HANDEL IN PERFORMANCE

To mark the Handel tercentenary SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS, eminent practitioner of Handel on stage, discusses the practical problems of performing his operas in conversation with HAROLD ROSENTHAL.

HAROLD ROSENTHAL: How were you first attracted to Han­del opera?

CHARLES MACKERRAS: The way that so many people with English musical backgrounds were - through the oratorios, and then through the instrumental music. Only much later did it become clear to me that Handelian opera séria could be viable as a dramatic en­tertainment rather than just as music. I'd conducted a great deal of Handel but I'd never worked on an opera on stage before doing Julius Caesar for the ENO.*

H.R.: Did you have doubts as to whether Handel opera was fea­sible in dramatic terms?

C.M.: I'd never thought that it could be staged until I'd seen performances in which they did Handel as I imagine the composer himself thought of it - without trying to send it up, or do it as if it were a play within a play, or change the order of the sequences, or generally dramatise it in a way different from that which the com­poser intended. The operas are of course intensely naive: the good people very, very good and the bad people very, very bad. But Han­del, being a greater composer than all the other opera composers of the time, manages through his music to portray deeper characters than the librettists ever imagined, just as Mozart did two generations later.

H.R.: Are the conventions readily acceptable to an audience in the 1980s, or do you have to compromise?

C.M.: I don't see that they are any more difficult to accept than any other form of non-realistic opera. The exaggerated good, the ex-

aggerated evil of the characters and the way they react are no more unacceptable than many of the characters in a Verdi or Donizetti opera: it all depends oh the way it's put over as to whether it's dramatically effective or not. If you have theatrical animals perform­ing the various roles it will be a dramatic entity, if you have mere puppets just singing the notes and not acting out the words, then it will not impinge upon the audience as drama.

H.R.: How do you get singers today who, after all, have not been brought up in the Handel tradition unless they happen to be British oratorio singers, to acquire Handelian discipline, and how do they react to this kind of formal music?

C.M.: There are now large numbers of English and English-speaking singers who take very readily to the Handelian style and to the style of the "aria" opera.* You said "the discipline" - I think the discipline is something they have to do for themselves. The arias are tremendously taxing whether or not you add ornamentations - they are difficult enough to sing as written. People who try to reconstruct the original performance conditions know that the singers used to improvise freely, particularly in da-capo arias,* and they tend to write out ornaments that often don't sound natural. You've got to have a singer who is adept at ornamentation and able to make it sound as though it is improvised, even though it is not. Perfor­mances of Handel in the early 18th century or of Mozart in the late 18th century were much more informal affairs than they are now, the singers would frequently talk to people in the audience, particu­larly aristocrats - they had much more personal contact and were less concerned with building character than they are today. It's difficult dealing with the "aria" opera today, because modern producers ex­pect singers to perform the same actions exactly in every perfor­mance, while the musicians tend to lay down exactly what kind of ornaments will be sung, what appoggiatura* on which note, and the singers perform them the same way every time. It wasn't done that way in Handel's time.

H.R.: Do you believe in performing the scores in full, or are there times when they should be cut?

C.M.: Many of the long operas can be cut. In festival perfor­mances, of course, there is a stronger case for doing them complete than in a run of performances in a repertory house. (...)

H.R.: I don't know whether you heard Handel performances in the immediate post-war period in Germany, but in your experience how does the German Handelian tradition differ from our own?

C.M.: Where does one start? It is so different. Not to speak of production, but just musically... The idea has always been that the opera-seria style needed an interpretation.

H.R.: With a capital "I"?

C.M.: Yes, and in inverted commas. It needed bringing up to date to make it acceptable. All those words in inverted commas! Ac­ceptable to audiences. The whole opera-seria style, even as applied

by Mozart to works like Idomeneo, Remember the version that Richard Strauss did of Idomeneo: he thought that it needed to be altered, bearbeitet* in order to make it acceptable to a modern audi­ence.

