- The Damnation of One Faust
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- Prologue
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Naturally, it was a shock. If only
Renate hadn’t been so efficient in her attempt to inform us by
e-mail or we hadn’t made that last check before shutting down
the computer and leaving for the airport, we might have flown to
Rome in blissful ignorance that the first of Andrea’s planned
performances of Faust at Teatro Massimo in Palermo had been
cancelled. Of course, there was nothing to be done about it. Our
two-week stay was planned, reservations made, the suitcases packed,
our hopes high for another rendezvous with our tenor. We tried to
be philosophical. After all, we would still have Sunday’s
performance, and 12 beautiful days in la bella Italia! Magari.
Faust
The weeks preceding our departure
had been intensely busy. I had only had time for one preview of
Gounod’s Faust, an opera that was new territory for me,
Andrea again broadening my opera horizons. As I listened in the
car on the way to work to my newly purchased version featuring a
young Placido Domingo in the starring role and the legendary
Mirella Freni as Marguerite, my eyes grew wide. The opera was full
of beautiful melodies and one that was easy to love from the first
hearing, but this was truly a tour de force for a tenor, a
formidable challenge, technically complex and requiring almost
constant effort throughout the five acts. I hoped Andrea had been
doing his homework!
Of course he had, as was apparent
in a rare inside glimpse of his rehearsals "a casa"
through a unique two-part video on his Official Site. Andrea
seemed intensely excited about the role, pleased to be sharing it
with his fans, energized and enthusiastic about discussing it and
singing previews of its highlights for us.
Il Teatro Massimo
Il Teatro Massimo, situated in the
palm-studded setting of the Piazza Verdi, is the biggest opera
theater in Italy, with a neoclassical exterior incorporating
elements of the Greek ruins we had been captivated by in the
nearby towns of Agrigento and Segesta. Two imposing bronze lions,
each mastered by one of two female figures representing comedy and
tragedy, stand guard at either side of the grand entryway. For
trivia buffs, one of the final scenes of The Godfather, Part
III, was filmed there. The theater opened in 1897 and seats
1,350 in seven tiers of boxes arranged in the classic horseshoe.
Entering the world of these Italian theater gems such as this one,
all gold and crimson with the elaborately painted ceilings and
crystal chandeliers, is always an enchantment. I noticed in
particular rather unusual and delightfully captivating delicate
paintings of flowers, baskets of fruits, and theatrical masks on
the wooden facing of the different tiers. Over all was the
impressive domed ceiling with the painting portraying The
Triumph of Music. Had Andrea’s voice graced the grand old
theater, he would (triumphantly to be sure) have joined a long
history of famous voices that had preceded him such as Beniamino
Gigli and a 24-year-old Enrico Caruso, who sang there in the first
year the theater opened.
The strike
Sciopero.
In Italian, the word sounds sweetly innocent—like some softly
whispered endearment. In reality, its effects in Palermo were enough
to make a grown man cry, and, according to reliable sources, it did—at
least for one of the key men involved in the effort that had gone
into making the concert opera of Faust a reality.
The local newspaper, Il
Giornale di Sicilia, summed it up well: "Faust is cursed
by definition. But in Palermo, he was even more so" (my
translation). At its core, the reason for the Friday strike seemed
worthy enough. The protest against the major cuts in fiscal
support from the government was nationwide. Even La Scala had
scheduled a date for the cancellation of a performance March 31.
For Palermo alone, the cuts amounted to 40 million euros. But
information in the newspaper also hinted at a long history of
contention among the parties involved at Teatro Massimo—the
administrators of the Fondazione of the theater and the multiple
local musicians unions—that was too complicated for my basic
Italian vocabulary to decipher. Whatever.
The rehearsal
In a gesture to compensate for the
loss of Friday’s performance, a 4:00 Thursday rehearsal was made
available to those lucky enough to hear of it and make their way
to the theater. Jack and I had landed in Rome from our
transatlantic flight at 8:30, flew into Palermo at 1:00, checked
into our hotel at 3:00, found a note indicating the rehearsal
opportunity, threw our bags into the room and ourselves into a
taxi, and were shortly after entering the grand Teatro Massimo.
