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Subs by Carolina and gallalala Good afternoon everybody. Today "Ridotto dell'opera" is in Milan
to meet a person who has been really prominent in the last days,
because he is among the protagonists of Mozart's "Don Giovanni":
the bass Ildebrando D'Arcangelo. Ciao and welcome!
Ciao everybody!
Ildebrando D'Arcangelo: young but, let's say, with a rather considerable story.
So, since we have a long time available for him, I would start from the...cradle:
where are you born, and how did you become an opera singer?
I come from Pescara, my father is a musician -- an organist --
so, like everybody following his father's footsteps.
My father's dream was that his son would become a musician,
so I have been studying the piano for ten years,
not thinking at all to become -- to be -- a singer;
until, in brief, I discovered the voice for fun, at 16, singing in a chorus.
then my first listening, Mozart's "Don Giovanni", with Böhm conducting, Dieskau and Flagello.
Carmela Remigio as well is from Pescara, isn't she?
Yes, she is.
And she as well told me about having started from the study of an instrument,
to subsequently come to the use of her voice.
Which, for you, has been the "official" debut of your career?
Masetto in Treviso, for the Toti Dal Monte competition that I won in 1989.
Then it came another Masetto, a very important one, with Claudio Abbado, Carmela Remigio, Bryn Terfel, in Ferrara, if I am right;
later we will offer something from it, the classic duettino, sung with Patrizia Pace.
What about your meeting with Claudio Abbado?
He is a great maestro, as everybody knows;
I was very young and to me it was like looking at a deity...
furthermore, being close to great artists like Bryn Terfel, Keenlyside...
passing directly from apprenticeship to an international environment... it was a dream.
We have listened to "Giovinette che fate all'amore" conducted by Claudio Abbado and sung by Ildebrando D'Arcangelo and Patrizia Pace.
When you play a character -- I'm not meaning Masetto, of course, but the more important ones,
Don Giovanni and Leporello: maybe later we'll talk about the vocal peculiarity of both these roles,
that you play always with a remarkable versatility
-- you build up your personal idea of it, and find your personal vocal dynamics for it.
How do you manage to reconcile with the idea that one particular conductor, and each conductor, has of it?
I am used to respect the thoughts of either the conductor and the director.
I try not to "play Ildebrando D'Arcangelo" with a fixed idea in my mind,
but I am open to any kind of interpretation, to follow the views of both, and to put them on stage.
Clearly, I have my humble one -- it is normal and human,
if you want to add your own colour to other people's ideas about a character.
But, first, I am respectful towards those ideas.
We have been listening to "Madamina, il catalogo è questo",
Leporello's famous catalogue aria, sung by Ildebrando D'Arcangelo
with the Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.
We were talking about your relationship with conductors and directors.
I would not insist on Don Giovanni, but since it's current affairs...
You have been confronting with many and very different stagings, some traditional, some modern, say contemporary,
like Carsen's one, currently at La Scala, or the rather erotically provocative staged at the Sferisterio in Macerata.
Do you prefer or enjoy some specific kind of staging --
I mean, do you have an idea, a design of your own, that maybe would one day lead you to stage it as a director?
Being a director in the future...
I must say that I have been wondering if I will ever stage "Don Giovanni",
this opera that is dear to my heart.
As happened with this "Don Giovanni" in Milano, for example, when Carsen has presented -- and staged -- his idea and has stated it to us,
of course in such situations I instinctively ask "Why this way, not that?"
But then I end up realizing that I must display to the audience Carsen's view, not my own.
You are able to become an instrument -- so to say -- in the hands of the director, clearly after having accepted his background view...
Right that.
You don't question the details; more or less, you have accepted a kind of perspective and go into it without quibbling...
Yes, even if I don't agree, that's my mission.
When I will stage my own, then it will be my staging.
I can't keep up discussing... I like having a dialogue.
I had a great relationship with Carsen, discussed with him, and had a dialogue
about what I see written in the libretto and about his idea, that perhaps is different from Da Ponte's.
Let's listen to "Deh vieni alla finestra", the serenade sung by Don Giovanni
for Donna Elvira's servant, who by the way, in Carsen's staging, ends up completely naked.
We have listened to "Deh vieni alla finestra", the canconet from "Don Giovanni" by Mozart, performed by Ildebrando D'Arcangelo and and the orchestra conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.
Still speaking about Carsen: you liked the most...
