O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Why does no one play your music?
It is well-crafted. It has heart. It is full of beauty.
On the 99th birthday of Romeo Cascarino, I am asking, is there no one out there who might be able to program something to mark the composer’s centenary in 2022?
Cascarino was born into a rough neighborhood in South Philadelphia in 1922. With a name like Romeo, you have to learn how to use your fists! While navigating the School of Hard Knocks, he taught himself privately, gleaning the mechanics of music theory from books checked out of the Free Library of Philadelphia. He was discovered by composer Paul Nordoff, who recognized his genius, and the two became more like friends than master-disciple.
For many years, Cascarino was a professor of composition at Combs College of Music. The recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, he labored at his magnum opus, the opera “William Penn,” for the better part of three decades. The work received its premiere at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music in 1982 to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city.
Metropolitan Opera singer bass-baritone John Cheek sang the title role, Cascarino’s wife, soprano Dolores Ferraro, created the part of Penn’s wife, Gulielma, and Christofer Macatsoris conducted the Philadelphia Singers and the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia.
Cascarino died in 2002, at the age of 79. He left too little music. Fortunately, every piece is a treasure. A seductive, twilit beauty informs much of his output. If only he had completed “William Penn” 30 years earlier, I believe it would be as highly-regarded as Carlisle Floyd’s “Susanna” or Robert Ward’s “The Crucible.”
Here’s hoping for a Cascarino revival, however modest, in 2022.
“Pygmalion,” conducted by JoAnn Falletta
“The Acadian Land,” performed by members of The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia
The concise Bassoon Sonata, written for Cascarino’s Army buddy, Sol Schoenbach, for twenty years principal bassoonist of The Philadelphia Orchestra
“Blades of Grass” for English horn and orchestra, after Carl Sandburg, performed by Orchestra 2001
“Little Blue Pigeon,” from “Pathways of Love,” sung by Dolores Ferraro
“Meditation and Elegy,” inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” performed by Philadelphia Sinfonia
I imagine that if you were looking to break into show business, and you were born Arnold George Dorsey, you could do a lot worse than to change your name. But the choice of “Engelbert Humperdinck” would seem astonishingly counterintuitive. Even so, the pop singer who did just that managed to achieve international fame and sell more than 140 million records.
Dorsey struggled for several years, trying to establish a toehold in the music industry under his own name, until a former roommate, Gordon Mills, suggested he appropriate that of a certain 19th century German composer. Mills turned out to have a certain genius for this kind of thing, since he also advised singer Tom Woodward to take the name of a roistering 1963 comedy, starring Albert Finney, that was adapted from Henry Fielding’s picaresque novel “Tom Jones.”
Humperdinck the composer’s greatest hit was the opera “Hansel and Gretel,” which was given its first performance on December 23, 1893, with Richard Strauss conducting. Humperdinck’s magnum opus – which features a Sandman, a Dew Fairy, a Witch, and the imminent threat of cannibalism – has been associated with the Christmas season ever since.
The Brothers Grimm inspiration is the best known in a wave of “märchenopern” (fairy tale operas) that swept Germany in the 19th century. To this genre, Humperdinck also contributed “Königskinder” (“Royal Children”) and “Dornröschen” (“The Sleeping Beauty”), along with a handful of other fantasies for the stage.
Humperdinck died 100 years ago today.
His name was borrowed yet again for the unscrupulous prince, played by Chris Sarandon, in the cult classic “The Princess Bride” – again, adapted from a novel, this time by William Golding.
Actually, “The Princess Bride” would probably have suited composer Humperdinck just fine – although there is a notable lack of irony in his existing operas, a fact that seems to be lost on the Metropolitan Opera, judging from its current nightmare production of “Hansel and Gretel.” Sample it, shorn of all sentiment and spirituality, here:
I mean, it looks cool, in an uncanny sort of way, but it’s also the furthest thing from an “Evening Prayer” I can possibly imagine. And that’s before the Holocaust allusions kick in.
