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NELLA
ANFUSO
THE
AUTHENTIC
VOCAL
RECOVERY OF AN EPOCH
by
Josep Subirá
My first personal encounter with Nella Anfuso
came about in May 1996 on the occasion of an interview for CD
COMPACT. From this moment we have developed a particular
personal relationship that continues to endure and has permitted
me to enter a world unknown before, and that has influenced my
work as a musical critic.
Never the less, the first time I listened to
Anfuso was during my history studies at the University
of Barcelona in the class of the History of Opera
held by Dr. Roger Alier in the middle of the 80’s. I recall the
professor talking about the style in the 18th century
and the major protagonists: the “castrati”. To exemplify
their technical mastery he made us listen, through a musical
illustration, to a recording of a Italian singer capable of
reproducing the integral cadences written in his own hand by
Carlo Broschi “Farinello”, the example was taken from the
Air “Quell’usignolo che innamorato” of the Merope
by Geminiano Giacomelli. It concerns Nella Anfuso, of
course.
A part from the ability to reproduce the
famous 25 trills on the same breath, this way of singing was
a real example of brilliance in a school of singing that
combines the expressiveness of the voice with regards to the
aesthetics of the “affects”, bound to the Neoplatonic
philosophy, with the observance of song principles of whom the
documented materials constituted one of the important points in
the musical and philological works by Nella Anfuso.
In reality the Tuscan Singer is an unique
phenomena, a mixture of theory and practice, putting
together musicological research, looking through libraries
hunting for documents that constitute textural support,
including musical interpretations, through her recordings and
DVD. Nella Anfuso is not only a patient and enthusiastic
researcher, but she is also a fervent believer in the
recuperation of the Italian classical school of singing
florid above all in the XVII and XVIII centuries. This
recuperation or rediscovery has been the principle means
of her artistic path of whose fundamentals are to be found in
the teachings of Guglielmina Rosati Ricci, pupil in his time of
Antonio Cotogni (1831-1918) and who had the tenor Beniamino
Gigli as his pupil.
Through the years she has used written
sources that permit us to understand at first hand the singing
works of various members of the Florentine Camerata, birth of
the musical style like “recitative singing” (recitar
cantando) or in the style of Monteverdi “spoken song”
(parlar cantando)… Never the less her passion for the
music that goes from the XV to the XVIII century, with interest
in works up to the first decades of the XIX century, is spread
to a specific form like “frottole”, madrigals,
motets and the “cantata romana”, Airs from Opera,
and chamber music…. Her recordings confirm this well.
Nella Anfuso stands up like a discoverer,
after the didactic transformations in the song that appeared in
the middle of the XIX century by Manuel Garcia, Duprez, Panofka…,
of a vocal civilization in the golden age that goes from
Renaissance to the first Romantics. Being a conscientious and
precise person, Anfuso bases her interpretation on aesthetical
and technical indications and understanding of the song from the
works by Pier Francesco Tosi and Giambattista Mancini,
respectively in 1723 and 1777, also on the indications and
postulates by Giulio Caccini in the Preface to the
“Nuove Musiche” (1601), without forgetting authors and
composers like Vincenzo Giustiniani, Francesco Rognoni and
Domenico Mazzocchi, besides the practical indications contained
in the corpus epistolary by Claudio Monteverdi.
Nella Anfuso makes of her rediscovery of
the authentic classic vocalism a revolution that
can be compared to the musical interpretation on
original instruments.
In the classical music panorama of today,
commercialized and dependent on a star-system of a few recording
companies that live faraway from Art and are only interested in
commercial activities in a technological world they create
difficulties for a traditional diffusion, Nella Anfuso offers
an edifying example of work for the preservation and rediscovery
of vocalism.
From here her driving force to the
formation of the voice is like any physical instrument and
above all her insistence on the oral tradition, because the
comprehension of the singing style defended by her is not based
only on the study of the texts, studied and assimilated, but
necessitate oral traditions, because the pedagogy is
bound by a relationship teacher-pupil, unavoidable and
irreplaceable.
It is obvious that the physical disappearance
of the interpreter implies irreparable loss to his learning, his
readings, to his technical exercises, to the assimilation of
aesthetical and stylistic concepts ….; in conclusion the loss of
all his humanistic baggage. What has gone before in the
interpretation of the pre-classic music, can not be applied to
the song, because the existing documentation shows a praxis very
elaborated, of whose complexity requires a global understanding,
from a construction of a qualified voice that gives total
justification to the composer and results applied by the singers
of that epoch.
