Gossett Scholars and Performers

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Scholars and Performers Author(s): Philip Gossett Source: Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 45, No. 6 (Mar., 1992), pp. 32-51 Published by: American Academy of Arts & Sciences Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3824150 . Accessed: 09/12/2013 14:14 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . American Academy of Arts & Sciences is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 200.16.86.36 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 14:14:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Gossett scholars and performers

Transcript of Gossett Scholars and Performers

  • Scholars and PerformersAuthor(s): Philip GossettSource: Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 45, No. 6 (Mar., 1992),pp. 32-51Published by: American Academy of Arts & SciencesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3824150 .Accessed: 09/12/2013 14:14

    Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

    .

    JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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  • Stated Meeting Report

    Scholars and Performers

    Philip Gossett

    Musical scholarship and musical perfor- mance are often represented as occupying hostile worlds. The mutual dependence that actually governs these spheres is replaced by mutual distrust. Similar divisions are deeply embedded throughout our culture, in which theory and practice are treated as binary opposites: we have economists and business executives, computer scientists and software hackers, critics and artists. Denizens of "ivory towers" and "thinkers," on the one hand, jut up against inhabitants of the "real world" and "doers" on the other. The word academic is regularly used by those in and out of institu- tions of higher learning to set theoretical discourse apart from the practical world. In the arts, where the creation of new works and the representation of old ones are linked to the idea of "inspiration," and sometimes even "divine inspiration," the imagined gulf some- times seems unbridgeable.

    Over the past quarter-century, much of this controversy in music centers on the efforts of musicologists and some performers to invoke a history that transcends the immediate past. Those who play Mozart's keyboard concertos on the fortepianos for which they are written are regularly excoriated for their lack of pas- sion and individuality; those who perform these same pieces on Steinway grands, with all the trappings of late-nineteenth-century phrasing and pedaling, are pilloried for their insensitivity to historical practice.

    Words such as authentic, once proudly de- scriptive of musical performances informed by historical study, have lost whatever mean- ing they may have possessed; whether embla- zoned on banners or record jackets as symbols of truth and beauty or treated as objects of opprobrium and scorn, they have become at best slogans, at worst commercial ploys. In- deed, their continued use is merely confusing.

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  • Are we willing to say, after all, that a perfor- mance faithful to a musicological reconstruc- tion is authentic, while one ignorant of such reconstructions but embodying the interpre- tation of a committed artist within different parameters is not? The term authenticity begs too many questions. It also reinforces categor- ical divisions that deny the interdependence of theory and practice, embodying in banali- ties complex issues that every performer and every scholar must confront. Traditionalist performers and critics reject a vast amount of serious thought on performance by attacking caricatures of that thought. But scholars can be no less intransigent in sustaining dearly held theories while ignoring modern realities and the complexity of historical data.

    My own concerns lie primarily in nineteenth-century Italian opera, where tem- pers are hotter, prima donnas more imperi- ous, and disputes descend to a level of rheto- ric astonishing to those not already captivated by the customs of the lyric stage. Some critics, annoyed with disastrous performances mas- querading under the guise of authenticity, respond with a thick sarcasm aimed at issues that have little bearing on the reasons for their displeasure. Reviewing a recording of Cavalleria rusticana and I Pagliacci under Ric- cardo Muti, Kenneth Furie complained: "And what is Muti doing all this while, with disaster overtaking from all directions? He's by God giving us pure, authentic performances! Yes- sirree, it's back to the autograph scores, boys and girls! For the first time we hear Pagliacci as Leoncavallo really meant it."

    When performances are criticized for not following accurate texts, the participants themselves may man the barricades. Al- though I had loved Italian opera from child- hood and had studied it seriously for ten years, my first public foray into the operatic battlefield came in 1976, when Beverly Sills triumphed in Rossini's The Siege of Corinth, her debut at the Metropolitan Opera. This success was achieved at the expense of so debilitating the work that it has never again been heard in America. In a lecture given just across from the Opera House, I deplored the manipula- tions foisted on Rossini's score. The furious Miss Sills responded by remarking to Gary

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  • Wills that some so-called musicologists re- minded her of middle-aged men who talk about sex.