Inside, the singers were hard at work. Because the sessions were
being recorded, we were told to be on our best behavior,
maintaining absolute silence. No problem there; the singing was
mesmerizing, and we settled into the luxurious red velvet seats
and strained to savor every note of the various segments from the
three final acts that they were working on.
Andrea was in his "comfy
clothes"—dark jeans and a raggedy, misshapen sweater that
was certainly worn out of loyalty rather than any sense of style.
The interaction of all onstage revealed that Andrea was clearly
well-loved by his colleagues. Even the first violinist enjoyed
kibitzing with him. The soprano, Alexia Voulgaridou, was playful
and affectionate, joking, sharing whispered comments with Andrea,
using her hands to physically shape his mouth in a light-hearted
moment of impromptu "instruction" on handling a certain
tricky passage. At one point during a particularly dramatic moment
of the recording session, with facial and hand gestures she
silently expressed to a colleague at the back of the theater her
admiration for Andrea’s vocal ability. Roberto Scandiuzzi, the
bass, was easy-going, with a bold, rich vocal tone and a most
effective and appropriately "diabolical" laugh that
seemed steeped in evil. He was relaxed and exuded a certain "devil
may care" attitude, if you will. He too clearly enjoyed
working with Andrea but occasionally seemed a bit unnecessarily
vigilant about the possibility of our tenor teetering over the
edge of the stage…solicitously holding him by the arm more than
once when it seemed that Andrea’s overly energetic reach for his
water bottle that lay at his feet might cause an unwanted
precipitous plummet from the stage. Andrea seemed puzzled by his
concern—"What, me fall?"
Maestro Plasson, the conductor,
was focused and driven in his dedication to shaping and
shepherding this work to a perfect conclusion. Throughout the long
session, he ignored multiple pleas from a few less hardy musicians
in the orchestra for "una pausa." He was clearly a
perfectionist, knowing what was right and locked unswervingly onto
making it happen—even if it meant repeated stops and starts that
threatened, at one point, to drive the cast into physical collapse.
Andrea showed him a respectful deference, consulting quietly from
time to time (mostly in very capable French, but occasionally in
Italian), yet offering his own considered input when he saw an
opportunity.
Carlo Bernini was there, of course,
as he had been for all the long months of the arduous formation of
this challenging role. Balancing on his knees the thick binder
that held the massive vocal score of the work, he sat toward the
back of the theater and carefully noted small adjustments
indicated by Maestro Plasson that he would go over later with
Andrea. Andrea called him urgently down to the stage at one point
for the reassurance of his physical touch to guide him through the
complex rhythm of a particularly challenging passage. As always,
the collaboration reveals the strong and mutually respectful bond
between the two, both personally and professionally.
One thing was clear, this cast was
ready. Andrea was confident and engaged, in fine voice that filled
the theater—firm, resonant, and clear. We had every reason to
believe the performance on Sunday would be filled with compelling
melody, dramatically charged, and energetic.
After the session that lasted more
than three hours, Andrea remained to listen to the playback of
what had been recorded for the future CD. While we waited for an
opportunity to speak with him, Lorenzo Mariani, the artistic
director for Teatro Massimo, stopped to chat and learn a bit about
us. His English was excellent, and he explained that although his
parents were Italian, he had been born while they were living in
Brooklyn. When he heard that Jack and I were from Virginia, he
mentioned his previous professional connection with the Wolf Trap
Center for the Performing Arts, an outdoor theater near us in
Vienna, Virginia, that offers popular opera productions in the
summer. That alone would have been an interesting coincidence, but
the biggest surprise was learning that Lorenzo had directed Andrea
in his very first starring operatic role as Rodolfo in La
Bohème in 1998 in Cagliari. The artistic world is indeed a
small one. I’m sure Maestro Mariani might have had stories to
share, but the evening was already late, and he took his leave.
