Interview with Alessandro Marangoni
Rossini continued to compose after William Tell which was his final work for the stage. Although his piano pieces are smaller in scope, they show his wit and wisdom in a way that no opera perhaps could. They are not easy to play, and not performed as frequently as they deserve to be.
Italian pianist,Alessandro Marangoni, who is giving a concert in Chicago on September 2nd appeared at the Rossini Opera Festival in 2015.In addition to performing he participated in the presentation of a recent book about these pieces of Rossini. At that time we asked him if he would be willing to be interviewed for RossiniAmerica.org, and he graciously agreed.
Below are his answers to our questions which we posed in December of last year. Some of the information is therefore not up-to-date. Our apologies!
Q.Please tell a us little bit about yourself and how you came to play Rossini.
A. When I was 4 years old I went to listen to a concert in a church with my parents and a choir was singing some pieces from Rossini’s Mosé. I was astonished and I immediately asked to buy a piano to start playing Mosé: an unusual repertoire choice for a young pianist… After years of studies of the “normal” literature for piano with my teacher Maria Tipo (the great neapolitan pianist) I discovered some pieces by Rossini, “Péchés de vieillesse”, and I started to explore a new world, beside my usual concert repertoire like Bach, Beethoven, Clementi, Mozart, Chopin, Scarlatti, Busoni…: suddenly it came the great challenge to play and record for Naxos not only the complete works for piano but the entire opus in 14 Volumes by Rossini! So, since I was very young I feel Rossini very close to me, like a friend or an uncle…
Q. What are the challenges of playing this music as compared to that of other composers?
A. Rossini dedicated his piano pieces to the “4th class pianists” and he thought to be a “4th class pianist” but of course it’s a ironic way to exorcize the difficulty of these pieces: we can find every technical difficulties (sometimes it seems to play some Liszt) but also the necessity for the pianist to go deeper and analyze the non-common harmonic modulations of this music. Rossini is never predictable and always ready to stupefying both the listeners and performers. His style is romantic yet and projected to the future (he anticipated Satie, for example) and he uses the complete dynamic and extension of the keyboard.
Q. In the case of ” I Péchés de Vieillesse” can you describe a little of what you love about them?
A.I just love it that I can be a servant of the great composers throughout the centuries, to be constantly in touch with some of the greatest minds and spirits of all mankind, and always to be learning from them…With such a fantastic instrument as the piano, and the company of the great composers, I feel as though I’m on a perpetual and extraordinary voyage. In the case of “Péchés de vieillesse” I feel something familiar and a special sympathy for Rossini, perhaps because I love him since I was a little child.
Every piece is “a world”, described with great musical science but also with an ironical way and there are full of amazing surprises!
Q. Could you give some examples of which specific ones you like and why. It would be really nice if you could emphasize the diversity of this collection.
A.Rossini wrote more than 120 pieces in 14 volumes that his second wife, Olympe Pellisier, collected after composer’s death. Each Album has a title given by him and it funny to read the complete list of the titles: for example, “Mon prelude hygienic du matin”, “Prelude l’huile de recin”, “Gymnastique d’ecartement”, “Petit Polka Chinoise” (I wonder how is possible a Chinoise polka…but of course for Rossini’s ironic way of life all is possible!); or other nice titles like “Barcarole”, “Un pensee á Florence” etc. Of course there are some pieces I like more to play like “Une caresse á ma femme”, a wonderful and romantic piece I often play in my recitals, “Un petit train du plaisir”, a very funny story – quite famous – about a train (Rossini hated trains), in a very modern conception that anticipate the XX century musical forms, and of course “Petit caprice style Offenbach”, in which Rossini ask the pianist to use a very uncomfortable and uncommon fingering 2-5-2-5-2-5…Here you can watch the video in which I was playing this piece with original fingering:
I also did some experiments with the colors in a project called Chromoconcerto: Rossini’s piano music is full of colors and I think he was very interested in the sound-color of the instruments he played (Erand and Pleyel). In this video I play Barcarole from “Album pour les enfants degourdis”:
Q. What are some of your future plans? ( ed note, as of December 2015)
A.I have a lot of work to think about for 2016 and 2017: of course the first important thing is to complete my recordings dedicated to “Péchés de vieillesse” with some manuscripts for piano solo that I recently discovered and the last Albums with the singers. Then concerts with orchestra and special projects like Evangélion by Castelnuvo-Tedesco and the Chromoconcerto. I’m scheduling a Rossini USA tour for the fall 2016 to bring Rossini’s piano repertoire to America: I think the American public could appreciate a lot this sparkling music!
