Patrick Bade
Andrea Chenier: Giordano

Patrick Bade - Andrea Chenier: Giordano

- And so Andrea Chenier should be a feast for lovers of the tenor voice, and every red-blooded tenor longs to sing this role. So, here are the six tenors that I’m going to play you tonight. Top left, Gigli, top middle, Pavarotti, top right, Franco Corelli, bottom right, Placido Domingo, bottom middle, Jussi Bjorling, and bottom left, Aureliano Pertile. So, we will be able to do a little bit of compare and contrast between these great tenors. So, it’s a role that encompasses the lyrical and the heroic, and there really isn’t a definitive type of tenor, or a definitive way to sing it. Those six tenors are all very different from one another. And on the left here, we have another great Italian tenor, who I’m not going to play you tonight, but always worth listening to, Giovanni Martinelli. And he was preparing to sing the role for the first time and he went with the composer Umberto Giordano to see a performance sung by Gigli. And on the right, you can see a group photograph with Giordano standing next to Gigli. And at the end of the performance, Martinelli was really crestfallen, because Gigli was able to sing with such incredible, honeyed sweetness of tone, and so he said to the composer, “I don’t really think I can do this. "I could never sing like that.” And Giordano said, “Don’t worry. "You’ll be just fine. "There’s another way to sing this role, "and it doesn’t have to be sweet like that. "It can also be a bit more tough and macho.” So, this is Gigli, again, on the left, and Pertile.

They were probably the two most celebrated Cheniers in the inter-War period. We’re going to hear from them later. In the post-War period, great rivals Franco Corelli, Mario Del Monaco, I’m not a fan of Del Monaco, so I’m afraid you’re not getting him tonight, but you will get a bit of Corelli, who was probably the most handsome tenor who has ever undertaken the role. And then all three of the Three Tenors sang the role. I don’t think I ever heard Pavarotti sing it live, but I did hear Carreras and Domingo, and we’re going to hear from two of those. And currently, I suppose, the Andrea Cheniers of choice would be Joseph Calleja on the left hand side, and Jonas Kaufmann, who I have heard sing it, and who gave certainly a very great performance, even if the timbre of the voice is not particular Italianate. So, here is Umberto Giordano. And he belonged to a generation of Italian composers who followed on from Verdi, and who emerged in the 1890s, and the movement is described as Verismo. “Realism.” The characters were not Egyptian princesses or Greek or Teutonic gods. They tended to be ordinary people, and the verismo operas dealt with real passions, everyday passions. So, the starting date for the verismo movement is 1890, and the Italian publishing company of Sonzogno, they used to have an annual competition for a one-act opera that was meant to be a way of promoting new talent. And it was won in 1890 by Mascagni, with his opera Cavalleria Rusticana, which dealt with peasants in a village in Sicily, and crimes of passion.

And that was then followed in 1892 by Leoncavallo, with Pagliacci, and then in 1893, Puccini made his mark with Manon Lescaut. So, you see at this point, this caricature, which must date from the mid-1890s, because it doesn’t yet show Giordano. It must be before 1896. And in fact, the fourth composer is Franchetti, and he’s an interesting character, a Jewish composer who suffered the double whammy of having his work banned in Italy by Mussolini after the racial laws were introduced and who also suffered from the reaction against verismo, after the Second World War, but is definitely worth looking at. He’s today, sadly, most famous for two operas that he actually didn’t write. He initially had the libretti, but Puccini managed to sneak away with Tosca from under his nose, and Franchetti very generously offered the libretto, which he’d commissioned from Luigi Illica, of Andrea Chenier. He offered it to Giordano. So, Giordano joined this group of composers, and then the final member of the group, bottom right, is Cilea. And his most famous opera, Adriana Lecouvreur, was performed in ‘95. Now, his Giordano came to write the opera is quite a story in itself. It could be a movie, or even an opera, plot. Sonzogno was so high on having discovered Mascagni and Leoncavallo, because the money was absolutely pouring in, because those operas were done everywhere in the world in the 1890s, and so they were looking for lightning to strike in the same place for a third time, and they missed out on Puccini, who went to their rival publishing house of Ricordi, then initially they had hoped for Giordano, but his first operas failed.

