Gian Carlo Menotti | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Menotti in 2000 | |
| Born | (1911-07-07)July 7, 1911 Cadegliano-Viconago, Italy |
| Died | February 1, 2007(2007-02-01) (aged 95) |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1933–1995 |
| Partner | Samuel Barber (1928–1970) |
Gian Carlo Menotti (/məˈnɒti/,Italian:[ˈdʒaŋˈkarlomeˈnɔtti]; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian composer,librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship and never officially became an American citizen.[1][2] One of the most frequently performed opera composers of the 20th century, he wrote his most successful works in the 1940s and 1950s.[3] Highly influenced byGiacomo Puccini andModest Mussorgsky, Menotti further developed theverismo tradition of opera in the post-World War II era.[3][4] Rejectingatonality and the aesthetic of theSecond Viennese School, Menotti's music is characterized by expressivelyricism which carefully sets language to natural rhythms in ways that highlight textual meaning and underscore dramatic intent.[3][4]
LikeWagner, Menotti wrote the libretti of all his operas. He wrote the classicChristmas operaAmahl and the Night Visitors (1951), along with over two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular taste. Many of Menotti's operas enjoyed successful runs onBroadway, including twoPulitzer Prize winning works,The Consul (1950) andThe Saint of Bleecker Street (1955). While all of his works used English language libretti, three of his operas also had Italian language libretti penned by the composer:Amelia Goes to the Ball (1937),The Island God (1942), andThe Last Savage (1963). He founded theFestival dei Due Mondi (Festival of the Two Worlds) inSpoleto in 1958 and its American counterpart,Spoleto Festival USA, in 1977. In 1986 he commenced aMelbourne Spoleto Festival in Australia, but he withdrew after three years.
Menotti also wrote music for several ballets, many choral works,chamber music, orchestral music of varying kinds including asymphony, and stage plays. Notable among these are hiscantataThe Death of the Bishop of Brindisi, written in 1963, and the cantataLandscapes and Remembrances in 1976 – a descriptive work of Menotti's memories of America written for theUnited States Bicentennial. Also worthy of note is a small Mass commissioned by theRoman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, entitledMass for the Contemporary English Liturgy.
Menotti taught music composition on the faculty of theCurtis Institute of Music from 1948 to 1955. He also served as the artistic director of theTeatro dell'Opera di Roma from 1992 to 1994, and directed operas periodically for notable organizations such as theSalzburg Festival and theVienna State Opera.
Born inCadegliano-Viconago,Italy, nearLake Lugano and the Swiss border, Menotti was the sixth of ten children of Alfonso and Ines Menotti.[4] His father was a businessman and his mother a talented amateur musician.[4] The family was financially prosperous with his father and uncle jointly operating a coffee exporting firm in Colombia.[5] He learned to play the organ from his eccentric aunt LiLine Bianchini, who experienced religious hallucinations.[5] He was deeply religious in his youth, and was greatly influenced by his parish priest Don Rimoldi.[5]
Menotti's mother, who was highly influential in his musical development, sent all of her children to music lessons in the piano, violin, and cello.[5] The family performed chamber music together, and with other musicians in the community in evenings hosted in the Menotti household.[5]
Achild prodigy, Gian Carlo began writing compositions when he was seven years old, and at eleven wrote both the libretto and music for his first opera,The Death of Pierrot. This work was performed as a home puppet show, a passion that occupied Gian Carlo's youth after he was introduced to the art by his older brother Pier Antonio.[5] He began his formal musical training at theMilan Conservatory in 1924 at the age of 13.[4] While at the conservatory, Menotti wrote his second childhood opera,The Little Mermaid.[6] He spent three years studying at the conservatory, during which time he frequently attended operas atLa Scala, which cemented his lifetime love for the artform.[5]
At the age of 17, Menotti's life was dramatically altered by the death of his father.[5] Following her husband's death, Ines Menotti and Gian Carlo moved toColombia in a futile attempt to salvage the family's coffee business. In 1928 she enrolled him at Philadelphia'sCurtis Institute of Music before returning to Italy. Armed with a letter of introduction from the wife ofArturo Toscanini, the teenager Gian Carlo studied composition at Curtis underRosario Scalero.[7] That same year, he met fellow Curtis schoolmateSamuel Barber, who became his partner in life as well as in their shared profession. As a student, Menotti spent much of his time with the Barber family inWest Chester, Pennsylvania, and the two also spent several summer breaks in Europe attending opera performances in Vienna and in Italy while studying at Curtis.[4]
