Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Bad Day in Bucharest: Ileana Cotrubaș has died

Yesterday, I posted about Romania’s most celebrated composer, George Enescu, on his birthday. Today, I share the sad news that one of Romania’s most renowned singers, the soprano Ileana Cotrubaș, has died.

Cotrubaș cracked the big time the old-fashioned way. Musical precocity and hard work led to engagements at the Bucharest Opera. Vocal competitions got her noticed abroad. She continued to hone her craft at Oper Frankfurt and Vienna State Opera. She also sang in Brussels, Hamburg, Berlin, Glyndebourne, Covent Garden, and Chicago.

It’s hard, then, to understand why some of her online biographies attribute her “international breakthrough” to her response to an emergency request in January 1975 for her to substitute for an indisposed Mirelli Freni – at the suggestion of Luciano Pavarotti, no less – in “La bohème” at La Scala. Big shoes to fill, in any case! She flew from her home, then in Kent (U.K.), to Milan, arriving at the theater 15 minutes before curtain. She did her makeup on the flight. Her performance as Mimì wound up enchanting both critics and audience.

We’ve all heard this kind of story. Cotrubaș was an overnight success twenty years in the making.

She made her Met debut, also as Mimì, in 1977, opposite José Carreras. Two of her Met characterizations, of Gilda (“Rigoletto”) and Violetta (“La traviata”) – a role for which she was particularly acclaimed – were televised. She also recorded her Violetta with Carlos Kleiber.

At least twice, she stormed out of productions over disagreements with her stage directors. I suspected she would not have been happy in this decadent era of Regietheater. Reading more about her, I learn that I am right.

Ileana Cotrubaș retired from public singing in 1990. She died today in Bucharest at the age of 87. Listen to her Mimì and try not to get a lump in your throat.

R.I.P.

August 20, 2026
Have a Piece of George Enescu

Why exactly is composer George Enescu apoplectic? Because, still, 71 years after his death, all we ever hear is his Romanian Rhapsody No. 1.

Enescu (1881-1955), arguably Romania’s greatest musical export, was a child prodigy who excelled also as a violinist, a pianist, a conductor, and a teacher. At the age of seven, he became the youngest student ever to be admitted to the Vienna Conservatory. He graduated before his 13th birthday. From there, he went to Paris and embarked on a charmed career with too many highlights to detail here. Pablo Casals, described him as “the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart.”

He composed his biggest hit, the Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 (1901), at the age of 19. So popular did it prove that it became a kind of millstone to Enescu. People didn’t want to hear anything else. They still don’t!

On Enescu’s birthday, give the gift of an open mind and take a few minutes to sample some of his other music!

———-

A lovely piece for a summer’s day, the Decet for Winds (1906)

A live performance of Enescu’s first published piece, the “Romanian Poem” (1898), written when he was only 16

Concert Overture on Popular Romanian Themes (1948)

Enescu plays his own Violin Sonata No. 3 (1926), with legendary Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti

Lipatti plays Enescu’s Piano Sonata No. 3 (1933-35)

Symphonie Concertante for Cello and Orchestra (1901)

The visionary Symphony No. 3, with choral finale (1916-18; rev. 1921-51)

And okay, his greatest hit. Again. Just because something’s popular doesn’t mean it’s not great.

Celebrating George Enescu on the anniversary of his birth!

August 19, 2026
Antonio Salieri: Sustained by Centuries of Notoriety

In 1830, roughly 150 years before Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus,” Alexander Pushkin seized onto the rumor that Antonio Salieri poisoned Mozart, for his poetic drama “Mozart and Salieri.” To put it in historical context, Salieri had died only five years earlier, at the age of 74, outliving Mozart by nearly 34 years. (Mozart died at 35 in 1791.) How did the rumor come about? Well, Mozart himself started it.

Symptoms of the composer’s final illness were noted during the first performance of his opera “La Clemenza di Tito,” when he was observed by a friend to be pale and sad. When Mozart returned to Vienna to continue work on his Requiem, he remarked to Constanze, his wife, that he suspected he had been poisoned – with aqua toffana, a slow-acting arsenic-based agent – at least according to her recollections 25 years later, in 1824. However, such a crime would have required repeated doses, and Mozart subsequently waffled on the assertion. What’s certain is that three months later, he was dead.

Nobody knows the whereabouts of Mozart’s body, so we can’t dig up his remains and do forensic testing (thank goodness), but his physician dismissed poisoning as a cause, with confidence.

Ironically, Salieri actually did confess to Mozart’s murder, but he did so in an unbalanced frame of mind. He was slipping into dementia, haunted by the rumors, and even attempted suicide (only providing more grist for the mill). In more lucid moments, he repeatedly, vehemently denied it.

The actual relationship between the two was much more nuanced, significantly less bitter and more collegial. For his part, Salieri revived “The Marriage of Figaro.” He was also responsible for arranging first performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 (K. 482), the Clarinet Quintet, and the Symphony No. 40. He was full of praise for “The Magic Flute.” He also took Mozart’s younger son Franz Xaver as a pupil. (Salieri’s other students included Beethoven, Hummel, Czerny, Schubert, and Liszt.)

I’ve never actually read Pushkin’s “Mozart and Salieri” (also the basis for Rimsky-Kosakov’s one-act opera of 1897). It’s only ten pages long in my Modern Library edition of Pushkin poems, prose & plays. Is it disrespectful to read it on Salieri’s birthday?

Hey, in 1830, Salieri was beyond feeling a thing. As far as I’m concerned, artists of Pushkin’s and Shaffer’s abilities can play with historic fact if it’s in the service of expressing greater truths. Where would Salieri be if not for “Amadeus?” Now everyone knows his name, and many of his works have been revived and recorded, thanks to his enduring notoriety.

