Alessandro Moreschi
Alessandro Moreschi | |
---|---|
Born | 11 November 1858 |
Died | 21 April 1922 Rome, Italy | (aged 63)
Alma mater | Scuola di San Salvatore in Lauro |
Occupation | Opera singer |
Alessandro Moreschi (11 November 1858 – 21 April 1922) was an Italian chorister of the late 19th century and the only
Early life
Alessandro Moreschi was born on 11 November 1858 to Luigi Lorenzo Moreschi (1840–1897) and Rosa Maria Potelli, a
Early career
It seems likely that Moreschi's singing abilities came to the notice of Nazareno Rosati, formerly a member of the Sistine Chapel choir, who was acting as a scout for new talent, and took him to Rome in about 1870. His singing at such soirées was vividly described by Anna Lillie de Hegermann-Lindencrone, the American wife of the Danish Ambassador to the Holy See:
Mrs Charles Bristed of New York, a recent convert to the Church of Rome, receives on Saturday evening ... The Pope's singers are the great attraction ... for her salon is the only place outside of the churches where one can hear them. The famous Moresca [sic], who sings at the Laterano, is a full-faced soprano of some forty winters. He has a tear in each note and a sigh in each breath. He sang the jewel song in [Gounod's] Faust, which seemed horribly out of place. Especially when he asks (in the hand-glass) if he is really Marguerita, one feels tempted to answer 'Macchè' [not in the least] for him.[6]
In 1883, Capocci presented a special showcase for his protégé: the first performance in Italy of the
Sistine Chapel choir
Moreschi's Director at the Sistine was Domenico Mustafà, himself once a castrato soprano, who realised that Moreschi was, amongst other things, the only hope for the continuation of the Sistine tradition of performing the famous setting of the Miserere by Gregorio Allegri during Holy Week. When Moreschi joined the Sistine choir, there were still six other castrato members, but none of them was capable of sustaining this work's taxing soprano tessitura.[9] Moreschi's star status sometimes seems to have turned his head: "Moreschi's behaviour was often capricious enough to make him forget a proper professional bearing, as on the occasion after a concert when he paraded himself among the crowd like a peacock, with a long, white scarf, to be congratulated ..."[10]
The Sistine Chapel Choir was run on traditional lines centuries old, and had a strict system of hierarchies. In 1886, the senior castrato,
In the spring of 1902, in the Vatican, Moreschi made the first of his recordings for the
Officially, Alessandro was a member of the Sistine choir until Easter 1913 (at which date he qualified for his pension after thirty years' service), and remained in the choir of the Cappella Giulia of St Peter's, Rome until a year after that. Around Easter 1914 he met the Viennese musicologist Franz Haböck, author of the important book Die Kastraten und ihre Gesangskunst (The Castrati and their Art of Singing, published in Berlin in 1927), who had plans to cast Moreschi in concerts reviving the repertoire of the great eighteenth-century castrato Farinelli. These never came to fruition: by this date Moreschi (now fifty-five years old) no longer had the required high soprano range, and in any case he had never had the necessary virtuoso operatic training.[14]
Retirement and death
In retirement, Moreschi lived in his apartment at 19 Via Plinio, a few minutes' walk from the Vatican, where he died at the age of 63, possibly of pneumonia. His funeral Mass was a large and public affair in the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso, and was conducted by Perosi, who, in spite of his antipathy towards castrati, felt a "great friendship which bound them together".[15] Moreschi was buried in the family vault in the Cimitero del Verano, the great "city of the dead" not far from Rome's Tiburtina station. His colleague Domenico Salvatori lies in the same tomb.[16]
Appearance and personality
According to Haböck, "Moreschi's external appearance differs little from that usual for a singer. He is of medium or rather small stature. His likeable face is completely beardless; his chest remarkably broad and powerful. His speaking voice has a metallic quality, like a very high-speaking tenor. His voice and demeanour make a youthful impression, reinforced by his lively conversation, which add to the altogether charming picture that the singer presents."[17]
Recordings
All of Moreschi's recordings were made in Rome in two sets of recording sessions for the Gramophone & Typewriter Company. The first series of recordings was made on 3 and 5 April 1902 by Will and Fred Gaisberg. Eighteen usable sides by the members of the Sistine Chapel Choir were captured on wax, four of them solos by Moreschi. Decades later Fred Gaisberg recalled making these historic first recordings in the Vatican: "Selecting a great salon with walls covered with Titians, Raphaels, and Tintorettos, we mounted our grimy machine right in the middle of the floor."[18] The second set of recordings was made in Rome in April 1904, under the direction of W. Sinkler Darby. CDs on the Opal and Pearl labels reproduce the recordings.