In an interview that she gave me for CD
COMPACT published in March 2003, Nella Anfuso manifested with
great clarity the gist of the problem, exposing at the same time
the difficulties and solutions that young singers are confronted
with:
“Even though theoretical texts explain how to
perform the trill, if there is not a person to teach this
mechanism, one can not realize the perfect execution. In musical
matters there is an oral tradition, and we call this the ‘school
of …’. I am the heir of an oral tradition, I have searched and
found documents that prove this oral tradition; so that one
could unite theory with the practise”. “One can not express
themselves if one has not first constructed the instrument.
Today we have a great number of singers who dedicate themselves
to the pre-eighteen hundred music for the simple fact that they
have not voice or schooling. To most students the teachers say:
‘because you have not the type of voice to sing Verdi, dedicate
yourself to the antique repertoire’. It is evident, this is bad
advise but also totally erroneous”.
With these words Nella Anfuso demonstrates to
know well the problems in our age with regards to a lot of
singing students confused of excessive offers by teachers, the
majority of which have not any idea what singing is and the
results are, they completely ruin the voice. More than obsessive
research in the “voice” she is interested in encountering
students that are involved in the serious and methodical
learning of singing, students that ask to “construct” the
instrument parting from the fusion of registers and so passing
the rigidity of vocal divisions established beginning from the
second half of the XIX century. Only in this way she will
realize her desire to hear someone that sings the “Possente
spirito” of Orfeo by Monteverdi with a vocal style
described in his writings.
The understanding of the Song necessitates
not only willpower but also patients to eliminate faults, to
apply the technique and to understand the different styles. If a
vocal school disappears it is impossible to recreate. Broken the
bridges with tradition, we fall directly in to error, invention
and distorting concepts or solutions of compromise with the
consensus of recording studios and theatres, avid for economic
success that justify great sums of money invested. We are
witnessing an abnormal and in certain interesting cases
ceremonial confusion, offering Airs arranged in the style not
congruous to the period, distorting in this way the style of the
song. Everything is converted to commercial operations and not
in musical facts (contrary to Nella Anfuso).
Another factor that plays in favour of the
musicological and artistic rigour of Anfuso is that the
recordings of every disc implies years of preparation.
The artistic creativity of Nella Anfuso is spread to an
important circle of privileged and restless initiates, and
through her will power faraway and extraneous to the chasm
of media campaign, driven by a promotional campaign directed
frequently by people without the necessary musical knowledge,
only interested in the profits, like an prefabricated pop-rock
artist, a phenomena unfortunately spread out in an agitated
world of actual recordings.
Nella Anfuso does not search for easy success
but looks for the causes and particular motivation of a certain
period, without considering how long this effort would take.
Only in this way it remains clear that the creation of a
vocal instrument needs indissoluble union of two registers, head
and chest, to arrive at three important objectives: homogeneity,
gentle and marked virtuosity and a great extension. Only in
this way we can guarantee the health and longevity of
the voice, able to sing in total control and ease all the
musical styles of song from the Renaissance period up to the
first half of the XIX century.
For the recreation of sound it is
fundamental total use of the parts of the human body that
amplify this: the supralaryngeal resonators and
paranasal cavities. The perfect resonance is given by
a certain supporting mechanism (appoggio) through
specific phonetic exercises, based on a characteristic
respiration like the ancients practised on “sostenere il
petto” (supporting the chest).This will result in a more
fluid and natural voice, a part from other
characteristics, that, in completing the fusion of the two
registers in one, will give an extension of three
octaves, permitting the realization of authentic
virtuosity, without any limits typical of this period. A
paradigmatic example is taken from an Air “Al dolor che vò
sfogando” by Carlo Broschi “Farinello”, of whose own
agility as a contralto live with acute passages
theoretically for a soprano leggero. With the perfect
union of registers there are no obstacles: one can sing even
the most technically difficult pieces of the XVIII century.
Fiorituras like passages, groups,
trills, calati and cresciuti trills, martellata
agility, canto di sbalzo, messa di voce,
legato, and many others… constitute singing of great
expression that goes beyond any vocal
characterization.
Anfuso offers abundant examples in her
writings through the Foundation Studies of Renaissance Music, of
whose reading and assimilation is the best guide to discover
through research the authenticity in the study of classic
vocalism of which she is the standard-bearer. In merit we
must remember the words of Giambattista Mancini taken from his
book “Riflessioni pratiche sul Canto figurato” (Practical
reflections on figurative singing) published in Milan in
1777:
“Any pupil has to know, that this study needs
time to perfect and untiring efforts not to leave it imperfect.
This time and effort will not be in vain, but will serve to form
a varied song, virtuoso and in consequence sublime and distinct”.