    Few musicologists are so naive as to imag- ine that our problems would be solved if a time machine transported us to a nineteenth- century theater. Does anyone hold as a model the first performance of I1 barbiere di Siviglia, where the singers barely knew their parts, the orchestra was under-rehearsed, the perform- ing materials were atrociously copied, and the audience hooted and jeered? Do we want to recreate theaters in which we draw the cur- tains of our boxes while awaiting major arias, chatting with friends, eating ices, and facendo all'amore? When public social activity centered around the opera house and the same work was performed night after night, that was a reasonable way of listening to music. How we listen today is inextricably related to how we live today.

    What would it mean, after all, to ask a singer to "sing only what's written"? Is there any evidence that musicians in the nineteenth century strove to erase their personality and individuality of tone? Does anyone seriously suggest that stage designers must always re- produce period productions or that directors should limit their intervention to following nineteenth-century staging manuals? Should orchestral musicians invariably ignore the technical advances made in the construction of their instruments or in the techniques of playing them?

    That we can learn much by reconstructing mentally (or even physically) a nineteenth- century performance, analyzing historical vo- cal technique, scenic design, stage direction, and instrumental practice, seems self-evident. That this knowledge can have implications for modern performance is demonstrable. That scholars expect performers to abandon them- selves to historical reconstruction is a gross misrepresentation.

    The Case of Semiramide In December 1990 the Metropolitan Opera

    unveiled a new production of Gioachino Rossini's Semiramide. Prepared for the Teatro la Fenice of Venice, Semiramide was the last of

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  • some thirty-four operas Rossini wrote for Italian theaters between 1810 and 1823. The best of these operas dominated stages in Italy and abroad for thirty years, and their influ- ence continued to be felt long after Rossini's serious operas disappeared from the reper- tory for a variety of historical and cultural reasons. The Met's decision to revive Semira- mide was both an act of noblesse oblige to one of the great singers of modern times, Marilyn Horne, and a belated recognition by Ameri- ca's oldest opera house of the growing world- wide interest, among musicians and the public alike, in Rossini's noncomic operas.

    The dramatic precepts of eighteenth- century neoclassical drama are unfamiliar to modern America. I would guess that Semira- mide was the first contact with a play by Voltaire in any form for 99 percent of the audience who attended the Metropolitan or watched the recent Public Broadcasting Ser- vice telecast. The remaining 1 percent of the audience consisted largely of opera-lovers who had seen Rossini's Tancredi, also based on a Voltaire play, at Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or in Europe. Thus, a certain puzzlement at the formal (even static) dramaturgy was to be expected. Not everyone would feel comfortable with a work whose aesthetic bases are in such sharp contrast with the precepts of the Romantic theater under- lying most nineteenth-century Italian opera. Nonetheless, the theater audience was enthu- siastic, and long standing ovations greeted the performers every night, even though the eve- ning began at 7:30 and did not conclude until almost midnight.

    Among those left relatively unmoved by Semiramide was Donal Henahan, former music critic of the New York Times. What interested me was not his opinion of the opera (to which I remain indifferent) but the way it was ex- pressed. Reviewing the entire Metropolitan Opera season, he wrote: "Semiramide, revived after nearly a century, was played in a new edition that put exhaustive scholarship before operatic effectiveness." There it is, laid out for all to see: "exhaustive scholarship" versus "op- eratic effectiveness." In fact, this production of Semiramide-for which I served as stylistic advisor and which employed a new critical

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  • zedition of the opera, prepared for the Rossini Foundation of Pesaro by Alberto Zedda and myself-provides a paradigmatic introduction to the interaction of scholarship and performance in the opera house, an in- teraction a good deal more complex than Mr. Henahan's banal dichotomies might indicate. The issues can be divided into two categories: preparing a score of the opera and perform- ing from that score.

    Preparing a New Edition of Semiramide Whatever theoretical value philosophers

    may assign to or negate from a written musi- cal score, few performers of the nineteenth- century classical repertory learn music by rote (I exclude, to be sure, an occasional tenor). In order to perform Semiramide, then, the Met- ropolitan Opera needed a full score for the conductor (one containing all orchestral and vocal parts), piano-vocal scores for singers and rehearsal pianists, and individual orches- tral parts from which violinists, bassoonists, and timpanists could play. In the nineteenth century the full score of Semiramide circulated in manuscript; orchestral parts were also pre- pared by hand. Only piano-vocal scores were printed. Rossini's own manuscript of the op- era, his "autograph," is in the archives of the theater for which Semiramide was written, the Teatro La Fenice of Venice. From it the theater's copyists prepared parts (which still exist) and a complete manuscript of the full score. From that manuscript copy, other cop- ies and other sets of parts were prepared. These derivative scores and parts were used for nineteenth-century performances all over Europe and even in America.

