Books › Musical Courier 1907-12-04: Vol 55 Iss 23, 1907 › scan 29
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Musical Courier 1907-12-04: Vol 55 Iss 23, 1907
126 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 30. See the scan on archive.org.
1MILAN, November 13, 1907.
3The Italia Moderna contains an interesting article on the enthusiasm that singers of both sexes have awakened from the year 1650 to now.
5Young Toselli, pianist and husband of ex-Princess Luisa of Saxony, has finally signed a contract to tour in America and Germany next season.
7At La Scala, rehearsals of "Crepuscolo degli Dei" ("Götterdämmerung"), the opening opera, will begin November 28, when the lowering of the orchestra and the sounding board will be in order. The orchestra is lowered three inches below the parterre and nearly five inches below the stage. Some engineers insist that five inches below the stage is too much. The effect will be tried during the rehearsals. The season is expected to be inaugurated on December 19.
9Puccini says he hopes to have his new opera, "The Girl from the Golden West," ready by the end of next year. His librettist, Zangarini, has handed in the book entirely completed and Puccini has really set to work in the quiet of his villa at Torre del Lago.
11At the Adriano, of Rome, "Aida," "Rigoletto" and "Gioconda" are the operas which successfully hold the boards.
13Every Italian musician is elated at the news that Count San Martino, who has done so much for music in Rome and who is president of Santa Cecilia, has been elected as counselor to the direction of the Metropolitan Opera of New York.
15Luigi Mancinelli goes to the San Carlo, of Lisbon, this year. The season is to open on December 18. "Cristoforo Colombo," by Franchetti; "Madam Butterfly" and "Tristan and Isolde" are in the repertory. An opera by a Portuguese composer will also be given.
17The big carnival season at the Regio of Parma will open on Christmas night with "André Chenier." Later on, "Tristan and Isolde," "Thais," Mascagni's "Amica," "Amarillis" (by Gagliardi), "Sonnambula," "Ultima Rosa" (by Lebegott), "Zanetto" (by Mascagni), and "Manon" (Massenet) will follow.
19At the Pavia Teatro Fraschini this carnival, two operas by Giordano and two by Mascagni will be given. "Siberia" and "Fedora" by the first, and "L'Amico Fritz" and "Amica" by the second.
21Lebegott is the name of the impresario-composer at the Parma Teatro Regio. This carnival an opera from his pen is to be given.
23Battistini, the famous baritone, has decided to sing five more years, at least so he was telling some of his friends not long ago, and this, according to him, only for the love of singing "Werther," which every one knows Massenet reduced for baritone specially for him.
25Mancinelli's "Francesca da Rimini" has had a good success at the Comunale of Bologna. The press is unanimous in admiring the conductor more as a musician than as an opera writer.
27At Turin a new opera, entitled "Iglesias," by Baravalle, was successful.
29Bucharest is to have a fine season of Italian opera, judging by the repertory and the artists engaged.
31Enrichetta Foscari, a direct and only descendant of the Doge Foscari, of Venice, has retired from the stage at the ripe age of eighty-one. She had been with many celebrities of her time and was lately in a Venetian dialect company.
33The Teatro Comunale, of Ferrara, is to have a subsidy of $2,000, and four are the operas to be given this carnival: "Iris," "Gioconda," "Ballo in Maschera," and a new opera not yet announced.
35Rome, Ferrara, Venice, Vigevano, Novara, Malta, Rovigo, Turin, Trieste, all are having their autumn season.
37Several American pupils have joined Luigi Aversa's classes.
39"La Vie de Boheme" is being given as an operetta at Rome by the Marchetti company. The libretto is by Paul Ferrier and music by Hirschmann.
41Luigi Mancinelli reappeared at Bologna after a twenty years' absence, and conducted "Tristan and Isolde." He was tendered an ovation, as was Borgath, the Wagner tenor.
43Mascagni has been appointed honorary president of the Philharmonica of Pisa.
45Puccini passed through Milan on his way to Vienna to superintend the rehearsals of "Madam Butterfly."
47Eduardo Castellano, the tenor, now in America, is a brother of the gifted maestro Giovanni Castellano, of Milan.
49The deceased maestro Romualdo Marenco, author of the music to so many beautiful ballets, has left, it seems, an opera entirely finished. It is in three acts and will be given under the auspices of the Marenco Choral Society in his native town of Novi Ligure, next spring. Marenco died a week or two ago in an insane asylum and left his family absolutely destitute. A subscription was begun in aid of the widow and children.
51A marble slab in memoriam of the poet Shelley has been inaugurated at San Terenzio, not far from Spezia.
53It is rumored that the Teatro Colon, of Buenos Ayres, will open its doors in May with the first performance of "Aurora," a new opera by Panizza.
55The Teatro Bellini, of Naples, will give a short season of opera.
57The big Rovigo Opera will function no more, the shareholders having decided to keep the theater closed.
59Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy are engaged for some concerts at Santa Cecilia in Rome this winter.
61The Sonzognian repertory so far at the Mercandante of Naples has not been very successful.