The realization of this varied song,
virtuoso, distinct and sublime is today the pedagogic aim
and vital objective of Nella Anfuso. It is very easy to
succumb to siren songs of a media career based on commercial
interests that consider extraneous and forgetting the artistic
aspects and stylistic authenticity. The artistic truth is put
aside by launching of commercial products. To privilege the
sales is more important than the interpretive qualities of an
epoch. Frequently I have heard her lament of going against the
tide and seeing certain pedagogic initiatives thwarted, but her
fundamental work is solid. It is necessary to discover and form
young and valid interpreters, capable of being honest in their
artistic and professional intentions.
The proof in this vocal recovery is through
oral traditions and example. Anfuso dedicates herself not only
going through the archives of the library, but also through her
recordings. Anfuso, through her numerous recordings,
presents the singing based on principles of Italian classical
traditions that permits to completely render the musical
interpretation prior to Bellini, and throw light on the
obscurity, ignorance and confusion common
to most when they have to interpret pieces from a vocal musical
point a view, as mentioned before.
For me it has been very easy to understand
the aspirations of our genial interpreter, through
the interviews given to me and by the translation in the Spanish
language of her book “Este arte non soporta la mediocridad”.
“Principios para una regeneraciòn del conocimiento del canto”.
In this way I got to know by first hand her musical
personality.
It is difficult to select or propose one disc
or an other, because personal taste is not always the best way
to understand music of a certain period; the chronology permits
us better to illustrate her singing and musicological talent,
first steps are not only to understand but also to investigate a
determined period in the history of music. To those who feel a
vocation for song, a part from developing their own voice, will
have an example worthy in style and technique
to follow and develop.
In her discs dedicated to the Tuscan
Monody, to Caccini, etc. it is evident how the
diction and the art of modulation is based on a technique at the
service of the poetics of the language. It is clear how
trills, exclamations, gruppi, messe di voce, spiccati passages….are
at the service of a few scripts were the voice runs parallel to
the rhythm of the words, demonstrating the emotions of the
beautiful poetries.
Nella Anfuso offers a new prospective
even in fragments that we believed lost of whom she proposes a
truthful interpretation like the examples of Monteverdi of
seconda pratica; it is the case in the “Lament of
Penelope” (Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria) and also
the laments of Olimpia and above all of Arianna,
citing the origins from the manuscripts that are found in the
works of the libretti that accompany the recording. Anfuso does
not limit herself to the musicology through her singing
orthodoxy, but she recreates perfectly the humanistic
atmosphere breathed in the courts and circles in the Italian
cities of the XVII century, connecting literature and music, an
example is the recording of works interpreted at Mantova at the
time of Isabella d’Este in the beginning of the XVI century.
The evolution towards a more complex song,
that reproduces the modes of the “sprezzatura” at the end
of the XVI century, is present in recordings dedicated to the
madrigals of Iacopo Peri, of whose Euridice is an example of
“pure representative style”. The musical periplus that her
recording offers takes us to the virtuosic world of the
“cantata romana” with works by G. Carissimi, M. Marazzoli
and L. Rossi of whom I was especially impressed by the
“Lamento della Regina di Svetia”, a beautiful example
of very virtuosic vehemence of these secular
cantatas.
The cantata, a beautiful musical
fresco, a true opera in miniature, is a style that Nella Anfuso
studies in detail in many recordings dedicated to Antonio
Vivaldi, Domenico Scarlatti and Nicolò Porpora. The refinement
of these compositions in the XVIII century remains a
reflection of a large range of colours in her voice. We can
use the double album dedicated to the “figurato” song
from Mozart to Bellini that is also one of my favourites,
because it offers beautiful examples of classical singing like
“Ridente la calma” by Mozart or “In questa tomba
oscura” by Beethoven, were the ample extension of her
voice shines, perfectly integrated in a register of notes very
high and low. Her Mozart is sung with all the
“appoggiaturas” and “fiorituras” , used in this
period, banished by the central European conductors at the
beginning of the XX century. In the interpretation of the “Ariette
da camera” by Vincenzo Bellini she demonstrates
prolonged volatinas and fanciful variations in works like
“Torna vezzosa Fillide” or the concluding section of
“Quando incise su quel marmo” or “Il fervido desiderio”.
Anfuso uses the “bel canto”
of the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and early Romantic period
like a distinctive mark of a vocal civilization
forgotten or neglected. Her singing endowments,
research and recently teaching permit us to perceive a new
light. The Medicean Festival in Artimino is a good example.
The proof is it’s international importance, indeed Nella Anfuso
intends to recuperate the vocal style, patrimony not only of
Italy but also of Europe and the rest of the world. | 