    By the end of the nineteenth century Semi- ramide had disappeared from the stage, most nineteenth-century performing materials were allowed to rot in theater basements, and whatever once existed in Italy's most exten- sive collection of parts and scores (the ar- chives of the publisher Ricordi in Milan) was destroyed by Allied bombardments in 1944 (Ricordi had moved to safer quarters its most precious autograph manuscripts, but not the bulk of its musical archive). Thus, when Semi- ramide was given its first modern performances

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  • in 1962 at the Teatro alla Scala of Milan, as a vehicle for Joan Sutherland and Giulietta Si- monato, it was necessary to prepare a new full score and parts. (Photographic reproductions of nineteenth-century piano-vocal scores were available and could be corrected to take ac- count of decisions made in the new score.) The 1962 edition, although unsigned, was prepared in a serious manner and appears to have been based on Rossini's autograph at the Teatro La Fenice. Nonetheless, many prob- lems remained. The edition was prepared with the needs of those particular perfor- mances at La Scala in mind. It was based on musical sources known and available in 1962, before serious research on nineteenth-century Italian opera texts had begun. And it could not draw on the wealth of experience the new critical edition of Rossini's works has provid- ed-experience gained in preparing editions of almost half of Rossini's forty operas, ten of which are now in print or in proof.

    Until the Metropolitan Opera's 1990 pro- duction, the 1962 La Scala score, copies of it, and materials derived from it served as the basis for modern revivals of Semiramide. Since 1962 almost fifty opera houses have included the work in one or more seasons. During those years, however, theaters employing this material complained bitterly about its condi- tion. The Rossini Foundation therefore agreed to prepare its critical edition in time for the Metropolitan performances. There are four principal ways in which the critical edition differs from the older score: (1) the new edition is complete, (2) it uses autograph material unknown to previous editors, (3) it reconstructs the stage band Rossini employed in 1823, and (4) it provides a more accurate score and a more idiomatic treatment of ar- ticulation, dynamics, and so forth. Let me say a few words about each of these matters.

    (1) The new edition is complete. The decision to omit certain passages from Rossini's Semi- ramide in the performances at La Scala in 1962 was made before the edition was prepared. Thus, a great deal of music Rossini composed for the opera was lacking in the score. But not every subsequent opera house presenting Semiramide agreed with the La Scala cuts. Although the tenor, Idreno, has little dra-

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  • matic importance, Rossini did write two arias for him. In 1962, before tenors had rein- vented the art of singing Rossini's florid lines, it was prudent to omit one aria altogether and to reduce the length of the other. When better-prepared tenors assumed the role in later productions, they insisted on restoring some of that music.

    In 1962 the art of vocal ornamentation in Rossini was poorly understood. Musical forms constructed to give singers an opportunity to decorate the repetition of a melodic line seemed superfluous, and many were omitted from the edition. Almost twenty years later Samuel Ramey, a bass capable of electrifying an audience, assumed the role of Assur for the first time. When he wished to follow Rossini by repeating (with ornaments) the theme of the final section in Assur's aria, its so-called cabaletta, the missing bars had to be restored. In 1962 particular attention was placed on Semiramide as a vehicle for soloists, and the quality of Rossini's choruses was un- recognized. Until she performed the mezzo- soprano role of Arsace in the critical edition, Marilyn Horne had never even heard the extraordinary chorus that opens Arsace's scene in the second act.

    As each new performance made different demands and produced different require- ments, extra pages were added to (or omitted from) the La Scala score, and orchestral parts were cut up and pasted together in new configurations. Finding your way through the material began to seem like negotiating a maze. Indeed, the situation was so bad that the Ricordi firm, which distributed the mate- rials, was actually threatened with lawsuits demanding compensation for time lost in re- hearsal.

    The new edition of Semiramide contains the complete opera Rossini wrote in 1823. It makes no presumption whatsoever that a the- ater must or even should perform the entire opera. By providing complete materials, how- ever, it assures that eventual cuts can be decided after performers know the entire work, and on the basis of the particular needs of a production rather than on the basis of the perceived needs of La Scala in 1962.