6. Website, discography, etc.
www.alessandromarangoni.com
www.alessandromarangoni.com/discography
Link to Rossini’s book (italian): http://www.amazon.it/P%C3%A9ch%C3%A9s-Vieillesse-Gioachino-Rossini/dp/886866108X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451392977&sr=8-1&keywords=peches+de+vieillesse+rossini+fargnoli
Don’t miss this concert in Chicago!
ALESSANDRO MARANGONI PRESENTS: ROSSINI & CHOPIN
Friday, 02 Sep 2016 – 7:30 PM
Venue: PianoForte Studios, 1335 S. Michigan Ave.
FREE
https://www.pianofortefoundation.org/concert/alessandro-marangoni1
Hear the Rossini stars of the Future, direct from ROF!
The Rossini Opera Festival will broadcast this year’s “Il Viaggio a Reims” from their website, RossiniOperaFestival.it, on Friday, August 12th. To our friends in the US, you don’t have to take a day off from work, but you either have to get up very early, or stay up late, depending on your time zone!
The performances will be broadcast at 11 AM, Italian time. In addition, the broadcast will be available on the Festival’s youtube channel.
Here’s your chance to hear the Rossinians of the future!
Would you have liked to hear Daniela Barcellona, Paolo Bordogna, Nicola Alaimo,or Luca Salsi before they “became famous”? How about Vittorio Prato, Maxim Mironov, Olga Peretyatko, or Marina Rebeka? They were all participants in Accademia Rossiniana whose graduates have been appearing ( since 2001) in the annual performances of Viaggo a Reims.! So, you never know who will make a breakthrough.
This year’s star of “La Donna del Lago”, Salome Jicia, is seen in this picture ( center) in a performance of Viaggo at last year’s Festival.
Not to be missed!
If you can’t make it to Pesaro, you can listen here!
Again this year, RAI will be broadcasting the opening nights of the 3 featured operas of the Rossini Opera Festival. On August 8,9, and 10th you can listen to the webcast of “La Donna Del Lago”, “Il Turco in Italia”, and “Ciro in Babylonia”. Curtain is at 8 pm Italian time, so that’s 2 pm, Eastern, etc.
Follow the link and on the Rai Radio 3 website click on “Ascolta in Diretta”
http://www.radio3.rai.it/dl/portaleRadio/concerti/ContentItem-5fcd9d5c-9bc6-4f51-8715-4eaf4e0f3ece.html
Turkish Delight
Il Turco in Italia is NOT a “lesser” L’Italiana in Algeri!
As some who don’t know Rossini might think: “Well, first he sent an Italian girl to Algeria, and that worked so well, so now he’ll try doing it the other way!” NOT SO!
Although “Turco” is less well known, it is on the same artistic level as “L’Italiana” and we wanted to share some thoughts about this opera in anticipation of its appearance at ROF 2016.
As it turns out, we have an excellent guide in the program notes by the legendary Rossini scholar,Phillip Gossett, written for a CD recording of this opera on Phillips. By the way, the Alaimo in this recording is related to the Alaimo who will be singing in Pesaro. Rossini must run in the family.
Gossett starts by debunking the myth that Turco is filled with self-borrowing. “ Corriere delle dame “( Aug 20, 1814) seems to have been the origin of this story.
Then, Gossett declares that Turco is not a poor relative of L’Italiana.
Some of Gossetts points are:
1. L’Italiana is a zany farce with a serious side. Turco, on the other hand is a “comedy of manners” whose themes seem peculiarly modern.
2. If one wants to link “Turco” to another opera, one should look to Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” !
There are so many between the two operas, according to Gossett, including the librettist, some of the singers who created the roles, and so forth.
So, those of you who are joining us in Pesaro, think “Mozart” when you hear this opera. Our conductor, Speranza Scappucci, brings her Mozart sensibilities with her, and it is bound to be a memorable experience.
For those who cannot make it, we will post information about the RAI broadcast, both here, on FB and twitter.
New honors for Speranza Scappucci
See the bottom of this post for the great news!
We interviewed conductor Speranza Scappuccci last year shortly after we met her in Washington DC and learned that she will be appearing at the Rossini Opera Festival this summer. Since then she has been busy with performances throughout the world. Her recent performances in US included a much praised “La Sonnambula” which prompted the NYTimes music critic to suggest that it was time for her to “conduct across 65th street at the Met”!
Her most recent US performances were at LA Opera where she revitalized the musical values in the warhorse, La Boehme While at LA Opera, Scappucci was interviewed at length for KUSC and we posted the link to that interview.
In spite of her busy schedule, she has graciously agreed to answer a few more questions for RossiniAmerica, to update her previous interview.
Q. Thank you for again taking time to answer our questions. We are sorry we don’t ( yet) have the technical capability of bringing audio interview here on the site; It is one thing to see your responses “on paper”, quite another to hear you speak with such passion and commitment about your work.