Director Richard Jones has suggested that, because the children’s experiences have hardened them, rather than strengthened them, it’s a valid creative decision to portray them as “incipient Hitler Youth.” Granted, this is a Grimm fairy tale, but it should be remembered that “Hansel and Gretel” has been a family Christmas attraction for generations, and the Met continues to market it as such. This particular banquet leaves a very bad taste.
“Hansel and Gretel” was the first live opera broadcast on the radio from the Met in 1931.
Here’s a lovely, classic staging from the Met, before the rage for Regietheater:
My favorite recording of the “Dream Pantomime,” with Otto Klemperer:
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Irmgard Seefried, with Josef Krips conducting, from 1947:
It’s a cruel irony that the first superstar of the gramophone would have appeared in a silent movie. Here’s Enrico Caruso in a dual role, in the 1918 film “My Cousin.”
Caruso’s “Vesti la giubba,” from Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci,” was the first million-selling recording. He performs it in the movie – without sound!
However, he did record it three times, in 1902, 1904, and 1907. Here are all three versions, the first two with piano, and the last with orchestra. It’s one of those arias you know, even if you think you don’t.
Caruso was paid $100,000 to appear in “My Cousin.” Unfortunately, the film bombed at the box office. I guess no one thought about Caruso’s celebrity being tied up with, you know, HIS EXTRAORDINARY VOICE (though Caruso was hardly the only opera singer to appear in the silents). In the meantime, a second Caruso vehicle, “The Splendid Romance” – for which he was also paid $100,000 – was shot, but apparently never released.
The Great Caruso died 100 years ago today. It’s believed that an on-stage injury precipitated his untimely demise at the age of 48. But the overeating, sedentary lifestyle, and strong Egyptian cigarettes couldn’t have helped. His final months were a phantasmagoria of ailments and surgeries.
Thousands turned out for his funeral in Naples. For the better part of a decade, his remains were kept on display in a glass sarcophagus, until his wife had him sealed up in an ornate tomb.
Thanks in part to his 247 records, which wound up earning millions of dollars in royalties, Caruso became one of the first global celebrities. In all, he appeared at the Old Met 863 times. He toured extensively throughout Europe, and North and South America, singing in all the major opera houses. A single appearance in Cuba earned him $10,000. That he was able to achieve the level of superstardom he did, before radio, television, or even transatlantic telephone service, is astonishing.
Aloof. Self-serious. Inordinately proud of his hair. In many ways, he’s like the anti-Yannick. You would never catch him in his workout clothes. Though, come to think of it, it would have been very interesting had Riccardo Muti been music director of the Metropolitan Opera while he held the reins of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Like there’s not enough drama at the opera.
Muti served as music director at La Scala, one of the world’s most venerable opera houses, for 19 years (from 1986 to 2005). By the end of his tenure, the collective mood of the musicians and administration was as black and thick as a Milanese espresso. Following his departure, he would not set foot in the theater again for eleven years, tensions thawing only for the occasion of his 75th birthday. That was in 2016.
In May of this year, he returned – to lead the Vienna Philharmonic, no less, not the resident orchestra – to mark the 75th anniversary of La Scala’s reopening following World War II. But in-house conflict was still brewing.
When, after the performance, the opera’s current music director, Riccardo Chailly, came to congratulate Muti – to whom he’d lent his own dressing room for the occasion – Muti reacted by telling Chailly to get lost. (More specifically, to “get off my balls.”) At first, those present thought Muti had to be kidding. But he had already eviscerated a television crew, there to document the concert, mistaking them for intrusive journalists, and torn into La Scala’s press officer. Later, he claimed not to have recognized Chailly, because Chailly was wearing a mask.
Don’t ever change, Maestro.
Muti is 80 years old today. If he has mellowed, it is perhaps only in the voltage of his performances. His ego is intact, his temper is in good health, and his hair has lost none of its bounce. And I say this as a Muti “fan.”