    (2) The new edition uses autograph material 38

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  • unknown to previous editors. Although the edi- tors of the 1962 Semiramide had access to the Venetian autograph, other autograph materi- als were lacking. Rossini used paper in an oblong format, rather than the vertical format that became typical later in the nineteenth century. Oblong paper allows a composer to write more measures per page while sacrific- ing the number of staves available; vertical paper allows fewer measures but increases the number of staves. In a large ensemble, when everyone sings and plays at once, the opera composer using oblong paper is compelled to write what is called a spartitino (a little score) to accommodate the overflow of instruments. These autograph spartitini, usually bound at the end of a manuscript, can easily be mis- placed. For Semiramide, in fact, they were missing. Using secondary sources, the La Scala score filled in some missing instruments, but its compilers were often compelled to invent new horn, trumpet, and percussion parts.

    Although the archives of the Teatro La Fenice contain the original performing mate- rials for Semiramide, these materials had never been consulted. After much travail a micro- fiche copy was obtained, and during the sum- mer of 1989 two scholars working with the Rossini Foundation, Mauro Bucarelli and Pa- tricia Brauner, indexed the more than four thousand manuscript pages. Sitting between a trombone part and a bass-drum part were found the autograph spartitini for the opera. Thus, the new edition uses the composer's own wind, brass, and percussion parts for major ensembles, parts significantly different from those in the La Scala materials.

    One small lacuna remained. In the opera's introduction, Rossini signaled in the margin that parts for the third and fourth horns were to be found in a spartitino, but no such spartitino came to light. The La Scala score seemed suspect: for long stretches these horns double the bassoons, an orchestral tech- nique foreign to Rossini's style. Here, per- forming parts from La Fenice came to the rescue; from them we could reconstruct what in all likelihood were the missing horn parts. Thus, the new edition could present the en-

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  • tire orchestration of the opera as Rossini conceived it.

    (3) The new edition reconstructs the stage band Rossini employed in 1823. In three pieces, Semi- ramide requires a band to play in costume on stage (sul palco) or in the wings. Rossini was the first nineteenth-century Italian composer regularly to introduce a banda sul palco, but he did not normally prepare a complete score: he sketched the part on one or two staves, and a local bandmaster completed the orchestra- tion (Verdi did the same thing in his operas). Since the autograph did not include an or- chestration for the banda, La Scala commis- sioned a new one.

    Among the La Fenice performing parts, however, we found the original scoring for the banda sul palco. Twenty-two instruments are employed-winds, brass, and percus- sion-and rehearsals with the stage band alone demonstrated the scoring to be fluent and effective. In theory there should have been no reason for a theater not to use this scoring. What actually happened at the Met- ropolitan Opera I will describe shortly.

    (4) Finally, the new edition provides a more accurate score and a more idiomatic treatment of matters such as articulation and dynamics. Every composer has different habits, some deter- mined by personal considerations, some by external ones. When an opera composer ex- pects that his autograph will be used to pre- pare a printed orchestral edition, he is moti- vated to be more precise about details-for example, to be sure that dynamic markings are found in each part, that articulation is clear and reasonably coherent, that errors are corrected. He is precise because the medium in which his score will circulate is a precise medium. When an opera composer expects his score to circulate in manuscript, as Rossini did, he tends to be less precise, since copyists' manuscripts are prepared in haste and rarely reflect accurately a composer's text. If a mod- ern edition of an opera does not resolve contradictions and imprecisions in the auto- graph, chaos can follow during rehearsals. Rossini could count on musicians thoroughly familiar with his style, but the stylistic orien- tation of orchestral players today mutates with each work they perform. In its social

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  • framework, then, an edition of an opera dif- fers markedly from an edition of a novel or even of a piano sonata. Experience dealing with Rossini autographs provides a frame- work within which to resolve these problems.

    As Semiramide begins, for example, the Babylonians are celebrating the day in which their queen will announce her choice for their new king. Peoples from around the world offer gifts and pay homage. Many nineteenth-century sources carefully copy the following choral text from Rossini's auto- graph: "Dal Gange aurato, dal Nilo altero, dall' Orso indomito, dall'orbe intero" ("From the golden Ganges, from the proud Nile, from the indomitable Bear, from the entire world"). Indomitable Bear? What is this Bear doing among the major rivers of the ancient world? It is, of course, a Rossinian mistake. While entering the text of the libretto, Rossini wrote "Dal Gange aurato, dal Nilo altero, dall' orbe" before realizing that he had skipped a line, "da Tigri indomito" ("from the indomita- ble Tigris"). Thus, the Tigris river is properly invoked, together with the Ganges and the Nile. But as Brauner commented when she first noted this problem, Rossini's error is perfectly comprehensible to anyone who has ever read A. A. Milne: he must have been thinking of "Lions, Tigers, and Bears."