Critical opinion
Critical opinion is divided about Moreschi's recordings:[19] some say they are of little interest other than the novelty of preserving the voice of a castrato, and that Moreschi was a mediocre singer, while others detect the remains of a talented singer unfortunately past his prime by the time he recorded, as Moreschi was in his mid-forties when he made his recordings. Still others feel that he was a very fine singer indeed, and that much of the "difficulty" in listening to Moreschi's recordings stems from changes in taste and singing style between his time and ours. His vocal technique can certainly seem to grate upon modern ears, but many of the seemingly imperfect vocal attacks, for example, are in fact grace notes, launched from as much as a tenth below the note – in Moreschi's case, this seems to have been a long-standing means of drawing on the particular acoustics of the Sistine Chapel itself. The dated aesthetic of Moreschi's singing, involving extreme passion and a perpetual type of sob, often sounds bizarre to the modern listener, and can be misinterpreted as technical weakness or symptomatic of an aging voice.[20]
The standard of his recordings is certainly variable; Moreschi recorded two versions of
The best-known piece Moreschi recorded is the
References
- ^ "Alessandro Moreschi - The Last Castrato: Complete Vatican Recordings (ristampa) :: Le Recensioni di OndaRock". OndaRock. Retrieved Sep 14, 2020.
- ^ Clapton, N: Moreschi and the Voice of the Castrato (London, 2008), pp. 60–62
- ^ a b Clapton, p. 62
- ^ Clapton, p. 75
- ^ Clapton, pp. 76–78
- ^ de Hegermann-Lindencrone, A L: The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, (New York: 1914), pp 118–19
- ^ Clapton, pp. 81–82
- ^ Clapton, pp. 102–03
- ^ Clapton, pp. 104–07
- ^ translated from Devoti, L: Alessandro Moreschi detto "L’angelo di Roma" 1858–1922, in R Lefevre and A Morelli (eds): Musica e musicisti nel Lazio (Rome, 1985), p. 467
- ^ Clapton, pp. 116–17
- ^ for details of this period of Moreschi's life and the upheavals in the Sistine Choir, see Clapton, pp. 124–72 passim
- ^ again see Clapton, pp. 158–72 for further details
- ^ Clapton, pp. 185–86
- ^ translated from Il Giornale d’Italia 30 April 1922, p. 2
- ^ see Clapton, pp. 188, 194.
- ^ translated from Haböck, F: Die Kastraten und ihre Gesangskunst (Berlin, 1927), p 185
- ^ Gaisberg, F: Notes from my Diary, Recording of Actual Performances ("Gramophone", xxii, no 256, (September 1944), p 43)
- ^ Haböck wrote glowingly of his live performance; see Die Kastraten und ihre Gesangskunst, pp. 185–86
- ^ A range of critical opinion can be read in, for example: Donington, R: A Performer's Guide to Baroque Music London, 1973, (pp. 73–74); Shawe-Taylor, D: A Castrato Voice on the Gramophone, appendix to Heriot, A: The Castrati in Opera (repr. London, 1975), pp. 225–27; Scott, M: The Record of Singing (London, 1977), pp. 10–11; Law, J: Alessandro Moreschi Reconsidered: A Castrato on Records (in "The Opera Quarterly", 1984 2(2), pp. 1–12); sleeve-notes to Alessandro Moreschi the Last Castrato Complete Vatican Recordings (Opal CD 9823); Clapton, N: Alessandro Moreschi and the Voice of the Castrato (London, 2008), pp. 197–216 passim
- ^ Opal CD 9823, track 7, passage from 2'04 to 2'16
- ^ this can be heard at the end of track 3 on OPAL CD 9823
- ^ OPAL CD 9823, track 12
- de Hegermann-Lindencrone, A L: The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life (New York, 1914)
- Haböck, F: Die Kastraten und ihre Gesangskunst (Berlin, 1927)
- Clapton, N: Alessandro Moreschi and the Voice of the Castrato (London, 2008)
External links
- The complete text of Tra le sollecitudini is available on-line in English at Tra Le Sollecitudini Instruction on Sacred Music Archived 2012-07-16 at the Wayback Machine
- 1904 Recording of Bach/Gounod: Ave Maria