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NELLA ANFUSO,
LIGHTHOUSE IN THE
MUSIC NIGHT
by
Juan Antonio Muñoz H.
We could start in many places. La
Ferdinanda in Artimino, Cannes, Rome and Paris.
Nella glitters
everywhere.
In Poggio a Caiano, a town near Florence, you
can find the favorite villa of Lorenzo the Magnificent, imagined
by Giuliano da Sangallo. From that place, climbing the smooth
hills in La Toscana, you can get to Artimino, town stayed in
times of Leonardo, just in front of which is La Ferdinanda,
a Medici house designed by Bernardo Buontalenti, and in which
Ferdinando I has settled from 1596.
Placed in a site of esoteric connotations (it
is constructed on Etruscan ruins and there is an Etruscan museum
in it), La Ferdinanda glitters, from May 19, 1999, with a
special light, different from sunlight striking it from all
sides: Monteverdi, Caccini, Dante and Ficino are there, face to
Plato’s Sun.
Turned into a sort of lighthouse, into a kind
of abbey in the middle of the current technological
medioevo, this medicea villa received to perpetuity the
“Annibale Gianuario” Museum, which is dedicated to one of
the main experts of XVI and XVII Italian musical poetry.
It was Nella Anfuso, its follower, who was
behind everything, acting as priestess and human lighthouse.
When Nella Anfuso’s name began to shine in
the middle of the 80s, the audience, surprised, got to know
better a composer as Claudio Monteverdi. This is fundamental to
understand how voice creation advanced. But the surprise was
double, because all of that not only came from a soprano, but
also because Nella Anfuso is a musicologist and she has
dedicated her life to study and perform golden centuries
Italian vocal music.
She was worried because Monteverdi had been
made a myth and specially “because, instead of thinking about
music and its aesthetics, everything is translated in terms of
ideology, which is easier than reasoning on purely scientific
bases”.
‘‘Didone’’ and the deepest human expression
Being arbitrary - as Nella Anfuso is not - I
propose to visit Francesco Cavalli. Faithful to Virgilio’s
original work, Cavalli (1602-1676, whose real name was P.F.
Caletti di Bruno) composed his “Didone” based on the
figure of the Queen of Carthage, who is sung in “The Eneida”.
It is supposed that its premiere was in 1641. Nella Anfuso’s
recording is the first one and it gathers a selection of
big scenes composed for the three feminine characters in piece:
Cassandra, Ecuba and Didone, who find a
common place in the voice and dramatic personality of
soprano, the only one able to perform - with all
ornaments - musical pages written for the famous Carlo Broschi,
Farinello.
Owner of a voice of great extension
(she reaches three octaves) and who has a timbre as a
contralto and a soprano, Nella Anfuso, with an
amazing naturalness, describes the high lines of Dido
and Casandra, and also Hecuba’s grim gravity. The famous
Monteverdian Seconda Pratica is present here (Claudio was
Cavalli’s teacher) and is followed by Nella Anfuso according to
her long musicology studies, that she developed in a parallel
way to those of singer. Also “Didone” is a good example
of stile rappresentativo, whose center is the expression
of the deepest emotions.
With no doubts,
Nella Anfuso is a unique singer in our days. And is not
only because of her wide and rewarded discography
(that includes Peri, Caccini, Monteverdi, Porpora, Scarlatti,
Vivaldi and many others), but also for her writings. In
interpretive terms, she astonishes for the special quality
of her voice, her technical control, her dedication
in the search of musical facts historically undeniable
and for her deep devotion to all the composers’ notes in
question, and treaties of singing of the time. Nothing is at
random with Nella Anfuso: “Didone” is a Cavalli’s
score, but here it is a historical referring disc
- a work of art in itself
-, necessary in any complete discotheque (Stilnovo -
Fondazione Centro Studi Rinascimento Musicale edition).
Let’s go now to Porpora. Nicolò Porpora. A
musician born in Naples in 1686, dead in the same city in 1768,
and who dedicated a big part of his life to teach singing, to
the extent of founding, in 1712, reputable school. Many of the
biggest European singers in that time were his students
(including Carlo Broschi), and among his disciples - exclusively
in the musical field - he counted with nothing less than Haydn.
Porpora composed 53 operas, oratories,
cantatas, symphonies and sonatas for violin, and Nella Anfuso
dedicated her first album only to cantatas as of 1735: “Oh!
Dio che non è vero”, for contralto and
bass continuous, “Queste che miri o Nice”, for soprano
and bass continuous, and “Dal povero mio cor”, for
contralto and bass continuous. She is
both contralto and soprano. No
doubt about it!