H.R.: As also with Gluck - Strauss and Gluck. C.M.: Exactly, and Wagner too. They saw that whole style of opera through the style of their own music and their own period. The big difference today is that we are at least trying to imagine how Handel might have seen his own works and how audiences might have reacted to them, and to create similar circumstances in which we can try and make our audiences see the drama in Han­del's operas as people in the 18th century also felt the greatness of his music. That's the difference between performances of ancient music in the first half of the 20th century and the second. In the first half they were constantly trying to make works such as Han­del's acceptable; they realised that the music was great and felt they had to change it about. In the second half we're trying to see the music as it might have been seen by its composer and the people of his time. There's still plenty of scope. There are many different styles of performing Handel's music all of which claim to be either authentic or in the spirit of the period, and the same is true of the production side. Producers claim that they are interpreting Handel in a way that he might have approved of, getting down to the roots of the music and the drama. Each generation produces a new kind of so-called authentic interpretation. The word "authentic" is bandied about too much these days, I think. What does it mean? There are endless varieties of authenticity. I myself, although I take my role very seriously as a person who tries to create the atmosphere of original performances, to delve into the minds of Handel and Mozart, I'm terribly wary of using the word "authentic" because, just as in fads in medicine, in three years' time there'll be a new authentic way of doing the music. We strive to get nearer and nearer to the sound that Mozart and Handel would have heard, but often I feel that when we get near to it we don't really like it. I've recently heard several performances of Mozart operas by various people, all of them claiming to be more or less authentic, and I must say that although I'm a stickler for authenticity myself, I didn't like the sound that was produced. So just as there are infinite varieties of interpreting the works of the great masters in an unauthentic way, then even within the framework of so-called authenticity there is still a virtually infinite variety of interpretation. That is one of the fascinating things about the great masterpieces: they still emerge as masterpieces however you perform them.

H.R: I'm very glad you're wary about using the word "authenticity". What is authentic in one age is not considered au­thentic in another. What Beecham might have considered an authen­tic version, for example, we don't today.

C.M.: They used the word in a very different sense. I don't

think Beecham cared about authenticity - it's a relatively new con­cept. So is "interpretation". People didn't talk about interpretation 100 years ago. They performed the music as best they could with their own virtuosity. They didn't interpret music as a modern con­ductor does. The old conductor was just a time-beater. The differ­ence between a good and a bad conductor was whether he set the right tempo, whether he could train an orchestra to play the work correctly. Nowadays we take it for granted that the music is played correctly and we expect interpretation into the bargain. A very new thing!

H.R.: Have you ever heard Toscanini's definition of tradition? "Some fool's memory of the last bad performance."

C.M.: Yes, that marries up with Mahler's "Tradition is slovenli­ness." It's a similar concept, isn't it?

From: Opera, 1985 Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion

1. What points about the production of Handel's operas are dis­cussed in the interview?

2. What is Mackerras' view on Handel's music and the librettos?

3. How does Mackerras characterize great Handelian singers? What special vocal training and qualities do Handelian operas require from the singers?

4. What problems confront the present-day producer in staging Handel's operas? How have Handel's operas been made ac­ceptable to the present day public? How has the problem of authentic performance been tackled?

5. Which of Handel's operas have been staged in the Soviet Un­ion? Have you heard any of them, live or recorded? Express your opinion. Do you think Handel's operas suitable for staging nowadays?

6. What are your views on authenticity of performance? Do you share Mackerras' view? How would you answer those ques­tions which were put to Mackerras?

FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI: THE ROMANTIC REALIST

by Lanfranco Rasponi

Franco Zeffirelli has left his mark in stage direction as well as set and costume designs for opera, theater, television and cinema. He goes from one to the other with skill, assurance and ease. Watching him rehearse an opera is an engrossing experience. He is never prejudiced and will listen to advice if he deems it sensible. He never asks the impossible of singers, knowing instinctively their limitations, working his way around them with a firm yet elastic hand.

Between making Endless Love and the delicate, long task of cutting it, he managed to squeeze in a new Cavalleria and Pagliaccl at La Scala in January 1981, even filming it for television with a few changes in cast (Teresa Stratas taking on Nedda, Renato Bruson as Alfio). (...) After launching his new Bohème at the Metropolitan, he has a new Traviata coming up at London's Covent Garden, which he will also film. These opera motion pictures are intended not for television but for regular audiences. Zeffirelli feels they now have a far bigger opportunity to succeed than previously, not only because of the greater thirst of the public for this formula but also because of advanced techniques in the medium. (...)