And so they said, “Right, that’s …” They gave him a stipendium, a kind of pension, hoping he’d come up with a wonderful opera, and after the second or third attempt they said, “Time’s up.” And it was actually Franchetti who persuaded Sonzogno to keep him on and give him one more chance, and then as I said, Franchetti gave him the libretto of Andrea Chenier. And there’s another extraordinary twist in this story. They were still a bit hesitant, and it was actually Mascagni, who was their golden boy, who went to Sonzogno and said, “You must give him this last chance.” And the reason for that was that they had met by chance in Florence at the top of a hill, and Mascagni was about to get on a tram, but when he saw Giordano, he stopped to speak to him, and didn’t get on the tram, and the tram hurtled down the hill, and its brakes failed, and there was a terrible accident, and lots of people were killed. And Mascagni was very superstitious, so he felt that he owed Giordano for that, and he was, I suppose, the final reason that he was given the chance. Oh, here is Cavalleria Rusticana. There’s the notice of the competition in 1890. And Roberto Stagno and Gemma Bellincioni, who were the original stars of Cavalleria Rusticana. Now, there was another element in the astonishing success of the premiere of Andrea Chenier in 1896. Because Giordano had had a series of failures, they couldn’t persuade any reputed tenor to take on the role.

And so, one day Giordano and Luigi Illica, who you see top left, nice hat, who was his librettist, they were in a cafe in Milan’s Galleria, which you see bottom left, and they bumped into a singer called Giuseppe Borgatti, who had also had a terrible failure. He’d been booed off the stage. And they were a bit desperate, and they said to him, “Well, will you take this?” And he said, “Well, look, "I’ve already been booed off the stage. "What the hell? I’ll have one more go.” Now, it’s interesting, because he turned into the most famous Italian Wagnerian heldentenor, so later in his career he was singing Siegfried and Tristan and things like this. And that’s interesting, because it shows right from the first that not just lyricals but also heroic tenors were singing this role. Now, the plot, we go back to the 18th century. Act one takes place on the eve of the French Revolution, in the summer of 1789, and acts two, three and four take place in the middle, at the height of the Revolution, and the so-called Terror, most famous for the slaughter of 10,000 aristocrats and intellectuals, by the guillotine. And Illica, in his libretta, he’s quite even-handed about the French Revolution. In act one, it’s very, very clear why it happened, why it had to happen. But in the later acts, he shows very clearly also what went wrong with the Revolution. Of course, it’s a pattern we’ve seen in other revolutions since then, like the Russian Revolution, starting off with idealism, and turning into corruption and brutality.

There are several historical characters, who actually existed at the time of the Revolution, who are in the opera, mostly small roles. The main role, Andrea Chenier, Andre Chenier, was a romantic poet, who was guillotined right at the end of the Terror, in 1794. This is what he looked like, on the left, and this house, which still exists, I see it very often, I see it at least once a week, because it’s on my bus route to the flea market, this is the house that Andre Chenier lived in during the French Revolution. So, after a very brief prelude, the veristi, on the whole, were not keen on extended orchestral overtures or introductions. They wanted to plunge straight into the action. And the curtain goes up, and it should be an aristocratic chateau outside of Paris, belonging to the Coigny family. A point I want to make about verismo, verismo, this kind of realism, Puccini as well, all the verismo composers were very, very specific about the time and place of the action of their operas, so the current fashion for transporting the action of an opera to a different period, it seems to me, it really doesn’t work with most verismo operas. You do not want to see Andrea Chenier transferred to the 20th century, or certainly you don’t want to see it in an earlier century. There’s so much in the opera that is very, very specific to the period. So, the curtain goes up, and there are preparations for a grand ball and party, that are going to be held in this chateau. And the first of the three main characters is the baritone, who plays the part of Gerard, who’s actually not a historical character, he’s an invented character. And he’s the majordomo for the Coigny family. And who have we got here?