After graduating from the Curtis Institute in the spring of 1933, Menotti and Barber spent the following summer in Austria where Menotti began writing the libretto for his first mature opera,Amelia Goes to the Ball (Amelia al Ballo), to his own Italian text while staying in a small village onLake Wolfgang.[4][5] The work was inspired by the Baroness von Montechivsky whom Menotti met earlier that summer in Vienna.[5] He spent the majority of the next four years pursuing further musical studies in Europe, including composition studies withNadia Boulanger in Paris.[8][4] He did not finish composing the music forAmelia until his return to the United States in 1937.[4]
The Curtis Institute presented the world premiere ofAmelia Goes to the Ball at theAcademy of Music in Philadelphia withMargaret Daum as Amelia in April 1937, and this was soon followed by professional stagings later that year at theLyric Opera House in Baltimore and theNew Amsterdam Theatre in New York City with sopranoFlorence Kirk in the title role.[9] A critical success, the work was staged by theMetropolitan Opera in 1938 withMuriel Dickson in the title role. The first international staging was inSanremo, Italy, that same year.[5]Amelia al ballo is the only one of Menotti's operas still to be published in its original or perhaps "complementary" Italian libretto (alongside the English):[10] it is an example of the traditional romantic Italianate style, with a nod toPuccini,Wolf-Ferrari, andGiordano.[11]
The success ofAmelia Goes to the Ball earned Menotti a commission to compose aradio opera for theNBC Radio Network,The Old Maid and the Thief, one of the first such works. The opera premiered in a radio broadcast on April 22, 1939, withAlberto Erede conducting theNBC Symphony Orchestra for the closing of the orchestra's 1938–1939 season.[12] The opera was first staged in a slightly revised version by thePhiladelphia Opera Company at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia in 1941.[13] TheNew York Philharmonic chose to program portions of the opera in 1942 with conductorFritz Busch leading the ensemble.[14] The first staged production in New York was presented by theNew York City Opera in April 1948 in a double bill withAmelia Goes to the Ball, both operas directed by the composer.[15]
In 1943, Menotti and Barber purchased "Capricorn", a house north of Manhattan in suburbanMount Kisco, New York. The home served as their artistic retreat up until 1972.[16] Many of their major works were composed at this house. The two frequently hostedsalon gatherings at Capricorn with other well known composers, artists, musicians, and intellectuals in attendance.[16] American authorWilliam Goyen was a frequent visitor to the house and later Goyen's lover, American artistJoseph Glasco, became friends with and visited Menotti and Barber.[17]
Menotti's third opera,The Island God, was written for the Metropolitan Opera where it premiered to poor reviews in 1942.[4] He believed this work failed because the libretto he wrote relied too heavily onmetaphysics which resulted in an overly pretentious philosophical and symbolic work that failed to connect with audiences. In interviews he expressed that this failure taught him "how not to write an opera".[18] Following this, he wrote his first dramatic play without music,A Copy of Madame Aupic, in 1943. The work was not staged until 1947 when it premiered inNew Milford, Connecticut.[5] Other works from this period include a ballet,Sebastian (1944), and thePiano Concerto in F Major (1945) which were written before Menotti returned to opera withThe Medium in 1946. Commissioned by theAlice M. Ditson Fund, this fourth opera premiered atColumbia University and then transferred to a critically successful run onBroadway at theEthel Barrymore Theatre in 1947.[4] This Broadway production also included Menotti's fifth opera, the short one act operaThe Telephone, or L'Amour à trois, as a prelude to performances ofThe Medium.[4] These operas became Menotti's first internationally successful works, notably receiving critically acclaimed productions in Paris and London in 1949 and later touring Europe in 1955 under the sponsorship of theUnited States Department of State with musical forces led byThomas Schippers.[4][18]The Medium was also made intoa motion picture in 1951 starringMarie Powers andAnna Maria Alberghetti and competed in the1952 Cannes Film Festival.[19] It is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of opera on film ever made.[4]
