things.

Let's see:

Mascagni conducts Cavalleria, on CD

^

Mascagni conducts L'Amico Fritz, that underrated masterpiece of subtlelty.

^

Little gift to our San Francisco readers: mp3 page of Un Pensiero a San Francisco, from 1903, with scores: it's a little piece, a thank-you note written by the Maestro himself to thank the city for a warm welcome (testament, also, to that great city's historically great taste in music).

And, to quote the Maestro's own words on his conducting his works, here's a rare speech from 1938: "The Most Direct Possible Interpretation Of My Opera", mp3 and transcript and photos.

On the list: From the extensive library at the Opera Chic Headquarters

A recent bout of sickness enabled Opera Chic to peruse her ginormous library, and rediscover some of the old treasures that were optimistically bought, and unfortunately shelved before reading, when hectic social calendars ensued. Nevertheless, they brought me necessary diversion from the bronchial cough that settled in my Mimi-esque lungs. oh sweet lovely books of myne u nevar let me down ;__;

First was "Pietro Mascagni and His Operas," by Alan Mallach; Northeastern University Press, 2002. It is a combination of epistolary exchanges weaved into a biography. Mallach implemented a generous plucking of the 4,200 letters between Mascagni and Anna Lolli, his mistress for more than thirty years, which provided a portrait of a "flamboyant, combative, and emotional man". Well, duh. He's writing to his frikking mistress! Here's an excerpt: “Mia Annuccia: Returned to Milan. Hung out with The Duce today, but instead of discussing The Beast of Berlin's invasion of Poland, all he wanted to talk about was a new recipe he found for filetto ai mirtilli. Super lame. We dined on manzo in salsa verde, and some of the parsley got stuck in his front teeth halfway through the meal...but I didn't tell him. heh heh heh." Looks like someone needs a brush-up on their translations skills, eh? O__O

Next to tackle is, "Henri Duparc: Complete Songs for Voice and Piano"; Dover Publications, 1995. The sheetmusic consists of sixteen songs and one duet (La fuite) set to works by Goethe, Gautier, and Baudelaire. Included are "songs of love and regret, of soulful reflection and protest, of hope and flight and resignation." Whoa, hay...slow down there buddy. This is all a little to emo for my blood. It will be a challenge to suffuse it with a little OC-flava, but I think I'm up to task. 

Lastly, my biggest challenge (in Italian) is another epistolary exchange, "Gino Marinuzzi: Tema con Variazioni; Epistolario Artistico di un Grande Direttore D'Orchestra," from Mondadori, 1995. This book divulges the letters between conductor Gino Marinuzzi and his friends, family, and various theaters. Wish me luck with this monster. ::rawr::

If anyone has read a note-worthy lol, music-minded novel/essay/flava of the month/etc, please bring it to my attention!! "Reading is FUNdamental"! [tia]...no stupid jokes like omg u need to sit down and memorize the New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians stat becuz ur musicology is teh suck plz no thnx bi...[tia]

"Mid-Mascagni": Because Being A Genius Means Others Will Have To Taste Teh Haterade

The fine folks at mascagni.org present, available today for the first time in an English translation, the Poetry and Music: Pietro Mascagni's Parisina essay by Alessandro Rizzacasa.

From Section 3, "The Attitude of the Critics":

The musician from Livorno is still not talked about according to autonomous evaluation criteria, but still according to old ideas which are quite unfortunately reiterated ad nauseam and used like a worn sock. Important names – and the situation is serious just for this reason - are still relying on these ideas today, making it even easier to perpetuate critical opinions which are more than out of date. For example, the constant allusion, still made in recent publications, to the "verismo" of Mascagni, when talking about any of his compositions, is the measure of the superficiality with which the matter is treated. It ignores that it has been largely shown that the so-called "verismo" period was in fact very brief and that the characterization of this period presents notable difficulties to the point where it appears, after a serious analysis, extremely ambiguous. It ignores or, even worse, it pretends to ignore, that the protagonists of "verismo", with Mascagni at the helm, diverged from it quite rapidly. It does not take into account at all that their artistic production has largely been under the influence of the extremely various and powerful cultural climates that followed each other with increasing frequency since the last century. In the case of Mascagni, this is instead interpreted according to the old idea that his changes of direction were subordinated to a sort of obstinate search to renew the success of Cavalleria. Massimo Mila had this concept of Mascagni over forty years ago. If we used greater speculative reason, instead of constantly playing the same disc that repeats opinions formulated in cultural conditions light-years away from us, we would reach conclusions as provocative, but at least they would be supported by the courage of the argumentation. Or we would realize that the change of the direction of these composers in fact reflected a superior capacity to absorb the artistic needs that appeared around them and that imposed themselves to the times

This is particularly satisfying for those of us who:

a) Have a huge, huge crush on Mascagni's beautiful music

b) Think that Parisina is probably his (forgotten) masterpiece

c) Usually roffle whenever we read something about Gian Carlo Menotti and we run into the famous "mid-Mascagni" quote, a Stravinskyan slur hurled against poor GCM, a big big thing for those hatin on the Livornese composer -- as if, you know, "mid-Larry Bird" were somehow a bad thing to say about a NBA player (because we know Bird couldn't jump couldn't shoot etc, lolz).

For her understanding of Cavalleria Rusticana, Opera Chic owes a huge debt to two essential Mascagni conductors: the modern approach is all Gianandrea Gavazzeni's (CR seen as Art Nouveau artifact, a refined popular gem), and the even trickier, oldskool approach is Riccardo Muti's (CR as  masterpiece of precision and clarity, barging ahead through electric shocks of action).

In closing: suk it h8rz lol

Licitra @ the Met: Uno alla volta, per carità!

In a "classic double bill" (yahokrite), Salvatore Licitra was both Turiddu and Canio at the Met the other night. Opera Chic is ambivalent about Licitra (say "lee-CHEE- tra," like cheese rofl): his Cavaradossi at La Scala in 2000 made her  think omg we have finally, oh Lord yes, FINALLY found another Di Stefano omg. Then, unfortunately, he lost his way, and as of today he's just a pro with  some great qualities who didn't study enough. But we'll always have <strike>Paris</strike> that Tosca.

vvvvvupdatevvvvv

The New York Times reports here.

<:.[ im c criing pagliaccio <:.[

Alagna's Replacement (NOT FRACC-OMBI)

When he left Teatro alla Scala's stage in a huff because the loggionisti had dared boo him, Roberto Alagna was replaced (in supercrazy circumstances that Opera Chic described here) by tenor Antonello Palombi.

Now that the Wiener Staatsoper has not agreed to enable the tenor's crazy cross-over plan (travelling to Sanremo, close to the Italian/French border, on the day before his Manon la prima in Vienna, to take part in super lame Sanremo pop music festival), Opera Chic is honored to announce thet Roberto Alagna's replacement in Sanremo will be...

PIERO MAZZOCCHETTI!

WHO?

Exactly...

A 28-year-old Italian singer unknown here, but apparently popular among the Italian immigrant community in Germany, Mazzocchetti will sing Schiavo d'Amore (aka "Slave to Love"), the very song that Sanremo General Manager and MC, Pippo Baudo, had commissioned via two Italian songwriters specifically for Roberto Alagna.

Let's have a listen to Alagna's replacement, shall we?

NO U

U R TEH SUPARSTAR!