Palermo
Although millions of Andrea’s
fans will now identify it only as the city that silenced Andrea’s
voice, Palermo is not without its charms. Despite the
disappointment of the cancellation, we had Friday and Saturday to
fill. Among the city’s treasures is the richly decorated Capella
Palatina that is nestled within the walls of the Palazzo dei
Normanni, the seat of the Kings of Sicily from the 9th century
onward. The chapel’s newly restored mosaics dating from the 12th
century cover every square inch of this small architectural gem
with its fascinating mix of Arab-Norman-Byzantine styles. Scenes
on the walls, window arches, and ceiling depict nearly the entire
range of Old and New Testament stories in richly colorful and
imaginative representations fascinating in their nearly impossible
variety of pattern and styles.
Friday evening, to distract us
from our woes, we decided to experience a theatrical performance
of a different sort. The Opera dei Pupi, the puppet theater in
Sicily, has been proudly passed down from generation to generation
since the early 1800s. The puppets, i pupi, are the French Paladini,
or knights-errant, who are characters in old tales that
memorialize the struggles of Christianity to drive out the Arab
invaders in the 11th century. The performances were also important
to Sicilians as a means of making political commentary without
fear of persecution. These little marionettes, who turned out to
be decidedly less pacifist distant cousins of sweet little
Pinocchio, committed puppet mayhem of a very non-PC caliber that
included some literally and figuratively smashing swordfights (to
the accompaniment of cheerily jaunty organ grinder tunes from an
antique player) and left piles of beheaded puppet corpses
littering the stage at the dénouement. As charming and diverting
as "La Morte d’Agramante" was, not surprisingly, it
somehow did not quite fill the void of Friday’s cancelled
performance of Andrea’s Faust, although we joked about
its being a consolation prize. We were glad that the promise of
Sunday’s performance lay ahead to bolster our spirits. Saturday
night’s dinner with our little international group of amici was
lighthearted and festive, buoyed by anticipation. We enjoyed some
of the typical Sicilian cuisine—arancini, panelle, pasta Norma
with melanzana and ricotta, and some very capable pizzas—and
drank more than one enthusiastic toast to our tenor.
Un shock
Then toward 11:00 pm, just as we
were about to pay the bill for our dinner and make our way back to
our respective hotels, the message came to Renate. Sunday’s
performance was cancelled. We sat momentarily in stunned silence,
finally broken by the unanimous decision to order another round of
Nero d’Avola, the typical dark, fruity Sicilian vino rosso in an
attempt to drown our sorrow.
Sunday morning, in the elegantly
appointed breakfast salon of our hotel (a restored palace of the
1700s), a sotto voce comment about the second cancellation
to a couple we had previously met, and who we knew also had
tickets for the opera, soon gathered at least ten other couples
who had also journeyed from the U.S. and Europe for the event,
including a heartbroken pair from England who said they had been
trying to see Andrea for three years but had never been successful
until now in procuring tickets. The dismal morning downpour
visible through our hotel windows reflected our collective
disappointment.
All day Sunday, a sad procession
of fans made their way to the Teatro Massimo to receive their
refund for the cancelled performance. Paolo, the ticket manager,
remained amiable and sympathetic even in the face of what was an
enormous loss for the theater both financially and in terms of
public relations, a reality that was underscored in their press
statement noting that such "extreme protests" can have
only negative consequences. When we talked with Paolo, he
commented that before the ticket holders could bring themselves to
part with their tickets many had been requesting a Xerox copy of
them as a souvenir of what might have been, a request he patiently
granted. Their transaction completed, many patrons lingered in
forlorn clusters in the theater lobby to commiserate over the loss—instant
camaraderie born of the shared disillusionment. One bright spot
was a large display board that was showing a continuous video of
highlights of the previous days’ rehearsals of Faust, but
even that only deepened the regret over what might have been.
As the time that would have marked
the now-cancelled performance drew near, a small group of
representatives from the theater kept vigil at the formidable iron
gate that now sealed off the entry to the grand staircase.