Mario Sammarco, who sang in the premiere, Leonard Warren, who was famous for it, at the Metropolitan, and Bastianini, who is famous at the Met and at La Scala. So, the servants are moving around the furniture, and Gerard has quite a short aria, but it’s in two very separate sections. First section, he rather ironically addresses an elegant Louis XV Rococo sofa, and you can see what he’s saying to it. I think this is inspired by a famous 18th-century novel, Le Sopha, by Crebillon fils, which is the story of a faithless lover who’s transformed into a piece of furniture, into a sofa, and cannot resume human form until two lovers make love on the sofa without one deceiving the other. So, it’s in a kind of pseudo-18th century, jaunty minuet style.

• But then he sees his aged father staggering in, and trying to carry a heavy piece of furniture, and his mood turns to one of rage. And he rages against the heartlessness and selfishness of the aristocracy who have exploited his father throughout his long career.

• Next, we meet the heroine, Maddalena. She’s the daughter of the family, a beautiful young woman. And here are four famous Maddalenas, Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Zinka Milanov, and Claudia Muzio, who we’re going to hear from later. In the great rivalry between Callas and Tebaldi, I would say Tebaldi comes off better in this role. You want a really gorgeous voice. You don’t want the harshness of Callas, however wonderful she may be as a singing actress. You want a warmer and more feminine, more womanly voice. But here we’re going to hear Renata Scotto. And she first appears on the stage with a tiny, little aria, which gives you an insight into her character, that she’s also, in a way, impatient with the artificiality of the life of the aristocracy. And her mother’s nagging her to go and get ready for the ball, and she complains about the ridiculous, uncomfortable dresses that they have to dress up in for these occasions.

• Now, it’s clear whilst she’s singing this, that Gerard, the servant, is gazing at her with love, or lust, in his eyes, and that he’s already in love with her. So, the ball starts, and the audience on stage and the audience in the amphitheatre, are presented with a delightful 18th-century ballet, with nymphs and shepherds and so on, rather in the manner of a fete galante of Watteau, that we see top left. And then Andrea Chenier arrives. We’re already more than halfway through act one, and at the first performance, the audience was indifferent, listless, restless, up to this point. But the huge success of this piece, just completely lit up the audience, and from that moment, Giordano had the audience in the palm of his hand. This piece, it’s called The … Oh, don’t know what’s the Italian name for it. The … Improviso. The Improviso. It’s meant to be a poetic improvisation. So, the countess, the mother of Maddalena, she comes to him. He’s introduced as a poet, and she says, “Okay, sing for your supper. "Tell us a poem, then.” And he quite rudely rebuffs her. And then her daughter, Maddalena, she says, “Well, I think I could probably persuade him.” So she goes up to him, and playfully, she tries to persuade him. She flirts with him, to persuade him to recite a poem. And he falls for it, and he recites this poem which is in several sections. He starts off with a wonderful, romantic evocation of the beauties of nature. But then it turns into a kind of a political rant.

He’s denouncing the hypocrisy and the corruption of the Catholic church, and the selfishness of the aristocratic classes. And then we’ll see, in a minute, it turns right at the end into something like a declaration of love for Maddalena, so it goes through a whole range of different emotions. That’s what the tenor needs to do. He’s got to vary it, his voice, and it goes along. And Gigli is fantastic at this. He starts off with, as I said, this gorgeous, gorgeous, sweet, honeyed tone, and then you’ll hear how, when he is denouncing the Catholic church and aristocracy, how the voice hardens, and a snarl comes into it.

• So, the aristocratic audience react with horror at this. But finally, he turns towards Maddalena, and he addresses her directly, and as I said, he more or less declares his love for her, and we have a gorgeous outburst of melody at the end here. We’ll see this is the pattern for Giordano’s arias through this opera. Quite a long, semi-recitative, really, and then a burst of melody at the end. And I’m going to play you two versions of this. First of all, we’re going to hear … Placido Domingo. And of course he has the voice. It’s for this. It’s a wonderful, big, sumptuous voice. And he sings it with plenty of ardour. But to me, it’s a rather generalised ardour. He’s not particularly sensitive to the specific words that he’s singing. And I’ll play you a very different version in a minute.