Since long before Zeffirelli became an international celebrity, he has gone at a furious pace, though he no longer needs to prove himself. His hair is now silvery, but he still maintains the same youthful face on which are mirrored the frequent changes of his state of mind. It is difficult to keep him on one subject for long: his interests are so varied, his thinking so agile, that he jumps away from the discussion.

How and when he finds time to read has always been a mys­tery, but somehow he does. Not only is he highly cultivated on artistic and humanistic levels, he is generally well-informed as to what is going on everywhere. (...)

Asked to define his continued success, he replied, "We have no guarantee for the present or the future. Therefore the only choice is to go back to the past and respect traditions. I have been a pioneer in this line of thinking, and the results have proven me right. People who think they can do better than previously, interpreting works of art in a new key, are very foolish. The reason I am box-office ev­erywhere is that I am. an enlightened conservative continuing the dis­course of our grandfathers and fathers, renovating the texts but never betraying them. The road has been irrevocably lost, and there must be a seath as to why and where this new breed of destructive thinking came into being, often encouraged by the press. (...)

In regard to Wagner, it has been said I'm not interested in di­recting his operas, but nothing would please me more, and Carlos Kleiber wants me to collaborate with him on Tristan. The problem is, how can one do this glorious work without the proper voices? Kleiber is unhappy about the recent recording he made - he had hoped, with the miracles of recent sound technique, the vocalists would appear more heroic. I'm not a director who worries only about the stage. The music is an essential part of the package, and I'm stunned by the shortage of first-rate singers. I can always find solutions for great singers who are not gifted actors, but there's nothing to be done about those who have a sense of theater and no voices. While acting is important in opera, the voice comes first, in no uncertain terms. Pathos or comedy is just as much vocal as vi­sual."

As for his new production of La Bohème at the Metropolitan, he

related, "Strangely, it's only the second time I've agreed to do this opera. The first, with Karajan in 1963 at La Scala, was such a suc­cess that for a long time I didn't see how I could improve it. It is still being given, with another series of performances last May, and it went on loan to the Salzburg Easter Festival and Vienna State Opera. I accepted the Met's invitation when I realized, with such an imposing revolving stage, I could fulfil ideas that had been circulating in my head for some time. This new conception brings out the fragility of the Bohemian group as against the large, gray French capital. (...)"

Discussing Zeffirelli's career, it is difficult to stick to opera. So many other elements have entered into it, starting with architecture studies at the University of Florence and going on to his long ap­prenticeship in various phases of the entertainment world, leading eventually to his explosion into orbit. Though he really began as an actor, he also got started early in opera at the famous Academia Chigiana in Siena. Here his mother's first cousin, the former La Scala soprano Ines Alfani Tellini, not only taught interpretation in the summer courses but also put on productions of forgotten mas­terpieces to give experience to her students. She asked Franco to help with sets and costumes, and he turned out delightful, inexpen­sive décor for the revivals of La Zingara by Rinaldo di Capua, Il Giocatore by Orlandini and Le Serve Rivait by Traetta. He knew he could deal with opera, a form he had loved since childhood. But fur­ther work had to wait a while, because he was involved in other projects.

His first meeting with Visconti was in 1947. The great innovator of the Italian legitimate theater had come to rehearse Tobacco Road at the Pergola in Florence with Vittorio Gassman and Massimo Girotti. (...) The following year Visconti engaged Zeffirelli to act in Anouilh's Eurydice and an adaptation of Dostoevsk's Crime and Punishment, alongside some of Italy's most highly reputed actors. From then on, all Visconti's productions credited the name of Zef­firelli in some capacity. (...)

For several years Zeffirelli worked as Visconti's assistant director, and he also designed the décor and costumes for most of Visconti's theatrical ventures.

"I was contracted to design a new Italiana in Algerl in 1953 with Giulietta Simionato and Giulini conducting," he said. "It was a hit, and when they offered me Cenerentola for the next season, with more or less the same principals and conductor, I accepted, providing they also let me do the directing. That same year I went on to L'Elisir d'Amore, with Giulini again, Di Stefano at the top of his form and Rosanna Carteri.