63"Faust" and "Cavalleria" are at Arezzo; "Faust" at Assisi; "Barber of Seville" at Carpi; "I Puritani" at Ferrara; "Fedora" at Turin; "Carmen" at Udine; "Tosca" at Trieste.
65The opening performance of the important autumn season at the Teatro Adriano, of Rome, was "Aida."
67Mascagni's "Amica" still holds the boards and successfully, at the Lirico here.
69"Ratcliff," the same subject that Mascagni set to music (and which is so seldom given, on account of the tenor part being so arduous), has been used also by another maestro, Villaforita, who previously won success with his "Jolanda" and another opera, of which I do not reca'l the name now. His "Ratcliff" was given at the Sociale, of Rovigo.
71All the schools and maestri have resumed their lessons, but American pupils are not as numerous as one might have expected.
73Anna Bussert, lyric soprano, has had a fine success as Micaela at Venice, in the Rossini Theater.
75Count San Martino, of Rome, is to be given great credit for the advancement of musical culture in that city. For the ten big annual concerts at Santa Cecilia this year the Count has engaged, besides R. Strauss and Debussy, also Litvinne for one concert, Karl Panzner (who had such an enthusiastic success last year), Busori, and others.
77The immense Theatre Corea in Rome has been renovated and redecorated, and the Santa Cecilia Concerts will be given there hereafter. It is announced that at the same Theatre Corea, the popular Sunday concerts, which are so largely attended, will also be given under Vessella's leadership.
79La Societa del Quartetto, of Milan, is preparing to give some very interesting concerts at the Sala del Conservatorio. Maestro Sani, professor of composition at the Conservatory, has written several new pieces which will be heard on these occasions.
81Delma-Heide, THE MUSICAL COURIER representative at Paris, was in Milan for a few days on business.
83Mrs. Misick, after having sung successfully in Firenzuola and Pergola, may sing Lola in "Cavalleria Rusticana" at Turin.
85The basso Giovanni Scarneo, who had opened a school of song in Florence, has come back to Milan to teach, so that is one more to add to the great number of teachers already here.
87The two agencies and theatrical papers, Trovatore and Palcoscenico, will, after December 31, be but one. It is not yet decided under what name they will be known.
89"Lohengrin" will be given at the Sociale, of Monza.
91Strauss' "Salomé" will be heard at the Costanzi of Rome this season, with Bellincioni as Salomé.
93The Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius, is one of the conductors engaged for the Santa Cecilia Concerts in Rome.
95Raffaele Darval, basso, and his celebrated aunt, Fanny Gordosa (who was many years ago a favorite of Alexander Dumas, and who won laurels in almost all the capitals of Europe) will soon leave for Sicily on a tour through the principal cities.
97Olga Fischer Togó gave a hearing at maestro Aversa's house, the maestro, of whom she is a promising pupil, being himself at the piano. The maestro has a knack of bringing out the fullness and timbre of the voice, besides teaching the real bel canto.
99Tito Ricordi and Franchetti have gone to London to superintend the setting of "Germania" at Covent Garden.
101The important Teatro Carlo Felice, of Genoa, for want of a subsidy, will remain closed this carnival.
103At Modena (where the theater will have a subsidy of $6,000) they will give "Faust," "Ernani," "Forza del Destino" and "Madam Butterfly."
105At the San Carlo, of Naples, "Tristan and Isolde" will be conducted by Martucci. The operas to follow are: "Rigoletto," "Gioconda," "Salomé," "Tosca," "Traviata," "Boheme," "Faust," "Favorita," "Africana," "Barbiere di Siviglia," Verdi's "Requiem," and the ballet, "Pietro Micca."
107Director Gallignani, of the Milan Conservatory, is in Rome at present, urging the Ministry to maintain the promises made several years ago to better the conditions of the teachers and professors there. It is even rumored that if the amelioration is not accorded, the institution will close. Musicians are anxiously awaiting results.
109Henry Russell and his San Carlo company left for America.
111The operas that Legrand Howland will give at the Teatro Reynach, of Parma, are (besides his "Saronna") "Mignon," "Cavalleria," "Pagliacci," "Zara" and "Canzone Fatale." Among the artists are two Americans, Miss Duryen and Rita Margheri, the last a pupil of Castellano.
113In a small town of Sicily a poor old man was found dead from want. He was identified as the violinist Cuvillier, from Paris, once a prix de Rome, and employed also as musician at the Vatican.
115The Opéra Museum has been enriched by the gift of a writing desk once belonging to Rossini and also a statuette of the composer, dated 1840. People here thin': those things ought to go to Pesaro!
117Two celebrated artists, Alfonso Garulli and Tina Benadazzi, have settled down in Trieste to give themselves up entirely to teaching.
119Cairo and Alexandria (Egypt) will have their Italian opera season, beginning in January and ending in May.
121Padova, Lucca, Ravenna, Brescia, Cavalmaggiore, Codogno and many other minor towns are having opera seasons of short duration.
123The opening of the Manhattan Opera in New York and the rather lukewarm criticisms of Zenatello, the tenor, are being eagerly discussed in the Galleria here.
125D. P.
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