• I’m sure he brought the house down with that, and any really good tenor, there will be minutes of interruptions of performance, if you really sock it to an audience like that. But I prefer Pertile, and I’ll tell you why. Because in the score, you’ll see the dynamic markings go. They’re swinging backwards and forwards, from pianissimo to fortissimo. There wasn’t, to my mind, enough contrast between the loud and the soft passages, and enough emphasis on the words. So, here we’re going to hear Aureliano Pertile. He was the favourite tenor of Toscanini throughout the inter-War period. It’s a very verismo voice. That is the typical verismo voice. We hear quite a lot of vibration in the voice. It’s a vibrant sound. And you’ll see how, even on a word, like a word like “poeta,” he will swell the voice, and reduce it just on that one word. And you’ll see how he starts off very passionate. “Yes, the beauty of life,” and then he really pulls back as he turns to her, and he says … “Beautiful girl.” And his voice becomes really soft and tender. And then for that final … And so the contrast from that softness and tenderness, when he just goes absolute ape-shit, on the last declaration of love at the end is very powerful and very extraordinary.

• I’m sure Maddalena must have been a puddle on the floor after that. Anyway, he disappears, and the act ends ominously. You hear a chorus of peasants outside and they’ve invaded the castle, and they’re led in by Gerard, and it’s a portent of the violence of the Revolution to come. So, act two. This opera, of course, it’s the same year as La Boheme, and it’s four years ahead of Tosca. One thing that Giordano has in common with Puccini is he understands how to keep the audience on the edge of the seat. You get these constant changes. We’ve heard it already in act one, and even more in this act. And it’s just so exciting. It gives you a wonderful sense of the exhilaration and the excitement of a revolution, when anything seems possible. I have a horrible feeling we may be about to experience something similar in the not so different future, because these things usually don’t turn out all that well in the long term. So, in this act, as I said, there’s tremendous action, constant changes of mood, and we meet a minor character.

She’s called Bersi. And she is sung by a mezzo, and she is is Maddalena’s servant, who has faithfully stayed with her and serves her and protects her, but in the opera she’s playing the role of a merveilleuse, who were these characters during a revolution. Incroyable were the men, and the merveilleuse, and they had very outrageous clothes and very outrageous fashions. And the woman who sang the role in the first performance was actually the lover of the librettist, Luigi Illica. And he kept on trying to enlarge her role, and Giordano resisted. In fact, on one occasion, he actually pulled out a pistol and threatened Illica if he kept on insisting that his mistress’ role should be a large one. So, it’s actually a tiny role, but I like this little piece, where she’s singing about the reckless excitement of the Revolution. And as it ends, the orchestra comes in thunderously with a famous French Revolutionary song, Ca Ira.

• Actually, I think the revolutionary gene is in the French DNA, or at least of Parisians. Every single weekend in Paris, there are riots and protests somewhere in the city, and I have a neighbour. Every weekend she sends me an email telling me where the riot, where the demonstration, is going to be this weekend. So, along comes Andrea Chenier, and he’s warned by his best friend, Roucher, that he’s in danger, and that he needs to flee from Paris. But he doesn’t want to do so, because he is intrigued by passionate letters that he’s been getting from an unknown woman. And he has a little piece to sing, where he’s talking about his need or search for love, and he has this feeling that this woman who’s been writing him these letters is going to be the great love of his life. Now, of course I have to play you Pavarotti. And Pavarotti recording, complete one, is certainly one … It’s exciting. It’s one to be recommended. But in this little piece, I think I can demonstrate what is great about Pavarotti, and what, to my mind, is not so great. His voice is totally thrilling when it’s full out, at the top. Nobody to match him. There’s a real ping in it. What the Italians call “squillo.” And if you really want to demonstrate what “squillo” means, then play Pavarotti high notes. And also, like Gigli, his annunciation of the text is absolutely exemplary. You catch every word. The drawback for me is actually right at the beginning here, where he has to start off softly. And Pavarotti, for me, is never really satisfactory when he sings softly. The tone is slightly fluffy. It’s not really properly … He can’t do what Gigli can do, which is to sing softly and have it beautifully focused.