"In 1955 came my first experience with Maria Callas, in the only comic opera she ever really scored in, Il Turco in Italia. My inter­national career began the following year with a production of Falstaff, again with Giulini, at the Holland Festival. My association

with Covent Garden started in 1959 with Lucia di Lammermoor at the suggestion of Tullio Serafin - a real event, which established Joan Sutherland as a star. (...)"

Asked who was the most complete singing actor or actress he had worked with, without a moment's hesitation, Franco answered, "Maria - a genius in every role she approached. (...) I worked with her on La Traviata, Lucia, Norma and Tosca in Dallas, London and Paris. There were some really glorious moments, but then I lived through the nightmare when she became more and more un­sure of herself and the voice began to decline. At moments she was courageous, at others terribly afraid. Sometimes she made me feel I was very close to her, then suddenly there existed a wall. In the end she withdrew from everyone. I have known many complex human beings in my life but none more than she." (...)

At fifty-eight, Zeffirelli has more than fifty opera productions be­hind him. The works that fascinate him most are Falstaff and Don Giovanni. One he hates with a passion is the late Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, which opened the new Met in 1966. "I didn't really believe in it from the beginning, but Mr. Bing had made his decision, commissioned the score and felt that it should be the work of an American composer. I liked Vanessa well enough and hoped this would even be better. At the orchestra rehearsals I kept waiting for some real music to emerge, but there is more meat in II Segreto di Susanna. When I tried to tell Sam that he must reinforce the score, he was adamant. I kept sensing a precipice facing us and did all I could to compensate with a lavish spectacle. We headed toward disaster, the score redeemed by a lovely finale, superbly sung by Leontyne Price."

Franco has seven productions of Falstaff to his credit, including the one that marked his bow at the Met in 1964. Now he would like to do another, with Carlos Kleiber, whom he finds the kind of perfectionist that is disappearing from the musical scene. (...)

What opera heroine does he consider the most complete? "Undoubtedly Violetta," he declared. "There's not one superfluous note. Then there are Carmen and Tosca, and it's interesting that all three existed as literary figures before being put to music. (...)"

"Opera is far more stable than the legitimate stage," ne went on. "The same works appeal to totally different publics, but with plays, one never knows. Two De Filippo comedies I directed in London with Sir Laurence and Lady Olivier were a tremendous suc­cess, but in the U.S. this Italian playwright is not appreciated, de­spite the huge Italo-American audience."

While he serves his art, he leads his profession. As he says, "Let's respect the geniuses responsible for these supreme works of art and realize we're here only to serve them."

From: Opera News, 1982

Comprehension Questions and Points for Discussion

1. What is Zeffirelli's artistic approach to the score?

2. Briefly outline his career as an opera and film director.

3. Find in the text the passage describing Zeffirelli's principles of casting the singers for his productions. Do you agree with him? Explain.

4. When and how did his collaboration with Maria Callas begin? In what productions did she appear?

5. What was Zeffirelli's contribution to the art of opera produc­tion? Name some of his world-famous productions.

6. Summarize the text.

7. Have you seen Zeffirelli's film La Traviata with Teresa Stratas as Violetta? What do you think of the film? What other films were produced by Zeffirelli?

LA DIVINA: MARIA CALLAS

Maria Callas (1923-1977), American-born soprano of Greek parentage. Studied at the Athens National Conservatory from 1936 with the Spanish coloratura soprano Elvira di Hidalgo. Her Italian debut was in Verona, in 1947, in La Ciaconda. Her potentialities were recognized by the conductor Tullio Serafin when, in 1948, she was singing Brunnhilde in Venice. With Serafin and de Sabata, Callas revived operas wholly or relatively neglected in Italy for over a century, including Rossini's Armida and Il Turco in Italia, Cherubini's Medea, Donizetti's Anna Bolena, and Bellini's // Pirata, thereby changing the face of the post-1945 opera repertory. Maria Callas made her La Scala début in 1951. From then until 1959 she reigned supreme there, earning the title La divina in her vivid portrayals of Norma, Violetta, and Tosca, working with de Sabata, Giulini, Bernstein, and Karajan as conductors, and the pro­ducers Visconti and Zeffirelli. Her musicianship was impeccable, her insight remark­able, and her acting ability exceptional, so that she presented her roles as organic wholes. Her Norma, Tosca, and Violetta were unforgettable examples of dramatic opera singing-acting. Callas sang at Covent Garden in 1952-53 (Norma), 1957-59, and 1964, and at the Metropolitan Opera in 1956 (Norma). She retired from the stage in 1965 (her last performance was as Tosca at Covent Garden), but she continued to record and gave some concerts in 1973 and 1974.