This is not an artist without his flaws. There are those who contend that he dismantled the “Philadelphia sound,” cultivated for nearly seven decades by Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy. A more objective assessment would be that he brought the orchestra up to modern standards of adapting performance practice to suit the given repertoire, as opposed to applying the same overarching technique to, say, Mozart and Mahler.
He certainly didn’t make any friends by dressing down his audience. If someone applauded at the wrong time, he or she would be met with, at the very least, a withering gaze. But it was also not unheard of for him to literally stop a performance to deliver a stern reprimand. I shudder to think how he would have reacted had it been the era of cell phones.
Muti was never accessible or touchy-feely in the manner of Yannick, Philadelphia’s current music director, who has gone out of his way to be the people’s conductor. Dressed down and tattooed. Loquacious. A smile for everyone. Muti maintained the maestro mystique, with a fair amount of old school contempt perched coolly beneath a veneer of civility. There was always something of the aristocrat about him, a high priest ever-alert to the threat of profanation in his Temple of High Art.
Now, nearly four decades later, Muti is one of classical music’s old lions. And I find I can’t help but agree with him on some points regarding the state of the art, as expressed in his interviews. I confess I haven’t really followed his career in Chicago. They seem to love him there. He currently commands the highest salary of any conductor (at roughly $3.5 million per annum).
This has turned out to be a harder-edged post than I intended, certainly more so than the one I wrote a few years ago, on the occasion of Muti’s 76th birthday. I don’t want to give the impression that I am not forever grateful for all the thrilling performances I attended at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, throughout the 1980s and into the ‘90s. In many ways, for me, these concerts have never been surpassed. Part of it must be attributable to the intimate nature of the hall, since abandoned for the cavernous Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. At the Academy, Muti was like an uncaged lion in a miniature Coliseum.
Muti wanted his new hall, and it frustrated him no end that it was so long coming. It’s no secret that the delays contributed to his departure from Philadelphia. As with La Scala, there was always the sense that the break was not entirely amicable. If memory serves, he has returned to conduct in Philadelphia only once.
He has his vanities and shortcomings, to be sure, but it is evident he sincerely loves music. And he believes in the integrity of his art. He may not be the greatest conductor since Toscanini, whom he professes to emulate in his claimed deference to “the score.” But in concert, very few of Muti’s performances are museum pieces – or at least they weren’t, in Philadelphia. There was always plenty of passion roiling beneath the ermine cloak of “authenticity.”
For the countless hours of thrilling performances, I thank you, Maestro Muti. Happy 80th birthday.
Since I have painted him as such a horrible person, here’s a speech he delivered, in acceptance of the honor of Musician of the Year from Musical America. It shows that Muti is capable of exhibiting a sense of humor, if only on his own terms.
Muti having the time of his life rehearsing – and singing! – “Nabucco” at La Scala:
Muti demonstrates some of that Philadelphia electricity in this live performance of Elgar’s concert overture “In the South”
A Muti specialty and an old favorite – Martucci’s “Notturno.” Good to see the old crew again – Norman Carol, William de Pasquale, Luis Biava, Joseph de Pasquale, Richard Woodhams, Anthony Gigliotti. A great orchestra. Although I do hate it when local news personalities are brought in to host these telecasts. They never can seem to talk enough. Totally stomps the enchantment woven by the music.
Today marks the birthday anniversaries of two able musicians who made their biggest reputations, for better or worse, in fields other than music.
When Henry VIII (1491-1547) wasn’t occupied in upgrading spouses or downgrading churches, he happened to be a skilled composer and performer. More about Henry and his music here:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) is best remembered as one of the great philosophers of the Enlightenment and a driving influence behind the French Revolution. But he was also a successful composer who wrote seven operas. The best-known of these is probably “Le devin de village.”
Undoubtedly fewer heads would have rolled had these gentlemen stuck to their music!