• It was absolutely thrilling at the end, of course. Maddalena … A rendezvous has been arranged by Bersi, between … Chenier and Maddalena. She arrives, heavily veiled. He doesn’t initially recognise her. And then she pulls off her veil, and of course it’s total love between them. And they sing a gorgeous duet, with a very sumptuous tune. We’re going to hear Domingo and Renata Scotto in this. And this duet is supposed to start … It’s quite high for the tenor, to start with, upper middle voice. It’s meant to start piano, it’s meant to start softly. And again, I would say, Domingo can’t really do this, or maybe he could, but he wasn’t prepared to risk it, because it’s a risky thing to do. So, I’m going to play you until the point where Renata Scotto comes in, with the same words and the same phrase, and it’s like she’s giving him a lesson. It’s like she’s saying, “Hey, buddy, "this is how you should have sung it at the beginning.”

• Now listen to Scotto come in here.

• So, at the end of that act, Gerard, I should have mentioned, has now become an important revolutionary leader. He’s, I don’t know, Jeremy Corbyn, or whoever you want him to be. And he’s searching for Maddalena. He’s desperately in love with her. And he’s sent out his spies to find her. And they have spotted her. And at the end of this duet, he bursts in, and he fights a duel with Chenier. He’s wounded, but he warns Chenier. He says, “They’re out to arrest you. "Flee. Get out of here.” And that’s the end of act two. Act three takes place in a revolutionary tribunal, and Chenier has been arrested, and he’s going to be tried for treason. I’m going to cut out a few things here, because otherwise I’m going to run out of time. This is the scene with vecchia Madelon. She’s an old peasant woman. And of course, the Revolution is in peril, all the other countries in Europe turned on France, wanting to restore the monarchy, and France was threatened on all sides, and she has this little monologue, where she describes how her sons have all died for France, for the Revolution, and this is her last grandson, and she comes to offer him to the Revolution. If you want a really good singing actress … It’s a great role for a mezzo or a soprano at the end of their career. But we’re not going to hear that. So, Gerard, he’s a kind of Scapino character in a way, but he’s Scapino with a conscience, with a decent side. So, he’s the one who’s had Chenier arrested, because he thinks that’s a way he can get to Maddalena, but he is very, very conflicted about this.

He actually admires Chenier. He knows he’s a good guy. So, this is a great piece again, a real barnstorming piece for a great baritone. An exciting performance of Andrea Chenier, the big arias are going to bring the house down. And we’re going to hear Tito Gobbi here, and it follows a similar pattern to the Improviso, in that it starts off with an extended recitative, and you only get the real melody in a short burst at the end. It’s Tito Gobbi, of course.

• So, Maddalena comes to plead with him, and he starts off trying to do a Scapino on her, saying, “All right, you know, "if you have sex with me, "or if you love me, "I’ll release him.” And she then sings her big aria, and she says, “Okay then, take me. "Because all I want to do is save his life.” And she has an aria with a similar pattern. She’s describing what’s happened to her since the Revolution. How her mother’s been murdered in front of her eyes and her servant has looked after her. And again, it follows a similar pattern, of a very dramatic recitative, offering the singer lots of opportunity for expression and then ending with a juicy tune, which some people have accused him of stealing from Chopin. You may recognise a very similar tune by Chopin. We’re going to hear the great Claudia Muzio. She was always known as the Divine Claudia. I know two Divine Claudias, actually. There’s Muzio, and the other one is Claudia Rubenstein, Judi’s daughter. I always call her La Divina Claudia. But Muzio was queen of Buenos Aires. She was adored, absolutely adored, by the public of Buenos Aires. In the 1920s, she encountered a young gigolo, very handsome young man, a Greek, called Aristotle Onassis, who was working in a telephone company. And he became her lover, and she helped him make his first fortune, because he had a shipment of Turkish cigarettes that were pink-tipped, and everybody thought they were naff and wouldn’t touch them, and he said to her, “All you need to do is, "you go out in public in Buenos Aires "and smoke one of my cigarettes, "and everybody in Buenos Aires will want them.” And that’s what happened, and that was the origin of one of the world’s great fortunes. But here is the divine Claudia. She’s described by Lauri-Volpi as having a voice of tears and sighs and restrained inner fire.