    In short, the new edition of Semiramide does indeed use "exhaustive scholarship" (and a little imagination) to make Rossini's opera available to performers in as complete and correct a form as modern textual criticism allows, recognizing fully that this edition (like all editions of musical or literary texts) is a product of our era and its complex relation- ship to the past.

    Performing from the New Edition What does it mean to say that Semiramide

    "was played in a new edition that put exhaus- tive scholarship before operatic effective- ness"? If "edition" refers to a critical edition of Semiramide, the phrase is obscure. By what- ever criteria the opera may be judged effec- tive or ineffective, an edition of the opera (as opposed to an adaptation) cannot transform it.

    If "edition" here means only production, 41

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  • the phrase is even harder to understand, since there was nothing scholarly about this pro- duction in any commonly understood sense. Although there are many surviving drawings of sets and costumes for this once highly popular opera, no effort was made to employ them. At most, the production followed nine- teenth-century practice by changing sets with- out dropping the curtain, thereby sparing the audience those interminable pauses in a dimly lit theater typical of opera productions of thirty years ago. Although a great deal of ornamentation used in Semiramide by early nineteenth-century singers survives, none was adopted by the cast, all of whom developed, either by themselves or with the help of their coaches, ornamentation they considered suit- able for their own voices. Neither the audi- ence nor the critics judged ineffective the ornamentation used by June Anderson, Mari- lyn Horne, or Samuel Ramey (each of whom ornamented his or her music in very different ways). Although scholars know a great deal about the instruments Rossini would have had at his disposal in 1823, no member of the Metropolitan orchestra was asked to leave his or her modern instrument at home. At most, dynamic levels in their parts were changed to reflect, for example, the different weight of a modern brass instrument. And although Rossini had only a pair of tuned drums avail- able to him, the fine Metropolitan timpanist (who had four) followed modern practice in substituting chordal notes when the com- poser, to keep the drum playing in an ensem- ble passage, resorted to a nonharmonic tone.

    Once the critical edition of Semiramide was in the hands of the performers, in short, no participant in the production had any thought other than creating an operatically effective performance for a New York City audience in 1991. Yet the question remains: What happens at the point of intersection between scholarship, with its effort to develop accurate texts and precise historical knowl- edge, and performance? What kinds of ques- tions are asked? What kinds of answers are deemed acceptable? What are the limits be- yond which the performer feels constrained or the scholar feels compromised, and what happens when those limits are crossed?

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  • Of the four categories of differences be- tween the new critical edition and the earlier score, two are unproblematic: no one has suggested that it would have been better not to use Rossini's orchestration; no one has questioned the basic editorial procedures em- ployed. That does not mean that every edito- rial decision is unimpeachable. But the critical editions currently in progress of the operas of Rossini, Donizetti (published by Casa Ricordi of Milan), and Verdi (jointly published by The University of Chicago Press and Ricordi) take as a point of pride that the first perfor- mances of a new edition use proofs and not a published score. Critiques of editorial deci- sions by fine musicians help scholars reassess their solutions and, if necessary, produce more accurate and more nuanced texts. Of course, nothing reveals a simple mistake faster than a clarinettist's playing a B natural in a B-flat-major chord.

    The other two categories of differences between the new critical edition of Semiramide and the earlier score-the use and orchestra- tion of the stage band and the problem of cuts-are more controversial and, accord- ingly, more interesting. They will help us understand the problems that arise at the point of intersection between scholarship and performance.

    The Banda sul Palco Rossini expected a band to be used during

    three numbers of Semiramide, sometimes on stage (with its members in costume), some- times in the wings. The original scoring of this band, for twenty-two instruments, functioned perfectly well in rehearsals for band alone. Scholarship would seem to require, then, that the original band parts be used.

    In the nineteenth century the city militia provided players for the band. In today's world unionized theaters do not have the option of calling on their local fire depart- ments, and few theaters are prepared to en- gage twenty-two additional union musicians for a few minutes of music. None has been willing to put a brass band on stage (where Rossini often expected one to be), whether because of the cost of costumes or a feeling of

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  • discomfort at the convention. For most per- formances of Semiramide and similar operas, in short, the music written for the banda sul palco is assigned to instruments in the pit. This is a most unwelcome compromise, since the stage band usually is meant to represent mu- sic actually heard by the protagonists, not just music emerging from the pit. Eliminating the stage band altogether, then, disturbs the dramaturgical and musical structure of the work. Important theaters, such as the Metro- politan, compromise: they hire a band (often with reduced numbers) and put it in the wings. There, of course, problems of coordi- nation between the band and the conductor become serious, even in the presence of tele- vision monitors.