Compare this with actual composer-murderer Carlo Gesualdo. Your average person on the street has no idea who Gesualdo is. He still awaits his Peter Shaffer.

FUN FACT: The relationship of Mozart and Salieri is also dealt with in Albert Lortzing’s singspiel “Szenen aus Mozarts Leben” (“Scenes from Mozart’s Life”) of 1832, for which Lortzing repurposes Mozart’s music.

Here’s a 1958 Russian television production of Pushkin’s play, the only one of his dramatic works to be staged in his lifetime, closed captioned in English. Pushkin died from a wound received in a duel at the age of 37.

Russian film of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera (without subtitles)

U.S. performance work from the 1980s, sung in English

Beethoven’s Variations on Salieri’s “La stessa, la stessissima”

The theme, from Salieri’s “Falstaff”

Overture to “Les Horaces”

Concerto for Flute, Oboe and Orchestra

“Das Lob der Musik” (“The Praise of Music”)

A Mozart and Salieri collaborative effort, the cantata “Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia”

“De Profundis”

“I absolve you.”

August 18, 2026
Burning Down the House: 150 Years of “Götterdämmerung”

150 years ago today: the beginning of the end. Or should it be the end of the beginning? The first complete Ring Cycle concludes with the premiere of “Götterdämmerung” – “Twilight of the Gods” – at the inaugural Bayreuth Festival in 1876.

August 17, 2026
Where Are the Saint-Saëns Concertos of Yesteryear?

For some reason, I’ve really been hooked on the Saint-Saëns piano concertos lately. I don’t know why. I’d just been itching to hear them again. I used to have ample opportunities to play them on the air, along with a great many other Romantic concertos by lesser-known composers, but now that I don’t have a regular live air shift, opportunities haven’t been so abundant. It’s even worse for shorter works. Who puts in a CD to listen to a three or even a ten-minute track? It really puts a crimp in my holidays, especially, I can tell you. There’s so much great music I used to share, that I only really ever listened to myself while weaving it into my radio shows.

Anyway, back to Saint-Saëns. I’ve had a double-disc set with me whenever I’ve been in the car for the past few weeks, and it has been a delight to have them in my life again. The Concerto No. 2 is the most performed and recorded, I think, or it was. Sometimes you would see No. 4 (often coupled with 2). And No. 5 gets a boost, no doubt because it’s got a nickname (the “Egyptian,” written while the composer was on a trip to North Africa, in the finale riffing on some exotic scales). But I think the only ones I have encountered in concert are 2 and 5. Why are they not performed more often?

Some enterprising music director would do well to perhaps swap out the overexposed – and, in my opinion, much weaker – Chopin concertos. For that matter, for as fine as they are, the Ravel concertos could probably use a rest. And what’s the deal with Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2? For as much as I admire Liszt, do we really need to hear it so often? No. 1 is so much better. Rachmaninoff? Forget about it. I love the concertos, as do audiences everywhere, but give somebody else a chance already.

After all, Saint-Saëns has already proved himself. His “Organ” Symphony is played everywhere and for good reason: it elicits ecstatic responses from listeners. But “Carnival of the Animals?” A fun piece, well-crafted, and full of sly wit, but again, how many times do we have to hear it, at the expense of all the other fun, well-crafted, and slyly witty pieces he composed? There are an awful lot of them that we never, ever hear, especially in concert.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) should require no lance-breaking from me. A child prodigy who lived to a venerable age, there is not one phase of his maturity (which started early) that does not reward exploration.

Perhaps the reason the concertos popped into my head was because of the proximity of the Bard Music Festival. I’ve been to at least some of 13 of the last 18 festivals. Of course, I can never get enough of Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Korngold, Martinů, and even Rimsky Korsakov, all given the Bard treatment in recent years. But thinking back, one of my favorite festivals turned out to be the one devoted to Saint-Saëns in 2012. It was just full of revelations and, all around, a really good time. I can’t believe it was 14 years ago!

Anyway, on one of the concerts, Danny Driver, who is a Bard stalwart with an active concert career and a sizable discography (recording for, among other labels, Hyperion), was the soloist on one of the concerts in the “Egyptian” concerto, with Leon Botstein conducting the American Symphony Orchestra. I found the audio posted online. You can hear just how much the audience enjoyed it from their spontaneous cries afterward. I’ll share the link to the last movement below.

Unfortunately, for as seldom as the concertos are performed, we almost never hear Nos. 1 & 3. And they are wonderful. Do they plumb the depths of existence? Of course not. But they are great fun. One is consistently tickled by the level of craftsmanship, the melding in his music of French and German influences, the way he plays with structure, and the seeming effortlessness of the writing. I know I’m flirting with cliché in saying so, but it’s as if he’s stringing pearls. No. 1 is so uplifting and heroic. Somebody bring it back, please!

But of course, these are the assessments of one who also hopes someday to be able to hear the Josef Rheinberger concerto!

The Bard Music Festival, this year devoted to “Mozart and His World,” will conclude this afternoon at Bard College at 3:00 EDT with a complete semi-staged performance of “The Abduction from the Seraglio.” The program will also be available for livestreaming. You’ll find more information at the link!

https://fishercenter.bard.edu/what-we-do/bard-music-festival/

Danny Driver plays Saint-Saëns at Bard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqpIHHAmrs&list=RDmPqpIHHAmrs&start_radio=1

I may get around to sharing some of my other favorite neglected Saint-Saëns in the comments later. You must feel free to share some of yours as well!

August 16, 2026

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