• Well, of course Gerard melts, and he agrees to help her try and save Chenier. Now, I’ve run out of time, so I’m afraid I’m going to, oh, terrible, to have to deprive you of these two great tenors, Franco Corelli, Jussi Bjorling, but you’ve got them on the list. You can get them on Spotify, or the … On YouTube. So, I’m going to just go straight to the final scene, where Maddalena comes to the prison, where Chenier’s being held, waiting for his execution. She saves another woman by swapping with her, who is going to be executed, because she wants to die with Chenier. So, it ends tragically. But, wow, what a fantastic ending. It’s such an exciting ending. Big, big, juicy tunes, and it always brings, in a good performance, the audience to a delirium of enthusiasm.

• They’re just getting into the tumble, to go off to the guillotine.

• Right, let’s see what we have, for any questions or comments.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: “Is there any reason why no mention "of Carlo Bergonzi?”

A: No. He’s a wonderful singer. I greatly admire Carlo Bergonzi. Lucky. Gigli always used to insist that whenever he debuted in a new house, it had to be in the role of Chenier, because it’s a role, as I said, that really shows off a tenor to his best advantage. I’m not sure that Carlo … I don’t think there’s a recording of Carlo Bergonzi in Chenier. At least, I don’t have one. But he’s, as I said, a very wonderful singer.

Q: “Why are you not a fan of Del Monaco?”

A: I just find him too crude. It’s an amazing voice, amazing voice, but it really doesn’t appeal to me. It’s too macho for my tastes.

“Ben Heppner was another heldentenor "who sang the role of Chenier.” No, I never heard it, but he was very good for a while.

Q: When did I first get into opera?

A: When I was about four or five years old, when I got my grandmother’s record collection.

Q: Do I go to the riots?

A: No, I decidedly do not. I try to avoid them, if possible. I find it pretty scary. I hate even being in a football crowd. I don’t like crowds.

“Illica lost his right ear in a duel over a woman, "which is why you always see profiles of his left side.” That, I didn’t know. That’s an interesting fact. Of course, yes, he left many librettos of many famous operas, particularly the great operas of Puccini. Jonas Kaufmann is a super Chenier, and he is a singer who can go … Yeah, he doesn’t have the Italian squillo up the top, not at all, but what he does have, much more than Pavarotti or Domingo, is the ability to go from very soft, with a focused tone, to fortissimo.

“Agree with the thoughts about Pavarotti’s voice, "but how we followed him around …” Yes, of course, it’s a thrill, isn’t it? It’s a visceral thrill, that if you want squillo, you get it with him. He was wonderful, Kaufmann, in … Of course he began it softly, exactly as it should be sung, in that duet. And the same, actually, for the act one aria, from Adriana Lecouvreur, where almost nobody else sings it as written in the score.

Q: “On a floor with Tito?”

A: Yes. Yes. He’s pretty amazing. And not just wonderful annunciation. He really makes the words mean something. He’s one of the great singers, from that point-of-view.

Lucic, I’ve never heard as Gerard. Oh, I must have done, if he was in that performance. I remember liking the performance, but I don’t have a specific memory of Lucic in it.

A part two? I think no. I probably shot my bolt on it now, because I couldn’t really do a whole session, just on that act.

Q: “Giacomini is on your list of great Cheniers?”

A: I didn’t hear … What did I hear him in? I think I heard him in Fanciulla del West. I don’t know what he’s like as Chenier. Claudia Muzio, the most incredibly beautiful and expressive voice. How would I describe it? Divine. I can’t think of another word. She’s the great verismo singer. Oh dear, the drama and the trauma of the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. No, somebody’s going to make an opera of that one day. Like the opera that was made about the Duchess and her pearls.

“Where does act four …” In my numbering system, act four begins at … No, no. Yes, is the first thing. No, . Number 11. Right. That’s it, I’m afraid.

Yes, that’s it for all the questions. Thank you very, very much. And it’s going to be a real problem squeezing La Boheme into one session. I’m going to have to do some cuts, I think.

But thank you for your patience, and I’ll see you, some of you anyway, on Tuesday for La Boheme.