Standing on pavement still wet from the most recent of the
chilling showers that had stubbornly persisted during our four-day
stay in Palermo, their sad task was to inform any blissfully
unaware theatergoers who might not have heard the news of the
cancellation. Among those huddled in Piazza Verdi in disillusioned
clusters were a few of the singers from the chorus who wished to
communicate their frustration to the deprived opera patrons—so
many of whom had come long distances at some personal sacrifice—and
repeated over and over how they had wanted so much to sing for us.
It was clear that there was by no means unified consensus about
this decision to extend the protest to this second cancellation.
It was obviously important to these artists that they offer us
some small gesture of consolation. We took a picture together to
somehow preserve the solidarity of our loss for posterity.
Una piccola riunione
In the meanwhile, Andrea and
Veronica had focused their energies to devise a way to provide
some small recompense to the people who had traveled so far for
this event. They hastily arranged a meeting and photo opportunity
with Andrea at the Grand Hotel et des Palmes (where they had been
staying) for fans who had traveled from overseas. The des Palmes
is one of Palermo’s oldest hotels (since 1874), and has welcomed
illustrious guests over the years, including Wagner and the writer
Maupassant. When you enter the
grandly decorated belle époque interior of the hotel lobby, you
are presented with the sight of a venerable old grand piano
cordoned off by red velvet cords—the very instrument that had
been used by Wagner during a much earlier epoch to compose
portions of his masterpiece Parsifal. This piano is not
visible in other pictures of the lobby that can be found on
various Web sites, and I wondered if it had been placed there
specifically to please and honor Andrea during his stay.
Considering the numbers that would
have attended the two sold-out performances in a theater that held
1,350, there were not many in the lobby, perhaps only 30 to 40 or
so. Renate had certainly done her best to quickly post online the
news of the special gathering, but most travelers do not have easy
access to the Internet and, even if they do, check it only
sporadically while on the road. Nevertheless, judging by their
beaming smiles, those who were there were thrilled and grateful
for this thoughtful and unexpected effort on their behalf.
All at once, Andrea appeared,
descending the grand staircase arm-in-arm with Veronica to the
warm applause of those gathered below. He greeted the small group
with the self-effacing comment that at least this time no one
could find fault with his singing. He was in good humor. At one
point, he introduced a dark-haired young woman standing nearby as
his cousin Laura, noting that she was a professor at the
University in Palermo and jokingly describing her as "the
smart one in the family." Veronica invited everyone to come
forward for a few private moments with Andrea. One by one, he
spoke to each of the waiting fans, patiently taking the time
needed for a souvenir photo and a few words of commiseration.
There are many sayings in any
language that communicate various philosophies about life:
"Life is beautiful" "Life is what you make it"
Life is like that" "Life is full of surprises" Life
is never dull" (certainly not where Andrea is concerned),
"Life is not always fair" "Life goes on."
Andrea offered a new one in the few moments I shared with him.
"Life is not only to sing" he said. "If somebody
thinks that life is only to sing, I think finally he will sing
badly. Because life is life—there are many, many things
important. Only if you are able to live your life in a full way,
probably you can have something to say in singing also." He
concluded that he did try very hard to put all of his life into
his singing, "I try to sing my life." I responded that
we could, indeed, hear all that he put there, and that is why we
had come so far to hear him once again.
As we all stood basking in the
afterglow of our individual moments with Andrea, somewhat
uncertain about what would happen next, he suddenly turned and,
with cousin Laura, climbed a short flight of steps that led away
from the lobby down a hallway. Well, that was that, I thought. But
then Veronica began to wave to the group, all of whom nevertheless
stood momentarily motionless until we realized that she was
beckoning us to follow Andrea. So we did, to a small room
elegantly appointed in a lovely shade of royal blue—and graced
with the presence of a baby grand piano!! YES. Almost instantly
Andrea was seated and launched into the reverent strains of the
Schubert Ave Maria, the Italian version he favors. The
warm, rich tone of his voice resonated within the intimate space
with such immediacy. It was a transcendent moment, a rare gift.
When he finished, he stood swiftly and it seemed that the
gathering was over. But the group began to murmur requests. I
heard a woman to my right ask for "something from Faust."