Q. Recently some pages of a Rossini manuscript ( if one can call them that) were posted on FB and they looked like what one commentator called a Rorschach test. They were at least quite frantic and messy. When you study his printed scores do you feel the sense of spontaneity that the listener feels, or is this something that you must “create”?
A. Rossini wrote his operas is very short periods of time ! His genius and creativity are without limit. At the same time I think nothing is left to pure chance with him. To the listener his music of course sounds spontaneous and perfectly balanced, but I am sure that in certain masterpieces although Rossini uses some “formulas” , everything is perfectly planned out and the balance and perfection between word and music is spectacular !
Q. In your comments for the LA Opera interview you mentioned something about “young voices” being ideal for La Boheme. How much does the quality of the voice ( not the technique) matter in a Rossini Opera?
A. What I meant in Puccin’s La Boheme was not young voices necessarily , but youthful characters ! Because it’s an opera about youth,love, life and loss of innocence, sudden death. Because of Puccinis orchestration it is the conductors duty to make sure that the transparency of the heavy orchestration never surpasses the voices. You need healthy voices for Puccini. Same of course for Rossini , for which vocally speaking, it is necessary to have some qualities like coloratura and good legato
Q. We first became aware of your work from the enthusiastic review of your performances of “Il Turco in Italia” at Julliard a number of years ago. You are returning to this work for your Pesaro debut. You frequently say that you start with the score ( to find the “truth behind the notes”, if we recall) what is it like to return to a score that you have already conducted? Is there always something new to discover? How do your previous performances inform the ones you are presently doing?
A. Sudying a score always presents the opportunity to discover new things ! In this edition of Turco in Italia there will be practically no cuts , so some new music for me compared to the Juilliard version . Also I will be dealing with new singers so of course it’s a great opportunity to do things differently !
Q. A well respected American music critic recently bemoaned the quality of the present crop of young American conductors. One of his observations was that they are not mentored, and few, if any, come from a background in opera. Most of the great conductors we can think of did have a background in opera. What role has working with singers have in shaping you as a conductor?
A. For me it was fundamental. Because understanding how the human voice works and coaching singers gives me a more wide spectrum of how music phrasing goes! And it can be applied to phrasing also in the symphonic repertoire . People tend to think that if a conductor comes from opera , they are probably not as great in symphonic repertoire ! I say it’s quite the contrary . If you are able to deal with the stage the singers the chorus etc etc , it is quite likely that working on symphonic repertoire is as good or even “easier” ! Working backstage for years , training singers, next to great conductors can be the best school for a conductor in the making. That is , of course , if there is a basic talent and charisma.
Q. Is there anything you would like to convey to our Festival goers before we all meet in Pesaro?
A. I hope you will all enjoy this Turco in Italia, a real masterpiece of Rossini , often underestimated
Again, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.
Photo credit : Marco Borrelli
After her Pesaro debut in “Il Turco in Italia”, Speranza Scappucci most recently appeared in Vienna ( conducting Rossini) where she was given this well-deserved, fantastic honor!
From the May 2016 Newsletter from ROF
FINAL WEEKS FOR THE CONTEST “IL TUO VIAGGIO”
Just three weeks left to join the fourth edition of Il tuo Viaggio, a contest aiming to award a prize to a new talent in the field of graphics by publishing the winner’s work as the front cover of the programme of the opera Il viaggio a Reims at the Rossini Opera Festival 2016.
Up to the 20th June applications can be made online by filling in the relative form. Designs must be submitted in the jpg format, cmyk mode, low resolution. Participants in the competition may submit more than one design. The winner will receive two free tickets for the opera.
THE RETURN OF CIRO IN BABILONIA
The revival of Ciro in Babilonia, first heard in the successful revival of 2012, will be the occasion for the return to Pesaro of Ewa Podles, the charismatic contralto around whom Davide Livermore had arranged his staging. The irreplaceable protagonist will be supported by such artists worthy of her as Pretty Yende and Antonino Siragusa. The Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale, Bologna will be conducted by Jader Bignamini, one of the leading and most interesting conductors of the younger generation.
The production of Ciro in Babilonia, which was based upon the spectacle typical of silent films, was unanimously praised four years ago, and won the Abbiati prize for Gianluca Falaschi’s costumes.
Rene Barbera is returning to ROF this summer!
After a triumphant debut in last summer’s Festival ( his performance in Stabat Mater was particularly moving) Rene will be returning to ROF to star in “Il Turco in Italia” under the baton on Speranza Scappucci, and in a new production by Davide Livermore.
Be sure to read our interview with Rene, made before his ROF debut.
Wise words from our conductor making her ROF debut this summer!
This clip is about half and hour long. The interview is related to her appearance at LA Opera in Puccini, but much of what she says about preparation applies to Rossini as well.
Hope it works! Enjoy!