In the midst of this success, Menotti also composed music for the 1948 balletErrand in the Maze for theMartha Graham Dance Company, and wrote two screenplays forMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer which were ultimately never developed into films.[5][18] He accepted a position teaching music composition on the faculty of the Curtis Institute in 1948, a post he remained in until 1955.[5] His notable pupils included composersOlga Gorelli,[20]Lee Hoiby,[21]Stanley Hollingsworth,[22]Leonard Kastle,[23]George Rochberg,[24] andLuigi Zaninelli.[25]
The 1950s marked the pinnacle of Menotti's critical acclaim, beginning with his first full-length opera,The Consul, which premiered on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1950.[4] The work won both thePulitzer Prize for Music and theNew York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Musical Play of the Year (the latter in 1954). American sopranoPatricia Neway starred as the tormented protagonist Magda Sorel, for which she won the Donaldson Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1950. Menotti apparently intended to give a role to a then-unknownMaria Callas, but the producer would not have it.[26] The work has become a part of the established opera repertory, and has been performed in more than a dozen languages and over 20 countries.[4]
In 1951, Menotti wrote his Christmas operaAmahl and the Night Visitors for NBC which was inspired byHieronymus Bosch's paintingAdoration of the Magi (c. 1485–1500).[4] It was the first opera ever written for television in America, and first aired on Christmas Eve, 1951 withChet Allen as Amahl andRosemary Kuhlmann as his mother.[27] The opera was such a success that the broadcasting ofAmahl and the Night Visitors became an annual Christmas tradition. The work has also been staged by numerous opera companies, universities, and other institutions, and became one of the most frequently performed operas of the 20th century.[4] The work remains Menotti's most popular work.[27]
Menotti won a second Pulitzer Prize for his operaThe Saint of Bleecker Street, which premiered at theBroadway Theatre in 1955.[28] This work was also awarded the Drama Critics' Circle Award for best musical and the New York Music Critics' Circle Award for the best opera.[28] Set in contemporary New York, the opera is concerned with the conflict of the physical and spiritual worlds.[4] Following its New York run, the opera was staged at La Scala and theVienna Volksoper, and was recorded forBBC Television in 1957.[5] This work was followed byThe Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore (1956), a "madrigal fable" for chorus, ten dancers and nine instruments which was based on the 16th century Italianmadrigal comedy. Commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, the work premiered at theLibrary of Congress in 1956 and was then staged by theNew York City Ballet with dancersNicholas Magallanes andArthur Mitchell in 1957.[5]
While working onThe Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore', Menotti crafted the libretto for Barber's most famous opera,Vanessa, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1958.[4] That same year his operaMaria Golovin premiered at the1958 Brussels World's Fair.[5] Commissioned byPeter Herman Adler and theNBC Opera, the production moved to theMartin Beck Theatre on Broadway in 1959 and was also filmed for a nationally televised broadcast on NBC.[4] The cast remained constant throughout and included Neway,Ruth Kobart,Norman Kelley,William Chapman, andRichard Cross.
Menotti founded theFestival of Two Worlds inSpoleto, Italy in 1958. His compositional output slowed as his duties as director of the festival consumed his time. He wrote the libretti for Barber's one act operaA Hand of Bridge andLukas Foss'sIntroductions and Good-byes, both of which premiered together at the Festival of Two Worlds in 1959.[4][5] He later revised the libretto for Barber'sAntony and Cleopatra (1966).Albert Husson adapted his first dramatic play without music,A Copy of Madame Aupic (1943), into a French language play which premiered in Paris in 1959.[5] Music criticJoel Honig served as his personal secretary during the late 1950s.[29]
1963 was a particularly busy year for Menotti. His television operaLabyrinth was premiered by the NBC Opera Theatre. UnlikeAmahl and the Night Visitors, this opera was never intended to be transferred from television to the stage and was written with the intention of utilizing special camera effects that were unique to television.[30] That same year the operaThe Last Savage premiered at theOpéra-Comique in Paris, and that work was given a lavish production at the Metropolitan Opera in 1964.[4] This opera was disparaged by the French and American press, but was particularly well received for performances at opera houses in Italy in succeeding years.[5] Also in 1963, hiscantataThe Death of the Bishop of Brindisi concerning theChildren's Crusade of 1212 premiered at theCincinnati May Festival to good reviews.[5]