Please tell me if my question sounds meaningless: you performed both as Don Giovanni and as Leporello.
Which of them, as staged by Carsen, is closer to your view: Don Giovanni or Leporello? Or both?
Let's say that Carsen's Leporello is closer to the "classic" version;
yet Don Giovanni, in this staging, is the one who creates everything around himself,
he is always happy, always smiling.
It's not Don Giovanni's off day when nothing is working for him, everything works, everything is positive for him.
Coming to vocal issues, and Ildebrando D'Arcangelo's instrument... But wait: why "Ildebrando", this fabulous name?
Because my mother did not accept "Radamès".
She was right!
Yes... My father wanted me to have a name recalling art, and the second option was Pizzetti's.
Very good, and well-chosen.
Let's talk about the vocal issue, a question I made to every bass I met, from Erwin Schrott to Ellero d'Artegna to Nicolai Ghiaurov,
and that of course I make to you: why does a singer prefer to be Don Giovanni than Leporello, il Conte than Figaro?
I never met Cesare Siepi, but for example he was a Don Giovanni and a Figaro.
If the point was the social status, his choice would have been Don Giovanni and il Conte...
So, what happens? Why does a singer prefer to perform this or that main role in these operas by Mozart?
The same could be said for "Così fan Tutte", where there are two important low-pitched voices.
If you don't want to make an encyclopedia, tell me simply about you...
Simply, I think that perhaps some colleagues prefer to play the main character; they don't make a vocal choice.
I prefer Don Giovanni, but not because he is the main character:
because, from a vocal point of view, I really feel him closer to me.
I perhaps don't feel myself as a buffo...
I see Leporello as very similar to Don Giovanni,
he is the servant that must be able to imitate him very well: differently, you could not understand how their trick could deceive Donna Elvira.
So I see my Leporello differently from other colleagues.
More noble, more an accomplice, his mirror...
His mirror, absolutely, he has to be his mirror.
Even vocally, he has to be closer to Don Giovanni.
He loves Don Giovanni, is madly in love with his master, so... how could I say...
You can say... nothing else, because you already said everything and it was perfectly comprehensible!
You don't see Don Giovanni as the dandy and Leporello as the fatty doing stupid things at his side.
Yes, absolutely.
You see two accomplices -- of course Don Giovanni has the stronger psychological influence. And how do you manoeuvre in "Le Nozze di Figaro"?
I have played both the Conte and Figaro. Il like Figaro because of the revolution, of his energy, his will to come out...
... out from his condition of servant, before the French Revolution.
Exactly. On the other hand, the Conte is a silly person, a bit...
But honestly, vocally he is more suited to me, to my voice.
"Hai già vinta la causa" and of course "Vedrò, mentr'io sospiro",
an aria that could definitely belong to an "opera seria", dropped by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart into an "opera buffa" -- but with melancholic implications: "Le Nozze di Figaro".
Now I would like to speak with Ildebrando D'Arcangelo about something else,
after having focused our attention on Mozart -- that is among my favourite and Ildebrando D'Arcangelo's most sung composers.
Besides this repertoire, which are the composers you are most interested to: Handel, Haydn, Rossini,
I know about Donizetti -- a very special one -- Bellini...?
Among my next future plans there's Gounod's "Faust".
I love it so much, and it's perfect for me; then, let's see what happens.
The problem is to escape labels; unfortunately, people from theatres aren't quick enough in understanding if a voice can take a different way.
So I am forced to leave Mozart aside to demonstrate that I can sing other things.
I have sung everything, from Bach to Stravinskij; but, as I said, there is the labeling problem.
Labels are so wrong; if theatre managers would listen to what people like me, in all modesty, have written for twenty years and said by radio for fifteen,
could learn that the first male performer of Anna Bolena was Filippo Galli,
the greatest singer ever of Rossini's operas, and one of the very few carrying on the Mozart repertoire, for example...
Clearly, from there to Verismo, Wagner or Russian operas it's further.
What does this mean for you...
But before, let's listen to a famous aria from Bellini's "Sonnambula" that you have recorded
doing very well among a prestigious cast -- Flórez, Cecilia Bartoli, wih Alessandro De Marchi conducting.
We will take up our conversation later.
Let's take up our conversation about voice features.
What are the characteristics -- from a physical, more than interpretative point of view --
for a bass to sing Bellini's and Donizetti's belcanto, compared to the XVIIIth century style of Mozart?
