Replies:

Topic author: Elena Fiorentini
Replied on: 30/10/2003 16:23:57
Messaggio:

Sono riuscita a ridurre la foto.
In questo modo si può leggere la dedica al suo allievo cantante Mosè Franco che gli è stato vicino fino all'ultimo.
Elena

Edited by - elenafior on Oct 31 2003 09:19:07

Topic author: elle.emme
Replied on: 30/10/2003 17:33:32
Messaggio:

Purtroppo non ho mai avuto occasione di assistere ad una sua rappresentazione. Ne ho sempre sentito parlare in casa da mia mamma che ne parlava (scusate la ripetixione) in toni entusiastici. Se lo ricordava in coppia con la Callas in una indimenticabile e memorabile rappresentazione.
Chiedo conferme
(Io sono molto ignorante in materia)

Che peccato e ora chi ci rimane a rappresentare il bel canto lirico italiano nel mondo?.
Non ditemi Pavarotti per piacere

Laura

elle.emme

Topic author: elisabetta
Replied on: 30/10/2003 18:36:12
Messaggio:

devo dire che mi dispiace per la sua scomparsa... può sempbrare strano... ma io sono crescita con l asua voce... da ragazzina non ascoltavo musica leggera.... ma musica lirica dato che mio nonno era 'loggionista ' a Parma e mia madre è diplomata in pianoforte al conservatorio G.Verdi di Parma... io quando da piccola giocavo... cantavo l'Aida e il Trovatore... e mi ricordo la voce di Corelli... mi aha accompagnato nella mia infanzia.... GRAZIE per i bei momenti datomi !!!

elisabetta

Topic author: Elena Fiorentini
Replied on: 31/10/2003 09:26:31
Messaggio:

Tramite concerto di sogni, che ringrazio,ho potuto comunicare la notizia della morte di Franco Corelli.
La televisione e la stampa italiana hanno brillato per la loro vergognosa assenza, salvo l'articoletto de "La Stampa".
Per chi ne avesse il desiderio e la pazienza, qui di seguito riporto un articolo del NYtimes.
Sono comparsi articoli in tutte le lingue, compreso il cinese,il giapponese e il coreano.

Date: Friday, October 31, 2003 01:35:12

This article from NYTimes.com
has been sent to you by hippolatmu@hotmail.com.


Franco Corelli, Italian Tenor of Power and Charisma, and Pillar of the Met, Dies at 82

October 30, 2003
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI


Franco Corelli, the Italian tenor whose powerhouse voice,charismatic presence and movie-star good looks earned him the adoration of opera fans from the 1950's until his retirement in 1976, died yesterday in Milan. He was 82 and lived in Milan.

He had been suffering from heart problems, said Tony Russo,
a former manager.

The enthusiasm for Mr. Corelli among the rank and file of opera fans was not always shared by connoisseurs and critics. A largely self-taught singer who came to music late and considered voice teachers "dangerous people" and a "plague to singers," Mr. Corelli was faulted by some for the sheer athleticism and raw passion in his singing. Those same qualities drove other opera buffs to ecstasy.

Mr. Corelli was famous for shamelessly prolonging full-voiced, climactic top notes. On a pirated recording of his 1957 debut at the Royal Opera House in London, in Puccini's "Tosca," he holds Cavaradossi's defiant,high-note cry of "Vittoria!" in Act II for a full 12 seconds, causing the audience to erupt with bravos even as
the music continues.

During the 1960's the anti-Corelli sentiment among critics was epitomized by Alan Rich, who in a 1966 article for The New York Herald Tribune acknowledged the vibrancy and white heat of Mr. Corelli's singing, but considered him a throwback to an earlier era when, from Mr. Rich's perspective, musical compromises were common and stylistic refinement lacking. He is "not employed by an opera," Mr.Rich wrote. "He employs it to serve purposes it was not meant to serve."

But Mr. Corelli had plenty of defenders, including Harold Schonberg of The New York Times. Reviewing Mr. Corelli's Cavaradossi in a 1965 Met production with Maria Callas, Mr.Schonberg said that the tenor's voice "rolled through the house in a glorious manner." Noting the expressive liberties taken by Mr. Corelli, he added that the performance "had its own kind of logic."

Mr. Corelli was a greater artist than he was often given credit for. Displaying impressive curiosity and intelligence, he championed neglected operas, like Donizetti's "Poliuto," as well as contemporary works like Salvatore Allegra's 1946 "Romulus." He contributed significantly to the revived interest in the early-19th-century composer Gasparo Spontini by making his 1954 La Scala debut in "La Vestale," which also starred Callas, and by performing Spontini's grand German opera "Agnes von Hohenstaufen," an obscure work, at the Maggio Musicale in Florence.

He earned great respect from the fearsomely demanding Callas, who in Mr. Corelli finally had someone with whom she could act. To the soprano Birgit Nilsson, he was about the only tenor who could match her power in Puccini's "Turandot." Ms. Nilsson still enjoys telling the story of a 1961 performance they did of "Turandot" while on tour with the Met in Boston. Mr. Corelli was incensed that in a climactic moment of the second act Ms. Nilsson had held a high C longer than he had. So, in the third act, instead of placing a stage kiss on her cheek, he bit her in the neck.

After the performance she told Rudolf Bing, the Met's general manager, that she would not be able to continue on to Cleveland because she had been bitten by a tenor and had rabies. Though there were numerous witnesses to the event, Mr. Corelli always denied that it happened.

He did not deny the story of his angrily attacking a student in a third-tier box who heckled him at the opera house in Naples, Italy, during a performance of "Il Trovatore."
Outraged, Mr. Corelli bounded backstage, ran up three flights of stairs to the box and, finding the door locked, broke it down with his shoulder. In his Manrico costume, complete with sword, Mr. Corelli charged at the young man, but was restrained by two ushers.

He was so infuriated that he lost his voice for 20 minutes, returning to the stage just in time to sing what he always considered his greatest account ever of the call-for-revenge tenor aria "Di Quella Pira."

For all his temper, Mr. Corelli often suffered crippling nervousness before appearing onstage. His preperformance ritual included eating steak tartare heavily garnished with lemon and covered with pieces of raw garlic, a meal he consumed with scant regard for whichever soprano he was about to face in love duets.

Though the sheer physical presence of Mr. Corelli's sound was the most striking quality of his voice, he was capable of great poignancy and dulcet pianissimos.

As his career developed, so did his artistry. One cannot listen to his 1968 EMI Classics recording of Gounod's "Roméo et Juliette" and charge him with musical insensitivity. His French diction may not be idiomatic, and his phrasing lacks a certain French refinement. But he sings with lyrical opulence and strikes an affecting balance between ardency and tenderness.