    For the production of Semiramide at the Metropolitan Opera, there were two places in the wings where the band could be placed: upstage right or downstage left. We began upstage right, from where the sounds, which had seemed perfectly balanced during re- hearsals of the band alone, were so distorted that the treble instruments-piccolos and high clarinets-completely overpowered the bass, giving the impression of a handful of pennywhistles. We then moved the band to downstage left: better, but the acoustics still distorted the sound. And so, working to- gether, the scholar and the bandmaster mod- ified the orchestration to suit the acoustic conditions, removing some of the high- pitched instruments and strengthening the bass. Those modifications resolved the or- chestration problem for the intervention of the stage band in the second act, in which the band is intended to play alone from off stage: by quoting music heard earlier in the opera, the band announces impending festivities that directly bear on the dramatic confrontation taking place on stage.

    More difficult to resolve were the two inter- ventions of the stage band in the first act, in which the band is intended to play together with, or in close coordination with, the pit orchestra. Rossini begins his first-act finale with an important choral movement: the or- chestra plays a lengthy passage alone, allow- ing the chorus and the band time to enter and take their positions on stage; the music is then

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  • repeated, with the chorus and the band join- ing the orchestra. It is not difficult to imagine a splendid effect achieved by this combination of musical forces. When the band is in the wings, however, two problems arise: first, the band cannot produce a sound weighty enough to balance well the fortissimo playing of the orchestra and the singing of the cho- rus; second, the problem of coordination be- comes more difficult, and in a passage in which the band and orchestra must play iden- tical music, the effect can be ragged. We rehearsed that passage numerous times, but ultimately all participants in the production agreed that the slight benefits to be gained by employing the band from off stage did not offset the dangers of failed coordination be- tween musical forces. Thus, the band was simply omitted from the first-act finale.

    To the chagrin of everyone involved in the production, scholars and performers alike, the band parts for the allegretto chorus of the introduction, "Di plausi qual clamor," were as- signed to instruments in the pit. Here the band has a specific dramaturgical function: it announces the imminent arrival of Semiramide and her court. The effect Rossini was seeking depended on integrating the band within the entire musical context. The band plays only a few notes, but those notes either introduce and give rhythmic impulse to each musical phrase or effect tonal modulations between phrases. The nineteenth-century scoring was unproblematic and, given the dynamic con- text in the orchestra (piano and pianissimo), there was no problem hearing the band. Be- cause the coordination of band and orchestra requires absolute rhythmic precision, how- ever, placing the band off stage turned out to be a severe handicap. With sufficient rehearsal time this handicap might have been over- come, but in the real world of the Metropol- itan Opera in 1990 that time was unavailable.

    The band interventions were therefore written into the orchestral parts, using those few instruments not already playing. The result was a pallid imitation of the original, with no musical force, no dramatic logic, and no sense. Exhaustive scholarship and operatic effectiveness were both sacrificed on the altar of practical expedience.

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  • Cuts

    While only those thoroughly familiar with Semiramide or professionals directly involved in the production were aware of problems with the banda sul palco, everyone who at- tended the performances could talk know- ingly about the length of Rossini's opera. Indeed, Mr. Henahan's remark about "oper- atic effectiveness" may simply have meant he would have preferred a shorter evening. That cuts would have to be made in Rossini's score, however, was a principle accepted from the beginning by all. Although prepared to do whatever the performers felt necessary to present the work responsibly, the company's judgment was that Semiramide would have greater public success if it could be brought in at just over four hours in length, including intermission and applause but not final cur- tain calls. In the modern world all theaters try to hold overtime to a minimum, but the crucial element for the Metropolitan's budget was to get the theater emptied before mid- night. They were prepared to have a seven o'clock curtain if necessary, but their experi- ence suggested that beginning an opera be- fore seven-thirty created undue difficulties for a New York audience-difficulties that could be overcome only for works that had already developed a place in a particular repertory, such as Gotterdammerung or Parsifal. (Do not think such constraints affect only modern theaters: practical considerations caused Rossini to make major cuts for the first performances of Guillaume Tell and Verdi to do likewise for Don Carlos.)