What needs to be added, and what subtracted?
I think that's the way you present the phrase, its style.
Mozart is more "parlato", so you don't have the possibility to "legare" the phrases -- except in some occasions like "Deh, vieni alla finestra", or "Là ci darem la mano",
but I am now speaking more about Figaro or Leporello -- as you can do when singing Verdi or Bellini:
it's only this legato that makes the difference in style.
And what about the vocal instrument, that in the XIXth century is larger,
and in particular is handled in a very disrespectful way by conductors that scarcely consider human voice... what do you say?
I say that sometimes directors don't help singers:
either the set is wide open, or you have to sing 30 metres away from the orchestra, and this influences the listening,
since in opera there are no microphones, as in musical...
we have to survive, against everything.
Furthermore, there are also the speakers on the forestage, increasing the orchestra's volume:
thus, the singer is forced to force. These are in my opinion our "modern" problems.
I have written hundreds of biographies of XIXth century singers, particularly of the first XIXth century.
It's true that their repertoire was a limited one, for they had not to sing operas from many centuries;
so they could protect themselves. Are you for repertoire specialization?
We already talked about the bad taste of labeling, but there's a question that I often ask singers... and in my opinion, they always give me the wrong answer;
if they would consider the story of their predecessors, perhaps they would reconsider.
Often singers (particularly tenors, I have to say) say: "No, no, before singing -- say -- Don Carlos or Don Alvaro,
you have to sing Rigoletto, Traviata & Trovatore, but before singing Rigoletto, Traviata & Trovatore you have to sing Nemorino..."
In your bass key, do you agree with this view of a vocal growth that forces you to perform one particular role before of another?
I mean, you are going to sing Gounod's Méphistophélès, then maybe could sing Boito's.
Does this one have necessarily to come after that, or could you be ready to sing it today?
Let's speak about the tremendous Verdi, seen by many people as a plague for voices:
do you think (I don't mean do you want, because this is not necessary) that, for example, Filippo II of Don Carlos has necessarily to be sung very late in one's career?
I think that every singer follows his own path.
Regarding my colleagues saying "Before performing one role I have to do another"...
In my case, for example, when I did Masetto, watched carefully Leporello,
and when I did Leporello, watched carefully Don Giovanni.
To me, the point is psychological.
My teacher used to say: "To sing..." -- I mean, when I sung Boito's Mefistofele under Maestro Muti
I felt young for that role; but I recalled my teacher's words.
He used to say: "You have to sing with your voice".
Every singer should do this way: not trying to sing with a voice that's not his own,
thinking "To sing Filippo II I must make it bigger or darker".
If I'm not singing Filippo now, it's because now I can't feel him;
Gounod's "Faust" -- I could sing it tomorrow morning, but for Filippo I need some more years.
But the point is not my voice; as for my voice, I could sing it today as well;
it's the psychological growth that I have to gain first.
You can feel free not to answer to this question -- maybe you never happened to think about.
Nicolai Ghiaurov was Bulgarian, thus closer to Russia, so singing both Italian and Russian repertoire was rather physiological for him.
But if we take another famous predecessor of yours, Ruggero Raimondi, an Italian singer, we know that he has sung the Italian repertoire and then also Boris Godunov, and so on...
I have noticed that often Italian singers address themselves to the Russian repertoire, but never to German repertoire -- Wagner.
Does the idea of Wagner flash through your mind? Do you like Wagner as a composer? Listening to him, if not interpreting him?
I love Wagner very much, but probably am scared at the idea of singing for five hours, I don't know...
I have this idea. But honestly, I let things happen as they must happen.
I don't fix my future in advance. I let my feelings, and my desire to explore new horizons, come from inside.
I don't have any plan, such as "In ten years I'll do... Wotan". No, that's not my way of thinking.
Another listening thanks to Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, from his Deutsche Grammophon CD;
he is accompanied by the Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.
We close this interview asking, of course: what do you expect for your 2012... success, money?
Yes, in the end it's always the same things...
Maybe taking some time off...
Exactly, it would be good, from time to time...
I hope -- I am talking for everybody -- that today's crisis will be overcome, and would wish health and peace to everybody.
Thank you for having been with us. Really a discreet person:
explosive on the stage, yet, in real life, one with whom you really would like to be friends.
Thanks again.
Thanks to you. (Subs by Carolina and gallalala)