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IL FESTIVAL PER GIAN CARLO MENOTTI
NEL GIORNO DEL SUO COMPLEANNO
di GIAN CARLO MENOTTI
introduce VALERIO CAPPELLI
giornalista - Corriere della Sera
con la partecipazione di RAINA KABAIVANSKA
Raina Kabaivanska is at Festival dei Due Mondi to present a concert performance ofopera drama in two acts_ The Medium_ that Gian Carlo Menotti composed in 1946. The celebrated soprano brings to the stage all young singers from her master classes. Raina Kabaivanska, after more than 55 years of an extraordinary career in the world's leading theaters, is now from about 20 years dedicated to teaching, with classes and masterclasses all over the world. Classes in which some of today's most successful artists have been trained to internationally.
After witnessing in 1936 to a séance, in the following years Menotti thought of reviving this experience in a'opera: the project came to fruition in 1946 - with the first performance at the Brander Matthews Theater in New York, on May 8 of that year - thanks to a commission from the 'Alice M. Ditson Fund' of Columbia University in New York, by which time the composer had already tried his hand in the comic genre with Amelia at the Ball and The old Maid and the Thief (Philadelphia 1941). With The Medium he achieved success in the tragic genre as well, and later he also prepared a second, slightly expanded version, which was presented in the 1947-48 season at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on Broadway. American success was matched by European dissemination: in 1949 the Italian 'premiere' took place to Genoa, directed by the composer, which was an outspoken success, though not as resounding as in the United States. This was followed, in 1951, by a film version ofopera (also presented at the Venice Film Festival), which the author-director preferred to make in Italy where, unlike in the United States, "the machine from taken is at the director's unquestioned command," as he had to to say. Subsequent shootings are not counted, scattered in theaters halfway around the world: from Helsinki (1958) to Spoleto (1969, D'Amico's Italian version, revived in 1981), to Minsk (1989).
Act 1. Monica and Toby are playing when Baba arrives: they must now prepare to receive clients, for a séance in which they will collaborate to a mock evocation of spirits. Mrs. Nolan (to summon her daughter Doodly) and Mr. and Mrs. Gobineau (for their little son Mickey) arrive: it will actually be Monica to speaking to them. In the darkness, however, Baba actually feels a hand touching her and is shocked. With the clients dismissed, the fake medium begins to to suspect Toby, even though Monica tries to calm her down.
Act Two. Monica and Toby joke in front of the puppet theater used for supernatural 'enactments': in their merriment there is also great tenderness for each other. Baba arrives, semi-subrious, and pretending sweetly to try to figure out if it was the mute Toby to touching her, as her agitation increases to the point of to threatening him. Clients arrive for the session: Baba confesses her cheating, but they refuse to believe her, until she drives them away. Now rambling, she pleads for forgiveness to God and frets hysterically as Toby tries to escape her by hiding behind a curtain. Baba spots her movement and shoots in that direction: a blood stain appears on the white curtain, while Monica cries out for help.
Convinced that he must devote himself to the pursuit of "the inevitable, not the new," Menotti adopts in this opera from camera, as in his other productions, a language attentive to the needs of the average listener and largely indebted to the verismo tradition; he also devotes great attention to the effectiveness of the melodic parts. Baba's and even more so Monica's interventions are treated as true arias; the latter is a participant, with Toby, in a world in which the characters of the supernatural, the fairy-tale and the childlike tend to to merge. A vague impressionism characterizes the opening lyric and Doodly's intervention ("Mammy, you must not cry," reminiscent of certain passages from Puccini's Suor Angelica), while folk echoes are present in the lullaby "O black swan" (of a particular modal and Slavic flavor). Baba often intervenes with passages of theatrical declamato; even the ensemble scenes present concertato in the form of often recited dialogue. to apart from a few sharp passages in imitative style, accompanied melody prevails, in order to enhance the singing line to the maximum, in accordance with a custom of verismo ancestry. The chamber-sized orchestra is always very ready to to emphasize with dissonances or hallucinatory dance rhythms the encroachment from the real to the fantastic: characteristic are the nervous interventions of the piano, while Baba's rambling in the final soliloquy is rendered with quotations from fragments of earlier passages. It is precisely the skillful writing of the orchestra (which "has determining value, not commentary," as Menotti had to to say), combined to with a simple and concentrated dramaturgy (in the vein of verismo, as well as the grotesque element introduced with the mute character of Toby), as well as melodic ease, in the service of a script that emphasizes emotional aspects, that have led to the widespread approval of 'opera among the general public.
Source: Dictionary ofOpera Baldini&Castoldi
performance in concert form
Monica Marily Santoro
Madame Flora (Baba) Julija Samsonova-Khayet
Mrs. Gobineau** Chiara Isotton**
Mr. Gobineau Lorenzo Grante
Mrs. Nolan Roxana Herrera Diaz
A voice, offstage Arianna Manganello
piano Paolo Andreoli
Raina Kabaivanska is one of the most celebrated opera singers of the last fifty years, a true "heroine of melodrama." After her studies and debut in her home country of Bulgaria, she made her official debut in Italy in 1959 to Vercelli in Tabarro. In 1961 her debut at La Scala in Milan kicked off a glorious career on stages all over the world: New York's Metropolitan, London's Covent Garden, Salzburg, Rome, Tokyo, to name a few. Her repertoire spans Verdi, Gluck, Donizetti, Puccini (with the four hundred Tosca and four hundred Butterfly), Britten and Shostakovic. She has been directed from personalities such as Karajan, Bernstein, Abbado, worked with directors such as Ronconi, Bolognini, Pizzi, Zeffirelli and with partners such as Del Monaco, Corelli, Pavarotti, Domingo. from many years he devotes himself with indefatigable passion to teaching and popularizingopera: he is a teacher of the Biennio Superiore di Canto at the "Vecchi-Tonelli" Institute in Modena, his city of residence, and at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, not to mention numerous masterclasses in Italy and around the world, first and foremost the annual appointment to Sofia. She has received countless awards: "A life for music," "Viotti," "Abbiati" "Lorenzo il Magnifico" and many others. She is a recipient of the title of Cavaliere al merito of the Italian Republic for civic valor and outstanding contribution in the field of art, in addition to numerous honors bestowed in Bulgaria.