    Without cuts the music of Semiramide runs approximately three hours and forty-five minutes. Adding a half-hour intermission and anticipating audience enthusiasm for a work that highlights virtuoso singing (on opening night as much as four minutes of applause greeted certain scenes), we knew that between fifteen minutes and a half hour of music needed to be eliminated. Our challenge was to make cuts in an effective and responsible manner. We can identify four categories of cuts: (1) recitative, (2) choral movements, (3) complete numbers, and (4) internal cuts, usu- ally of repeated passages.

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  • (1) Recitative. Performing a little-known op- era in an enormous theater that refuses to employ supertitles guarantees that details of the dramatic action and subtleties of character motivation will remain mysterious to an over- whelming majority of the audience. Although all the recitative in Semiramide is accompanied by the orchestra, is written with care, and is written by Rossini (unlike The Barber of Seville, in which nary a note of the recitative is his), significant cuts can be made. There are always gains and losses. After the massive introduc- tion, the first number of the score, a short recitative helps clarify (for those who under- stand the words) some of the action already witnessed. Omitting it saves three minutes. What are the negative results? There is an awkward tonal shift from the key of the introduction, F major, to the key at the begin- ning of the next musical number, G major. Although Rossini's recitative mediates be- tween those keys, audience applause after the introduction helps to mask the tonal problem. More unfortunate, cutting the recitative means the loss of an effective reprise for the solemn music associated with the High Priest, music that opens the introduction. Still, loss of this recitative and a number of similar pas- sages throughout the opera cannot be said to have damaged the work: indeed, many of the recitative cuts taken at the Metropolitan Op- era were already being made in the 1820s.

    (2) Choral movements. The massive choral interventions that introduce five of the thir- teen numbers of Semiramide and play an im- portant role in two others lend an air of solemnity and monumentality to the opera. The indiscriminate removal of choruses changes the character of the work. In some cases, such as the chorus opening Arsace's scene in the second act, the cuts not only disfigure the score but also remove genuinely distinguished music. In other cases, discreet excisions are possible.

    Often Rossini constructs a choral move- ment by providing an orchestral introduction (A), repeating that introduction with choral parts added (A'), providing a contrasting sec- tion (B), and then repeating the opening music with chorus (A') once again, with new final cadences. Stage directors like the late

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  • Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, who keep their forces in constant movement, know how to make cho- ruses scenically interesting; those like John Copley, the stage director for Semiramide at the Metropolitan, who are more visually ori- ented, sculpting beautiful stage pictures, find them excessively long.

    In deciding what to cut, dramatic needs, scenic needs, and judgments about musical value were invoked. As a result, three identi- cally constructed choruses (AA'BA') were handled in three different ways. In the intro- duction to the first act the structure was reduced to AA', a form Rossini regularly uses in other operas. The musically splendid cho- rus that opens the first-act finale, on the other hand, was left intact. The most intrusive cut occurred in the chorus at the beginning of the finale of the second (and final) act, which takes place in the subterranean tomb of the murdered King Nino. Although the entire chorus was rehearsed, only the introductory orchestral statement of the theme (the very first A) was ultimately allowed to remain. The choral movement itself was judged musically weak and dramatically problematic. As a re- sult this choral movement was reduced to an orchestral introduction to the finale, a device not dissimilar to musical techniques Rossini frequently employs elsewhere. (Cutting this passage entirely was impossible for two rea- sons: first, it quotes material from the over- ture, an effect that no one wished to lose; and second, fragments from the music appear in Arsace's subsequent recitative and would have made no sense in the absence of at least this orchestral introduction.) In short, a listener familiar with Rossini's style but not with this particular composition would have had no reason to think the score was anything but intact.

    (3) Complete numbers. The least painful way to make cuts in an opera is to remove entire numbers. It is also the way that Rossini most often countenanced in productions with which he was involved. The tenor, Idreno, is given two arias in Semiramide, one in each act. The pieces are musically attractive, to be sure, but they function more as concert arias than as integral elements in the drama. In fact, the first-act aria was almost never performed in

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  • the nineteenth century. The second-act aria, on the other hand, could not be so lightly removed, since it provides a necessary mo- ment of rest for the mezzo-soprano: without it, she would be forced to sing a twenty- minute solo scene, followed immediately by one of the most difficult duets in Italian opera.

    Conductor, scholar, administrators: all of us looked longingly at Idreno's first-act aria, a full eight minutes toward our temporal goal. The role of Idreno, however, marked the debut at the Metropolitan Opera of Chris Merritt, a fine Rossini tenor. He was hired on the understanding that he would sing both arias, and he was going to sing both arias. Ultimately, we settled for a series of internal cuts in each piece, cuts that displeased me and that were stylistically awkward. But opera is about people as well as about art; the singer's will could not simply be ignored.

