Ti ricordi Nanni?

Nanni Ricordi, a direct descendent of Giovanni Ricordi, the founder of Casa Ricordi, died on 15 January at the age of 79.

He founded Dischi Ricordi S.p.A., for which Maria Callas made her studio recording of Cherubini’s Medea in 1957.

Nanni Ricordi was known primarily as “the father of singer-songwriters.” Ennio Morricone wrote of him in Ti ricordi Nanni? L’uomo che inventò i cantautori:

Everyone knew that Nanni discovered talent. But few people know that he envisioned a revolution in Italian song. He invented singer-songwriters. He rethought melodies and poetic texts, opening the way for that freedom (in lyrics most of all) that utterly transcended the routine into which Italian song, with rare exceptions, had fallen.

Two of my favorite musicians, Luigi Tenco and il Maestro, Paolo Conte, were associated with Nanni Ricordi. La Repubblica and La Stampa remembered him.

From Act I of the 1957 Ricordi Medea, Maria Callas and Mirto Picchi perform the brief scene “Taci, Giasone.” Tullio Serafin conducts.

Callas on the beach.

Happy birthday to Maria Callas, who was born on 2 December 1923.

To celebrate, I offer her and you the online equivalent of a dozen red roses: a dozen favorite blog posts about Callas!

• Martha Graham on Callas
• Callas sings Boito
• Callas de cire, Callas de son
• Callas and Isolde
• Video of Callas as Cherubini’s Medea
• Callas in Bellini’s Il pirata
• Rufus Wainwright and Callas
• Callas in Mozart and Verdi
• Dacia Maraini and Callas
• Armen Ra and Callas
• Callas sings Berlioz
• Callas in the Norma finale

If you are looking for words, try my essay, my 2007 tribute to Callas, or the chock-full-of-Rossini birthday post.

I think that the myth that has stuck most closely to Maria Callas is the Medea myth. In her hateful and inaccurate telling of her daughter’s life, Evangelia Callas (or her ghostwriter) claimed that Callas was like Medea. (A lovely mother, calling her daughter a murderous witch!) The edition that I own of Mama Callas’s book shows Maria Callas on the cover costumed as Medea.

In one of the interviews he gave after the Callas-Meneghini separation was announced, Callas’s estranged husband called her “a Medea.” The yarn of Omero Lengrini spun by Nicholas Gage amounts to a Medea story, in which Callas causes the death of her unborn child.

Medea was the rôle that occasioned Callas’s weight loss in 1953 (as she told Edward Downes); it was as Medea that Aristotle Onassis first saw Maria Callas in the theatre. (I’m not sure that the Onassis factoid is terribly meaningful, given his supposed dislike for opera, but I mention it per dovere di cronaca.) It was also the last rôle that she sang at La Scala.

Today’s clip is from the 1953 Medea at the Maggio Musicale under Vittorio Gui. In this scene, Medea gives voice to her pain as she contemplates killing her beloved children. Callas is in thrilling, lava-like voice.

Read other posts about Medea here and in the blog archives.

I’ve posted video of Callas in Cherubini’s Medea before, but this particular clip possibly includes a few additional snippets—or at least is a lengthier compilation of existing clips. I believe that the footage is from both La Scala and Epidaurus in 1961.

If anyone has information to the contrary, please let me know.

See earlier posts about Callas as Cherubini’s and Pasolini’s Medea.

Callas as Medea at La Scala.

Maria had a way of even transforming her body for the exigencies of a role, which is a great triumph. In La traviata, everything would slope down; everything indicated sickness, fatigue, softness. Her arms would move as if they had no bones, like the great ballerinas. In Medea, everything was angular. She’d never make a soft gesture; even the walk she used was like a tiger’s walk.
—Nicola Rescigno

Read more about Callas as Medea.

Sketchy blog traffic.

Look, we blog curators welcome most any traffic, but this? Of late, similar Google search strings from all over the world (and not only from necrophilic Canucks) have shown up in my log. Thanks a lot, Terrence McNally.

More sketchiness: The complete track list from Angela Gheorghiu’s so-called Homage to Maria Callas is now available. Let’s see how the musical selections relate to Maria Callas, shall we?

• Arias from Medea and Il pirata: Fine. Both, pace my colleague Robert Seletsky, were important Callas revivals.
• Arias from La traviata: An important Callas rôle. But, honestly, just how many times does Mme Gheorghiu need to record this music?
• Arias from I pagliacci, La Wally, Adriana Lecouvreur, and Samson et Dalila: Callas recorded them but never sang them in public. What’s more, she never approved the release of the Samson aria, which was issued posthumously.
• Arias from Faust and La bohème: Callas sang the Faust aria during her Greek years and recorded it, but never otherwise sang it in public. She recorded the Bohème aria twice (Puccini recital and complete Bohème) but never sang it in public.
• Aria from Andrea Chénier: She sang it once during her Greek years, once for EMI, six times in Chénier at La Scala (not by any account her shining hour).
• Aria from Le Cid: She recorded it for EMI and sang it a handful of times (four or five) in concert.
• “Duet” from Carmen: Oh, do not get me started. But hardly a Callas speciality.

Someone enlighten me, please: Where is the “homage” to Maria Callas in all this? And again I ask: What need does Angela Gheorghiu, an artist of substance, have to stoop to this flimsy and cynical exploitation of the memory of Maria Callas?

It would have been relatively easy to put together a plausible homage to Callas: arias, say, from Armida and perhaps Haydn’s Orfeo ed Euridice (and maybe even the Stradella San Giovanni Battista); some Wagner (why not “La morte di Isotta” or “Ho visto il figlio” from Parsifal?); Vestale, Bolena, Ifigenia, Sonnambula (all or some) to represent the Visconti stagings besides Traviata; different Verdi (Macbeth? Vespri? Ballo?); and some of the bravura material (the Proch variations, Dinorah, Lakmé, or some such). In truth, the bravura material is probably beyond Gheorghiu at this point, but I think that she could handle the rest beautifully.

Weasels! Sigh.

You know very well that at the beginning of the [twentieth] century Médée was occasionally sung by Mazzoleni, who had a peach of a voice. Well, yes, they clapped [sic] her, but that was about it. There were not the cultural and historical demands which have enabled us today to say: at last I’ve heard Cherubini’s Médée as I’ve always imagined it should be.
—Rodolfo Celletti

Robert Seletsky and others claim that Callas’s importance for the revival of neglected works has been exaggerated, that Rossini’s Armida was “the only true Callas ‘revival.’”

Mr. Seletsky, with whom I have corresponded, is a scrupulous and exceedingly well-informed writer, and his arguments cannot be dismissed out of hand. Still, I think that this particular assertion is a case of not seeing the forest for the trees, as Celletti’s remarks demonstrate.

(That said, Médée, Schmédée: the mishmash that Callas sang has little to do with Cherubini’s wondrous score!)

On a separate note (as it were): So many people continue to claim that Callas “lost her voice” as a direct result of her weight loss. To which I say: Listen to how she sang—fearlessly, unsparingly—and tell me how she could not have damaged her voice!

This snippet from Medea is from Dallas, 1958. Read more about Callas as Medea in opera and cinema.