From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music

It has been suggested, and not without reason, that Callas' "voice had less going for it than any other voice that has achieved interna­tional celebrity via the phonograph - a medium that necessarily puts a premium on timbral endowment, since it cannot directly transmit physical and dramatic qualities." Yet it was a voice that was better than beautiful, for it was a voice which once heard could not be easily forgotten. It haunted and disturbed as many as it thrilled and inspired, and it was the very personal colours of her voice, combined with its deficiencies, which made her sound so strikingly individual.

Her manner of singing was equally arresting. Callas had a stern bel canto upbringing from her teacher Elvira di Hidalgo, a musical

outlook later reinforced by her mentor Tullio Serafin. This sort of vocal strait-jacketing was ideally suited to Callas' nature. She was a committed traditionalist, a musical puritan, who eagerly sought stylis­tic boundaries and flourished within them. The greater the confines, the greater was the challenge and, ultimately, the freedom. A score set forth the limitations of a given problem for her. The mastering of a problem was the incentive which spurred Callas on to conquer, and to set and meet new demands on her voice and her abilities. This, in turn, led to a prodigious grasp of such challenges as the trill, the acciaccatura,* scales, gruppetti and other abbellimenti.* These, combined with her open throat, an inborn sense of legato, and diction rooted in vowels, all predestined her prominence in the bel canto repertory, though her voice was basically that of a dra­matic soprano.

In the long run, however, Callas' distinct sound and her technical achievements would have been less influential if she had not em­ployed both to shape music to creative and expressive ends. All the resources open to a singer - breath, tempo, dynamic and agogic ac­cents,* embellishments, rubato,* even silences* - were used to their fullest to communicate impressions and moods. Indeed, Callas seemed incapable of being inexpressive; even a simple scale sung by her implied a dramatic attitude or feeling. This capacity to communi­cate is something she was born with. It was her capacity for hard work and her equally great curiosity which led her to question re­lentlessly what score demanded of her, and what she in turn de­manded of herself. Little by little she mastered the art of filling a phrase to exactly the right level of expression and producing unerringly the right stress to underline or highlight a thought. At her finest, Callas' voice became a mirror held up to human emotion. At her best, tone and intent were wonderously interlocked. She never offered a string of high points in performance mixed in with indif­ferent or unfinished patches, as many do. With Callas, a recitative was as integrated and thoughtful as an aria. Perhaps you could not agree with this or that aspect of her singing, and you might feel that she was as wrong for this role as she was right for that one, but Callas was usually able to force one to accept or reject her con­cept as a whole, so clear-eyed and consistent was her approach to a past. This was her ultimate justification as an artist.

From: The Callas Legacy by J. Aidoin

CALLAS REMEMBERED

by Herbert Von Karajan

She was born with the instinct of the true prima donna, and that, I think, is something one cannot learn. I don't know if this was really the case, but certainly before an audience she displayed remarkable assurance, and enthusiasm quite out of the ordinary: she really believed in opera. 110

Her roots were in bel canto, of which she was an admirable ex­ponent. It should also be said that she was marvellously guided by that master and great connoisseur of bel canto style Tullio Serafin.

One very characteristic aspect of her personality was the im­mense care she took with preparation. She would already have mastered a work by the time she arrived for the first rehearsal, which meant of course that we could then work on those details that lent her performances such authenticity. She grasped everything immediately. It was unthinkable that she would ever bring a score,* as so many singers do. She was sure of herself, and she understood things straight away, without the slightest prompting - hence my great admiration for her. We always worked happily together. She didn't have very good eyesight - I doubt she could even see the conduc­tor-but she was guided by an inner sense. She would turn her back to you and sing perfectly in tempo. With her, making music was the simplest thing in the world.

From: Gramophone, 1987

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