P R E F A C E
Deh! non volerli vittime from Norma
HÜRRİYET DAILY NEWSPAPER
P R E F A C E
Deh! non volerli vittime from Norma
HÜRRİYET DAILY NEWSPAPER
A D I V A W I T H A D I F F E R E N C E
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi as Aida (Teatro alla Scala) 1927 A signed photo for Gencer in 1949 |
with Tullio Serafin during the rehearsals of Yevgeny Onyegin, 1954 Photo © FOTO TRONCONE, Napoli |
from photo shooting "Musica Viva" 1981 Photo © LELLI E MASOTTI, Milano |
A M E R I C A
with Kurt Herbert Adler in 1957 during a rehearsal of La Traviata Photo © ROBERT LACKENBACH, San Francisco |
Manon, San Francisco, 1958 Photo © BILL COGAN, San Francisco |
M Y H O M E "L A S C A L A"
with Ibrahim Gençer - 7 December 1990, Teatro alla Scala, "Idomeneo" Photo © Teatro alla Scala / LELLI E MASOTTI, Milano |
with Wally Toscanini, her daughter Emanuela Castelberco and Filippo Acquarone, 1969 Photo © Teatro alla Scala / ERIO PICCAGLIANI, Milano |
D O N I Z E T T I R E N A I S S A N C E
Primarily the “trend” of reviving neglected operas started in 1957 when Maria Callas had a sensational success at La Scala in Anna Bolena. In one of her interviews Gencer said that “It was a trend and I followed it”. However it was actually Gencer who succesfully carried on this trend. Callas “revived” Anna Bolena and Gencer introduced the opera to bigger audiences. In 1958 right after Callas, Gencer sang on the Rai’s radio broadcast of the opera. In 1965 she performed the opera 12 nights at Glyndebourne Opera Festival. Gencer’s last performance of Anna Bolena was in Rome in 1977. In the era “Donizetti Renaissance” that began with Anna Bolena, Gencer also sang Donizetti’s other neglected operas such Maria Stuarda, Poliuto, Les Martyrs, Lucrezia Borgia, Belisario, Roberto Devereux, Caterina Cornaro and she proved to be the invincible queen of belcanto. Nevertheless the recordings of these operas were made by recording artists such as Montserrat Caballé, Beverly Sills and Joan Sutherland.
as Lucrezia Borgia, La Scala 1970 Photo © Teatro alla Scala / ERIO PICCAGLIANI, Milano |
1974 Lucrezia Borgia, Dallas Photo © BILL COGAN, Dallas |
Q U E E N O F P I R A T E S - I
Q U E E N O F P I R A T E S - II
DVD recording of Paris Concert |
The New York Chapter of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections presents its January 2018 program:
Renato Caccamo was born 26 August 1934 in Siderno, Calabria in Italy's deep South. His love of music began early and was centred on the piano. In Rome, he studied Law and also studied piano at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. He was he was in his mid-20's when he moved to Milan in the late 50s. He became both a criminal judge and a devotee of that city’s concert life, his interest focused on the Teatro alla Scala. Because of unique opportunities stemming from his important social position, his persistence and an indefatigable energy, he became La Scala's de facto archivist in the early 60s. For the next 20 years he recorded (or had recorded for him on first class sound equipment) not only everything at La Scala — operas and concerts — but also virtually everything of substance in all of Italy's major venues: RAI, Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, various festivals, etc. He recorded almost everything, but his chief interests were opera (originally Wagner) and piano, his own instrument. He became close friends with many major musical celebrities during this period, e.g. Abbado, Pollini, Muti, Weissenberg, Leyla Gencer, Nikita Magaloff, Dino Ciani, and many others, due, at least in part, because he was so useful to them in making copies of performances from his ever-growing collection. I myself became his friend in 1975 when I won the first Dino Ciani piano competition at La Scala. Ciani had tragically died in an auto accident the year before at the age of 32, and for the next 36 years Renato's apartment in Piazza Borromeo was my chief European residence. During the first part of this period, hardly a day passed without a call from someone such as Abbado or Muti or Pollini or Accardo to request a copy of some specific performance. And every day recordings from Europe and America and, occasionally, Japan would arrive in exchange for recordings that he had made. So, the collection became gigantic (and rather out of control). In the meantime, Renato had become an increasingly powerful and important judge. His position at retirement was President of the Court of Appeals, Fourth District (Milan). Due to the temporary liberalization of piracy laws in the late 80s, many of Renato's tapes were becoming commercial records. With the loss of exclusivity, Renato’s zeal to record substantially diminished. By the mid 90's his passion for collecting was mostly in the realm of books, of which he possessed 80-90,000 volumes. At his death, on 6 September 2011, Renato's collection of recordings was in a sadly confused state. The catalogues were long out of date, and not all of the older recordings had been migrated to more durable formats. The entire collection is now housed at La Scala, but inaccessible because the lack of resolution of privacy and copyright issues. The collection also includes something like 10,000 hours of video recordings (many informal) made between 1995 and his death. There are extraordinary treasures buried there, some of which I will describe.