Andrea protested gently and rather apologetically that he was not
able to play any of that music and the moment of opportunity to
keep him there with us a bit longer might have passed in a fatal
flash….then my brain instantly kicked into unaccustomed high
gear, furiously scanning its memory banks for a little song that I
KNEW Andrea could play and sing easily. It came to me—"A
Vucchella"! It has long been a sentimental favorite for me
and a perfect fit for Andrea’s voice. As if it came from another
being, I heard my voice plead "Would you sing ‘A Vucchella,’
Andrea? Per favore?" He hesitated only the slightest moment,
then turned and sat once again at the piano. A silent internal
victory whoop gleefully resounded in my consciousness!!!! Andrea
inhabited the sweet, familiar melody as only he can do. He was so
close, his voice all-embracing in the intimate space. As I
listened spellbound, tears welled unbidden at the beauty of it,
and one final pang of regret for what might have been at the
Teatro Massimo flickered in my thoughts.
Afterword
Andrea’s operas are a rare gift,
few and far between. So it was all the more painful to be deprived
of one. Jack and I had, of course, made other plans for our time
in Italy, but the trip had been built around the shining highlight
of Andrea’s concert opera, and somehow the void of its loss at
the very beginning coupled with the persistent rain and gloom and
the colder-than-usual spring weather imposed a kind of melancholy
on our subsequent travels. Nevertheless, we explored the
Basilicata coastline of the southern arch of the "boot";
saw the mysterious and ancient sassi (cave dwellings) of
Matera, where Mel Gibson had filmed his movie The Passion of
the Christ; and were charmed by the fairytale countryside
setting of the odd little dwellings in Puglia called trulli.
And even persistent, chilling rains cannot dim the incandescent
beauty of Andrea’s beloved Tuscany, where we took refuge for the
final few days of the trip and spent comforting time with good
friends. We reminded ourselves how blessed we were to be in this
country so rich with history, art, and the irrepressibly warm
hospitality of its people.
I cannot begin to imagine the
profound letdown that Andrea must have experienced in the initial
realization that the work of months and months could not be
communicated in the final gesture of creative collaboration of a
performance with his colleagues that every performer needs to
justify the sacrifice invested in their art. Yet, disappointing as
it must have been to be deprived of this opportunity after so much
effort, the tide of Andrea’s professional life continued its
inevitable ebb and flow. After barely enough time at home in Forte
to change clothes and repack, he was on the road again for the
concert in Abu Dhabi, quickly followed by an appearance with
Fiorello a week later. The commitments of summer and fall tours
are growing by the minute. No time for regrets over this lost
opportunity. In any case, there would at least be a CD, perhaps
even a future live presentation of Faust in another time
and place. We hope it.
Characteristically, Andrea has
found the way to put the most positive face on this experience, to
draw what is good even from what seems most daunting. Taking his
cue from the frontispiece of the Teatro Massimo— "Art
renews the people, and reveals life to them"—he
acknowledged this important force that had allowed him to find
within this seemingly disappointing professional experience reason
for renewal. First, he thanked his colleagues, with whom he had
forged close relationships, particularly Maestro Plasson: "As
long as there will be men like him, and people like those who did
their utmost in this particular circumstance, the opera and its
fans will have nothing to fear." Graciously he also focused
on his fans and their disappointment rather than his own
when he made the statement on the Official Site that acknowledged
the renewed energy and optimism their presence had given to him
and the renewed sense of responsibility: "…I realized more
clearly than ever, their affection, their esteem, that I can repay
only partially with the daily commitment I make to my rapport with
music."
So, each of us will take from this
experience what we can. Nothing in life is certain. But Andrea’s
gift of his art and our joy in receiving it whenever and wherever
possible is surely as definite as anything can be. He will sing
again, and we hope to be there to listen. Things happen that
cannot be changed. But we can, as did Andrea, renew and define
ourselves by our choice of reaction to circumstances beyond our
control. We can focus not on what we couldn’t hear, but on what
we have yet to hear. Alla prossima volta, Andrea.
by Cami McNamee
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