Menotti wrote achamber opera,Martin's Lie (1964) under commissioned byCBS for American television. Although not initially conceived as a work for the stage, the opera premiered in a live theatrical performance on June 3, 1964, at theBristol Cathedral for the opening of the 17th annualBath International Music Festival.[31] The opera was subsequently filmed with the same cast for television under the direction ofKirk Browning, and was broadcast nationally by CBS for the opera's United States premiere on May 30, 1965.[32]
In 1967 Thomas Schippers succeeded Menotti as director of the Festival of Two Worlds, although he continued on as President of the festival's board of directors for several more decades.[4] That same year Menotti'ssong cycleCanti della lontananza was given its premiere atHunter College by sopranoElisabeth Schwarzkopf for whom the work was written.[4] He composed music for the 1968 production ofWilliam Shakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet at theThéâtre National Populaire with directorMichael Cacoyannis.[5] In 1969 the children's operaHelp, Help, the Globolinks! premiered at theHamburg State Opera, and the work was performed at theSanta Fe Opera and the New York City Opera the year after.[33]
In 1970 Menotti made the difficult decision to end his lengthy romantic relationship with Samuel Barber.[16][34] Barber had battled depression and alcoholism following the harsh critical reaction to his 1966 operaAntony and Cleopatra which had a negative impact on his creative productivity and his relationship with Menotti.'[16] Barber had already begun to self isolate for long periods of time at a chalet in Santa Christina, Italy, and spent less and less time at Capricorn.[34][35][16] Tensions grew between Menotti and Barber, leading Menotti to end their romantic attachment and put Capricorn up for sale in 1970.[16][34] Capricorn sold in 1972, and the two men remained friends after their romantic involvement ceased.[36][34]
In 1972 Menotti purchasedYester House, an 18th-century estate in theLammermuir Hills, East Lothian, Scotland.[37] He lived there until his death 35 years later.[37] While there, he jokingly stated his Scottish neighbors referred to him as "Mr McNotti".[38]
In 1974, he adoptedFrancis "Chip" Phelan, an American actor and figure skater he had known since the early 1960s.[39] Chip, and later his wife, lived with Menotti at Yester House.[16]
In 1970 Menotti's second drama without music,The Leper, was first performed in Tallahassee, Florida, on April 24, 1970.[4] His operaThe Most Important Man was commissioned by the New York City Opera, and was given its premiere atLincoln Center in 1971.[4] An opera focusing on racial tensions in America with a central black hero, the work was poorly received by most critics.[5] However, Menotti personally believed that this was one of his best operas on par withThe Consul andThe Saint of Bleecker Street.[5] His operaTamu-Tamu premiered in 1973 at theStudebaker Theatre in Chicago as part of the IX Congress of theInternational Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences.[5]
The year 1976 was particularly fruitful for Menotti, with a series of premieres commissioned in honor of the bicentennial of theDeclaration of Independence.[40] The first of these was the cantata in nine parts for soloists, chorus and orchestra, "Landscapes and Remembrances," which premiered on May 8 in a performance by theBel Canto Chorus andMilwaukee Symphony in Milwaukee.[40] Filmed for national broadcast on PBS, the piece is Menotti's most autobiographical work with the text consisting of personal memories and incidents of the composer's own life in America.[40] On June 1 theOpera Company of Philadelphia performed the world premiere of the comedic operaThe Hero (1976) which satirized American politics, particularly theWatergate scandal.[5][40] On August 4 of that same year thePhiladelphia Orchestra presented the world premiere of Menotti'sSymphony No. 1 ("Halcyon Symphony") at theSaratoga Performing Arts Center under the baton ofEugene Ormandy.[41]
In 1977 Menotti foundedSpoleto Festival USA, a companion festival to his Spoleto Festival (the other of its Two Worlds), inCharleston, South Carolina. For three weeks each summer, Spoleto is visited by nearly a half-million people.[42] These festivals were intended to bring opera to a popular audience and helped launch the careers of such artists as singerShirley Verrett and choreographersPaul Taylor andTwyla Tharp.[43] In 1986, he extended the concept to a Spoleto Festival inMelbourne, Australia. Menotti was the artistic director during the period of 1986–88, but after three festivals there, he decided to withdraw – and took the naming rights with him. The Melbourne Spoleto Festival has now become theMelbourne International Arts Festival.[44] Menotti left Spoleto USA in 1993 to take the helm of theRome Opera.