Displaying a homogeneous register, of musical
and interpretative ductility, and an absolute control of
the ornaments of that time, the singer - together with the
harpsichord player Laura Alvini - reconstructs a forgotten sound
and proves how virtuosity of such a Baroque was going hand in
hand with the highest expressive power. Then it was not a
question of putting in scene emotions in the romantic sense, but
of shaping in voice the deepest internal passions. Not an
easy task.
The musicologist Annibale Gianuario, upon
presenting the album, makes a detailed analysis of everything is
convenient to know about prevailing singing styles in XVIII
century. He also focus on a type of agility, already in disuse
about 1777 (as it is registered in Giambattista Mancini’s
writing), that Porpora incorporates in his works along with many
others. It deals with the “agilità martellata”, displayed
in the first aria of cantata “Dal povero mio cor”, kind
of difficult to explain without listening, and to which the
adjective “martellata” (hammered) fits perfectly well.
In the three cantatas offered here, Nella
Anfuso delivers us a clear demonstration of the art of singing
as understood by theorists and performers between XV and XVIII
centuries. Art whose aim was the production of “perfect voice
along the whole register as also the uniformity of chest and
head registers”. Attention besides with works themselves,
which are full of dramatic expression and extremely refined, and
in which durezze (dissonances) have an aim of expressive
character.
It is the word that rules
Penelope,
Olimpia, Ninfa, Proserpina and Arianna
are the heroines that the soprano and musicologist Nella Anfuso
compiles on her two CDs “Parlar Cantando I” and
“Parlar Cantando II”, where she shares main roles with
Margherita Dalla Vecchia (organo di legno) and Pier Luigi Polato
(chitarrone-tiorba). She also adds the most affectionate
Monteverdian “Lettere Amorose” with the famous
“Lamento d’Arianna”.
It is about two CDs that gathers moans,
musical dramatic scenes in which leading roles tell some
passional misfortune. The accompaniment changes according to
cases, but in general it is an organo di legno and/or tiorba,
instruments that with their dynamic versatility and their grave
registry collaborate in accentuating features of Italian musical
drama.
As always, Claudio Monteverdi submits his
singers to a hard test. First of all, because it is about a
strong commitment scores, which they must be performed
intimately, with a contained expressiveness and always pending
on the word sense and syllabic time. From there comes the
essence of the so called Seconda Pratica, the “parlar
cantando”, where the word itself is that which makes work
musicality and is a vehicle through which the deepest human
emotions are revealed.
Studious of Maffei, Caccini, Rognoli and
Brunelli, and owner of a strange expressiveness, that
disconcerts and conquers, amazes and charms
simultaneously, Nella Anfuso has led workings concerning
Monteverdi’s recovery. Her interpretative work stands out
because it turns out to be a radical trip with no affected
nicety to former vocal treaties, with all the implied costs for
nowadays audiences, so used to reinterpretations without study.
And as well as she has persisted in obtaining the so called
affetti, she also rejects positions of certain contratenors
and falsetistas who work this repertory, by considering that the
real displayed affections opened in works like these cannot but
to arise from a properly feminine “vocalità”.
The Italian artist shares with Annibale
Gianuario the idea that the “Orfeo” composer is linked to
neoplatonism and reunion of uniqueness between poetry
and music. It is why Mediceo Festival in 2000 was dedicated
to Dante and Ficino, and to their links to Plato. But there was
also theatre, dance, “theatre in music” (as Nella Anfuso
severely distinguishes), a propaedeutic course and a closing
feast on Messisbugo recipes (XVI century).
The theatre topic was “Amori nella
Commedia dell’Arte”, leading idea of a polyphonic series
dedicated to Commedia Harmonica. The point was to think about
the madrigal “rappresentativo” (representations of the
“affections”) without forgetting neither Oratio Vecchi (“Amphiparnaso”)
nor Adriano Banchieri (“Il festino del giovedì grasso”).
Nella Anfuso decided to assembly “Dafne”
by Ottavio Rinuccini and Marco Da Gagliano, which dates back
to1608. “I chose it because it is about a pastoral; the word
opera did not exist then and it has nothing to do either with
Florentines or with Monteverdi. It is almost 30 years that I’m
trying to make understand this and to bother even ... Plato so
mentioned by Florentines and Monteverdi. Dafne is very
interesting for me because it shows the interest in the new
style by musicians that operated in Florence”, explains the
artist.