Marily Santoro studied with Liliana Marzano and graduated from the F. Cilea Conservatory of Reggio Calabria. She perfected with Tenor Antonello Palombi and is currently studying with soprano Raina Kabaivanska to Modena.
She has been a finalist in various competitions, including "Toti dal Monte International Competition," "European Community Competition to.Belli di Spoleto," and winner of the First Absolute Prize "Third Edition International Competition Santa Giovanna Beretta Molla." In 2013, at Teatro Rendano in Cosenza, she sang in Mascagni's Parisina on the occasion of Mascagni's celebrations. In 2014, to Livorno, she made her debut in Don Giovanni for the "Mozart Project," aimed at to young opera singers, and to Reggio Calabria she performed Verdi´s Requiem for the Festival of Sacred Music; she also took part in the Scuola dell´Opera Italiana at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna for the role of Violetta in La traviata. In 2015, she took part to a concert with Daniela Dessì and Marco Armiliato to Brescia and performed Violetta in La traviata at Teatro Goldoni in Livorno. In 2016, she debuted the role of Turandot with As.Li.Co.´s Opera Domani project, touring all over Italy; during the summer of the same year, she attended Raina Kabaivanska´s masterclass at the Accademia Chigiana and to December she performed Turandot at the National Opera and Ballet in Sofia. In 2017 she debuted Norma to Sofia and performed Turandot in Oman. In 2018 she debuted Leonora in Trovatore at Verdi in Trieste, Monica in Menotti's La Medium to Modena.
A promising Lithuanian-born mezzo-soprano, a performer of refined elegance and strong stage presence, she possesses a warm voice with an enveloping amber timbre. Born in 1982, she graduated in choral conducting, piano and singing from the "M. K. Ciurlionis" Arts Gymnasium to Vilnius Lithuania. Initially she devoted herself to the study of jazz singing, perfecting herself at the Berklee Summer School courses of Umbria Jazz Clinics where she was lucky enough to meet Bobby McFerrin who directed her toward the study of opera singing. She later studied at the G. Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro where she graduated in Singing with 110 cum laude under the guidance of M° E.Dundekova and at the Academy of Lyric Art to Osimo. She attends the Academy of Perfection for opera singers at the Teatro del Maggio Fiorentino and the Academy of Perfection at the S.P. Theatersto in Treviso in collaboration with the Gran Teatro "la Fenice" in Venice. She was selected and invited by Maestro Dalton Baldwin to to attend the prestigious Academie Musical de Villecroze in France and received a scholarship from Raina Kabaivanska to study at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. She is the winner of numerous national and international competitions such as: As.Li.Co to Como Competition in 2005, Sacred Music Competition in 2006 to Rome - First Absolute Prize, Vinas Barcelona Competition in 2007 - special prize, Concorso " Segattini " Venice in 2007 - second prize, Concorso " Renata Tebaldi " to San Marino in 2007 - finalist and winner of the special prize, Concorso "Città di Bologna" in 2009 - first absolute prize, audience and critics prize. At her debut atOpera de Lorraine in Nancy her talent is recognized and awarded from Nancy Opera Passion - France. She won third prize at the Martinelli-Pertile Competition in November 2016. She has perfected with many internationally renowned artists such as: Robert Kettelson, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Giulio Zappa, Tiziana Fabbricini, Ph.Gossett, Enzo Dara, B.Manca de Nissa, B.de Simone, to.Patalini, R.Gimenez, P. Coni, Josè Cura, D.Baldwin, L.Nubar, R.Barker, Dennis O'Neill, Regina Resnik, Italo Nunziata, F.Fussi, Roberto Servile, C.Morganti, Sylvia Sass, to.Bertacchi, B.Baglioni. She is currently continuing her specialization with Raina Kabaivanska at the Istituto Superiore Vecchi-Tonelli in Modena. She has worked with renowned Italian and international conductors and directors and has sung in major theaters and festivals in Italy and around the world. In the year 2015 / 2016 she was Director of the "Green Pearl" Opera Choir in Riccione. In the year 2017 she taught Singing and Ensemble Music at the Liceo Artistico e Musicale G.Masini in Forlì. In 2017, she signed for the first time direction, costumes and lights of G.Verdi's Traviata at Teatro Regina in Cattolica, Teatro Comunale in Cagli and Teatro Gentile in Fabriano, gaining great approval from from audiences and critics. She was the director and Suzuky in G. Puccini's Butterfly to January 2018 in the Theaters of the Marche region and in April 2018 she played the role of Carmen. She is the President of the Music and Cultural Association MusicArte with which she organizes and promotes the dissemination ofopera opera in the theaters of Emilia Romagna and Marche. She has written numerous projects aimed at children on deepening their knowledge of Theater andOpera.