Jeffrey Swann (Winner of 1° Premio Dino Ciani 1975 ) Photo © Teatro alla Scala / ERIO PICCAGLIANI, Milano |
L’uomo che ha condannato Bettino Craxi a un decennio di reclusione nei processi Eni-Sai e per le mazzette della metropolitana milanese si è spento a Milano la mattina di martedì 6 settembre, al termine di una lunga malattia. Renato Caccamo, presidente della quarta sezione della Corte d’Appello di Milano negli anni di Tangentopoli, si era costruito, condanna dopo condanna, una fama di inflessibilità, sempre rivendicata con orgoglio contro il “generale lassismo”. Pochissimo incline a dichiarazioni, Caccamo aveva comunque raccontato alla stampa di aver fatto parte dei giovani socialisti e di aver sempre votato Psi prima di trasformarsi nell’incubo della classe dirigente del partito.
Di lui si diceva che si vantasse di non aver mai assolto nessuno: leggenda smentita dalla discussa sentenza del 2006 sulla strage di Linate a favore dei direttori degli aeroporti milanesi e anche, anni prima, dall’assoluzione di Berlusconi per la compravendita dei terreni di Macherio. Alle costanti, inevitabili critiche di chi gli contestava di ragionare come un pubblico ministero più che come un giudice o lo liquidava come “talebano” opponeva le numerose conferme ottenute in Cassazione e la certezza che nessuno avrebbe mai contestato la limpidezza delle sue motivazioni.
La vita di Caccamo, però, era un’altra. Trascinato da una passione musicale insaziabile, ha frequentato per decenni tutti i concerti e tutte le serate d’opera non solo milanesi stringendo amicizie profonde con gli artisti che spesso, finiti gli applausi, si intrattenevano a cena a casa sua. E lui, un po’ ossessivamente, registrava, riprendeva tutto: la musica, ma anche la calca in camerino, le discussioni. Le sue registrazioni, autorizzate o no (alla Scala era stato Paolo Grassi a fornirgli un lasciapassare), nell’ultimo periodo erano spesso solo un doppione di quelle realizzate dai teatri. Ma in anni non troppo remoti costituivano l’unica documentazione esistente di esecuzioni anche eccelse. Basta ricordare Leyla Gencer, il grande soprano che nessuna major discografica aveva messo sotto contratto.
Anche nella passione e nella sacrosanta partigianeria musicale Caccamo conservava un giudizio indipendente e aggiornato sera per sera: apprezzava una buona esecuzione anche se veniva da un artista di cui aveva poca stima e riservava stroncature sprezzanti alle “serate no” dei suoi prediletti. Vita pubblica e passione musicale si sono intrecciate nel 2004, quando Caccamo ha vigorosamente preso le parti del Sovrintendente scaligero Carlo Fontana nel conflitto con il Direttore musicale Riccardo Muti raccogliendo un dossier sull’operato di Mauro Meli, fortemente voluto dal Maestro alla Sovrintendenza, nelle precedenti esperienze di gestione. Negli ultimi anni la lotta contro la malattia è stata soprattutto una lotta per continuare ad essere ai concerti: nel 2007 a Philadelphia Riccardo Chailly dovette spiegare personalmente alla security della Verizon Hall che “sì, questo signore può registrare”. Solo pochi mesi fa l’ultima trasferta, al Festival Mahler di Lipsia.