“It is from poetry that musical notation
is born and, in fact, Peri and Caccini musically intoned
Rinuccini’s verses, each one with his own sensibility and
personality. It is because of it that Peri’s Euridice is more
austere, halfway between singing and ‘parlato’, whereas that of
Caccini is, in a sense always poetical, more cantabile and rich
in fondness, more pathetic and less tragic with respect to that
of Peri”.
Her propaedeutic course was based on Giulio
Caccini’s “Euridice” (1600). And in this Nella Anfuso is
again very direct: “For me, it exists the ‘Euridice’ by
Rinuccini, the poet, and not that of Peri or Caccini librettist,
as it has been erroneously defined. I think of that he himself
writes in the preface to an edition of his word: ‘Music must
serve and enforce poetry; therefore, music must be at service of
poetry’ ”.
This one is a topic that Vicentino was
raising already at the beginning of XVI century. Anfuso says
that from Vicentino to Monteverdi we follow the same cultural
vein: “We must not forget that at this time a musician was
also a man of culture. The real work of the musician - and it is
what Monteverdi’s genius is all about - is to reveal the
musicality hold in the text; as well as a bass continous is not
only, as it is usually believed, a simple support, but it has as
an aim which is the accomplishment of this musicality”.
“It is the word that rules; therefore, the
metrics of the verse. Hence, such a need of rhythm freedom: it
is necessary to bear in mind the own time of every syllable
declamation. Music must strengthen poetry. It is the Platonic
aesthetics”.
Arianna and the interpretative intensity
Nella Anfuso’s interest in Monteverdi began
in 1965, when she was studying history and musicology. She was
attracted by the scientific precision and she wanted to try a
sort of complete picture of the time. Thus, she came in very
natural way to the basic problem at that time: the
relationship between music and poetry. Simultaneously she
was making historical, literary and aesthetic researches. She
started studies of singing, expecting to find other singers who
were passionate about theoretical topics as it. Then she had the
opportunity to study with Guglielmina Rosati-Ricci. “For one
year and a half I only worked the emission technique for every
note. The emission must be natural; a good, perfect emission is
the essential basis through which it is possible to face all
singing problems”.
Thus, when she wanted to make an applied
research, taking account of the treaties of singing by Caccini,
Mancini, Tosi, Maffei and others, she realized that, thanks to
the education given by her teacher, she could execute everything
she was reading.
Nella Anfuso’s professional mind is not
exactly that of a singer. Her business is not the theatre
just for taste, and the emotions do not pursuit the great
effect. She prefers musical poetry and the “parlar
cantando”, that is, that in music it should intervene
intellect. “Arianna is not in scene to sing her pain to the
audience; she must be the representation of loneliness itself.
It is not the externalisation that counts but the intensity”.
Anfuso began with “Arianna”, her
musicologist work, starting with the search for the sources that
transmit it to us contemporarily, up to coming to the
phonetic researches on the word as musical entity also, made
in the humanistic - Renaissance age (Vicentino). This one
is the key that allowed her to enter the unique world of the
Second Practice. If the Italian language is known musically -
Italian language musicality, which is different from the
Spanish, French, English or German -, then one can be sure of
carrying out Monteverdi’s “singing without baton” and,
therefore, the representative styles of the affections
understood as Vasari understood them in painting, that is, human
passions.
Since Monteverdi does not put in music
“Lasciatemi morire” (“Let me die”), but he makes his
natural phonetic musicality, any “Lasciatemi morire”
recited as it should be, with the tonic and atonic accents
and relative duration of the syllabic time will
always be the same. And, therefore, an objective and valid for
all and in all time. Another Nella Anfuso’s achievement.
Therefore, her watchfulness is neither the
fashion nor the great spectacle. Her interest in this matter is
too little. On the other hand, singing in its pure
condition. That is why her work has centred in how to make
things in style. That is why also she must be one of the few who
knows and has practiced frottole with diminutions
according to Bovicelli, madrigals by Luzzaschi, arias
that Haendel assigned to Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni...
She is the only singer who can boast of performing
cantatas and motets by Vivaldi with all the
ornaments asked by Tosi...
At last, Nella
Anfuso defends the historical premises, but not capriciously.
She lives the fact that, in specific times and authors, it
exists a problem of aesthetic character that must be absolutely
known and respected in order to not betray the artistic
message. Furthermore, it is necessary to take in account
technical-executive problems that also determine the
artistic accomplishment. That is why she sees the
differences between the Italian and the Spanish manners of
performing with regard to German or English groups as something
absolutely with no real importance. There is no
historical serious speech in them and the differentiation is
only a comfort varnish.
(Translated by Juan Antonio
Muñoz H.) |