    (4) Internal cuts. Performers of Italian opera often make internal cuts in musical numbers. They have been doing so since the operas were written, and it seems unlikely they will stop in the foreseeable future. Singers who understand the technique of vocal ornamen- tation are loath to countenance cuts in their solo arias; they understand that repeated pas- sages offer them the opportunity to demon- strate their art. Except for Idreno's arias, in fact, all solo arias in Semiramide were per- formed intact. Some cuts of repeated passages were made in duets, largely in recognition of the sheer endurance required for the so- prano, mezzo-soprano, and bass to perform this score. For the most part, these cuts fol- lowed practices for which Rossini himself of- fers ample precedent.

    But at least one cut made in some perfor- mances of Semiramide at the Metropolitan Op- era belongs to a well-known category that could be defined as "vanity cuts." Modern basses tend to conclude Assur's "mad scene" by leaping up to a high F rather than descend- ing to the tonic, as Rossini had written. Leav- ing aside the advisability of this practice, when basses produce a solid F, they want it to ring out for several measures. In the orchestral conclusion to Assur's aria, however, Rossini quotes in abbreviated form an orchestral pat-

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  • tern that had served him earlier in the piece, with an alternation of tonic and dominant harmonies in two-measure groupings. After two measure in F major, the harmony shifts to the dominant chord, and the bass's sustained high F cannot be continued without creating a harmonic absurdity.

    Basses yearn to cut those measures on the dominant, leaving the piece to conclude with seven consecutive measures on the tonic. In- deed, during rehearsals Samuel Ramey was so discontented about performing the music Rossini had written that at one point he showed his displeasure by changing the vocal part. The decision to respect Rossini's score prevailed, however, and on opening night Ramey held his high F for two bars, then exited to a resounding and deserved ovation. But singers' egos need constant attention. When I returned for a later performance, the orchestral measures on the dominant had disappeared. I like to think, though, that Gioachino was watching Ramey's shenani- gans: after two bars of high F, his voice cracked, leaving the orchestra to repeat the tonic chord in solitary splendor.

    After this discussion, I hope you can un- derstand my perplexity at Donal Henahan's belief that Semiramide at the Metropolitan Op- era "was played in a new edition that put exhaustive scholarship before operatic effec- tiveness." Indeed, you may wonder instead whether it makes sense to talk about the theater "using" the critical edition at all. I would insist that it does. An edition is not a performance, and a performance is not an edition. Once a critical edition enters the world of the theater, it will be used, in much the same way as any other edition is used.

    The world of the theater is not a place where one pays obeisance to a written score. Rather, it is a place where one performs an opera with real singers and real orchestral musicians; audiences with trains and buses to catch; administrators who are hired first and foremost to watch the cash box and only then to safeguard the artistic product; successive generations of critics, each of which invokes a past golden age but fails to appreciate its own; costumes that come apart just as the heroine

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  • launches into a cabaletta, forcing her to sing complicated runs and variations while worry- ing that she'll soon be naked; choruses that must be shepherded on and off stage because the director wants to make a "pretty picture"; massively inappropriate sets that must be changed in the middle of a musical number; ghosts that emerge in clouds of smoke, send- ing prima donnas to their beds with coughs; tenors who jet from one theater to another and arrive for rehearsals barely knowing the music. That's what the world of the theater is like-and musicologists who truly love opera would have it no other way.

    Philip Gossett is Robert W. Reneker Professor of Music and Dean of the Division of Humanities at the University of Chicago. His communication was presented at the 1732nd Stated Meeting, held at the University of Chicago on November 2, 1991.

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    Article Contentsp.32p.33p.34p.35p.36p.37p.38p.39p.40p.41p.42p.43p.44p.45p.46p.47p.48p.49p.50p.51

    Issue Table of ContentsBulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 45, No. 6 (Mar., 1992), pp. 1-51Front Matter [pp.1-2]The 1738th Stated Meeting. March 11, 1992. House of the Academy. Cambridge, Massachusetts [pp.3-4]CISS ReportPugwash Conference in Beijing [pp.5-7]

    The European Security Implications of the Dissolution of the Soviet Empire [pp.8-31]Stated Meeting ReportScholars and Performers [pp.32-51]

    Back Matter