In spite of these festival's claims on Menotti's time, which included directing plays as well as operas, he maintained an active artistic career. Many of his later operas are directed towards children, both as subjects and as performers, includingThe Egg (1976),The Trial of the Gypsy (1978),Chip and his Dog (1979),A Bride from Pluto (1982),The Boy who Grew too Fast (1982), and his final operaThe Singing Child (1993).[4] TheSan Diego Opera commissioned the operaLa Loca (1979) as a 50th birthday gift for sopranoBeverly Sills, and she performed the work both in San Diego and with the New York City Opera.[4] The work tells the story of the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, and was the last opera Sills added to her repertory before retiring.[4] In 1986 his operaGoya, written forPlácido Domingo, was given its première by theWashington National Opera.[4] WithGoya (1986), he utilized a traditionalgiovane scuola Italian style.[45] His last opera for adults,The Wedding Day, premiered in Seoul, South Korea, in conjunction with the1988 Summer Olympics conducted by Daniel Lipton.[46]
In 1992, Menotti was appointed artistic director of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, a post he maintained for two years before being asked to resign over conflicts with the theatre's managers involving Menotti's insistence of staging Wagner'sLohengrin.[47][48] In honour of the 1995Nobel Peace Prize, theAmerican Choral Directors Association commissionedGloria as part of the Mass celebrating the occasion. In 1996 Menotti directed his second filmed version ofAmahl and the Night Visitors.[49]
Menotti died on February 1, 2007, at the age of 95, atPrincess Grace Hospital inMonaco, where he had a home.[2] He was buried in East Lothian, Scotland. In June and July 2007 the Festival of Two Worlds, which Menotti founded and oversaw until his death, dedicated the 50th anniversary of the festival to his memory, organised by his son Francis. Menotti works performed during the festival includedFor the Death of Orpheus,Two Spanish Visions,Muero porque no muero (Santa Teresa D'Avila),Oh llama de amor viva! (San Giovanni della Croce),Missa O Pulchritudo.[50]
Menotti's style was particularly influenced by Giacomo Puccini andModest Mussorgsky, and he further developed theverismo tradition of opera in the post-World War II era.[3][4] Rejectingatonality and the aesthetic of theSecond Viennese School, his music is characterized by expressivelyricism which carefully sets language to natural rhythms in ways that highlight textual meaning and underscore dramatic intent.[3][4] In explaining his rejection of many of the composition trends of musical modernism, Menotti stated: "Atonal music is essentially pessimistic. It is incapable of expressing joy or humor."[2] Menotti wrote skilfully for smaller instrumental ensembles, and his orchestrations tend to be lighter and open.[4] A composer who purposefully chose to cater to the tastes of the general public, his use of tonal melodies often had a modal flavor, frequently used sequence and repetition; they are easily remembered.[4] In his operas his aria-like passages tend to be brief so as not to interrupt the dramatic flow, while his recitative-like passages carefully used natural speech rhythms that make the text easily understood by audiences.[4] In 1964 he wrote:
There is a certain indolence towards the use of the voice today, a tendency to treat the voice instrumentally, as if composers feared that its texture is too expressive, too human.[4]
While principally writing in the verismo style, Menotti did use some newer 20th century harmonic techniques and language when they served the dramatic intent of his works.[4] For example, he uses12-tone music ironically in Act 2 ofThe Last Savage to parody contemporary civilization (and indirectly the avant-garde composer);electronic tape music to represent the invaders from outer space inHelp, Help, the Globolinks!, and a lengthy sustained high dissonant chord inThe Consul at the moment of Magda's suicide.[4] Even in his tonal harmonic passages he would sometimes break traditional harmonic progression rules by employingparallel harmony.[4]
Reactions to Menotti's works ranged widely. His early career was mainly marked by critical and commercial success, with the operasAmelia Goes to the Ball (1937),The Old Maid and the Thief (1939),The Medium (1946),The Telephone (1947),The Consul (1950),Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951), andThe Saint of Bleecker Street (1954) all demonstrating popular appeal and overall favorable reviews.[51][4] Music critic and editorWinthrop Sargeant ofTime,The New Yorker andMusical America was a particular admirer of Menotti who championed the composer in his reviews for his skillful merge of music and theater.[52][4] In contrast,Joseph Kerman wrote in the 1956 edition of his widely readOpera as Drama, "Menotti is a trivial artist, a sensationalist in the old style, and in fact a weak one, diluting the faults ofStrauss andPuccini with none of their fugitive virtues."[53] However, Kerman later tempered his assessment, and retracted this statement in the 1988 revision of the book.[53]
Kerman's scathing attack on Menotti was the beginning of an ambivalent relationship with music criticism for the composer which increased in the critical climate of the 1960s in which reviewers favored serialism and the musical avant-garde over Menotti's Italian verismo-inspired style.[51] Viewed as a regressive musical conservative in this period, critics tended to dismiss his work as derivative or overly melodramatic.[51] This negative reaction to Menotti's music continued into the 1980s, but then softened as tastes shifted away from serialism and the avant-garde towardsneo-romanticism. Writing inThe Independent at the time of Menotti's death in 2007, music criticPeter Dickinson wrote:
The reaction against Menotti's popularity was, for a time, disproportionately extreme. The movement towards neo-romanticism during the last 20 years has tended to favour Barber, who used an excellent libretto from Menotti for his grand opera Vanessa, produced at the Met in 1958. But for sheer theatrical craft and human curiosity, sustained by his own complex emotional make-up, Menotti created a telling verismo of the Second World War era.[3]
In 1984 Menotti was awarded aKennedy Center Honor for achievement in the arts, and in 1991 he was chosen asMusical America's' "Musician of the Year".[56]
In 1997, he was awarded theBrock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association.[57]
In 2010, the main theatre in Spoleto was renamed as theTeatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti to honour his role as creator and spirit of the festival.[58]
Vocal scores of his compositions:
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