Friday, February 02, 2007
Obit: Gian Carlo Menotti, 95; Opera Composer,
Founded Spoleto Festival
The
ANNOTICO Report
Menotti
with all his great accomplishments will best be known for being "the
modern composer who writes old-fashioned opera for the masses,"
Menotti
once said "I wish I'd never started staging operas. It has taken so much
time away from my composing,"
"I
have wasted so much of my time directing other people's work."
Menotti's
own compositions were so much in demand, that he had been called the
most-often-performed living composer of opera.
Menotti's best known opera was "Amahl
and the Night Visitors," His fifth opera, "The Medium" in 1946,
marked his directing debut and was his first hit. The work had 211 performances
on Broadway and later toured
His 1950 opera, "The Consul," won a Pulitzer Prize, was translated
into 12 languages and was performed in more than 20 countries. The drama
follows the trials of oppressed citizens frustrated by the bureaucracy of an
unidentified European government.
He took as inspiration the Hieronymus Bosch painting "The Adoration of the
Magi," and musically wove the touching tale of a disabled boy who offers
his crutches his only possession to the three wise men to give to the
infant Jesus. Because of his sacrifice, the boy is healed. NBC ran the opera
for many years on Christmas Eve.
"The Saint of Bleecker Street," Menotti's
1954 opera about religious belief and doubt, was the only Broadway production
to earn the cultural "tr iple
crown" of the Pulitzer Prize, New York Drama Critics Circle Award and New
York Music Critics Award.
Later, Menotti's compositions and directing took a back seat to his organizing
an international music festival in Spoleto near his childhood home. Its
purpose was to encourage, discover and nourish young artists in the
The prolific Menotti wrote plays, poetry and short stories, and briefly worked
as a
As late as 1986, Minotti accepted a commission from Placido
Domingo to write the opera "Goya" about the Spanish painter.
OBITUARIES
By
Myrna Oliver
February 2, 2007
Gian Carlo Menotti, who organized music festivals
in
"He died pretty peacefully and without any pain," his adopted son,
Francis Menotti, told the Associated Press.
Menotti was sought after worldwide as a director of operas composed by others,
and he wrote his own, including two that earned Pulitzer Prizes.
"I wish I'd never started staging operas. It has taken so much time away
from my composing," he told The Times in 1987, when he directed Puccini's
"La Boheme" at the Orange County Performing
Arts Center. "I have wasted so much of my time directing other people's
work."
Nevertheless, Menotti's own compositions were also much in demand, and he had
been called the most-often-performed living composer of opera.
His fifth opera, "Th e Medium" in 1946,
marked his directing debut and was his first hit. The work had 211 performances
on Broadway and later toured
His 1950 opera, "The Consul," won a Pulitzer Prize, was translated
into 12 languages and was performed in more than 20 countries. The drama
follows the trials of oppressed citizens frustrated by the bureaucracy of an
unidentified European government.
"Amahl," the first opera written for
television, followed in 1951.
Seen by former Times music critic Martin Bernheimer and others as "the
modern composer who writes old-fashioned opera for the masses," Menotti
had welcomed the commission from NBC to create a Christmas piece.
He took as inspiration the Hieronymus Bosch painting "The Adoration of the
Magi," and musically wove the touching tale of a disabled boy who offers
his crutches his only possession to the three wise men to give to the
infant Jesus. Because of his sacrifice, the boy is healed. NBC ran the oper a for many years on Christmas
Eve.
"The Saint of Bleecker Street," Menotti's
1954 opera about religious belief and doubt, was the only Broadway production
to earn the cultural "triple crown" of the Pulitzer Prize, New York
Drama Critics Circle Award and New York Music Critics Award.
Later in the decade, however, Menotti's compositions took a back seat to his
new project: organizing an international music festival in Spoleto near his
childhood home.
"Actually, the festival satisfied a very selfish need," he told his
biographer, John Gruen. "I became so completely
disenchanted with the role of the artist in contemporary society. I felt
useless.
"I felt that the artist should become part of society a needed member of society rather than just an ornament," he
said. "That's why I started Spoleto. I wanted to feel needed, and I wanted
to see whether with my music and my knowledge I could help to re-create a
so-called ideal city. My dream was not r eally to
create a festival, but to create a small city wherein the artist would thrive
and be one of its most essential members."
From its outset in 1957, the Spoleto event was billed as the Festival of Two
Worlds. Its purpose was to encourage, discover and nourish young artists in the
The prolific Menotti wrote plays, poetry and short stories, and briefly worked
as a
In his later years, Menotti broke up the bustling household he had shared in
To gain solitude away from his American and Italian friends, he bought an
85-room country house in
From his Scottish mansion, called Yester House, Menotti continued to travel the
world directing operas and composing. He accepted a commission from Placido Domingo in 1986 to write the opera "Goya"
about the Spanish painter.
Menotti was born July 7, 1911, in
Ines
Menotti made sure that Gian Carlo, her favorite son, and all her other children
learned piano, violin and cello; she frequently organized evening musicales to
display their talents. Gian Carlo began setting verse to music at age 5, and at
11 wrote his first opera, "The Death of Pierrot."
His theatrical flair, which enabled him to make opera appealing to all walks of
society, was first exhibited in puppet shows he staged for his family.
When he was 13, Menotti's family moved to
But a few years later, his father died, and the family coffee plantation fell
on hard times. Ines Menotti sailed with her son to
Afterward, she and Gian Carlo came to the
It was at the institute that Menotti met Barber, also a student.
After graduating in 1933, the two men lived in
At the time, opera was unpopular, and Menotti told himself: "Well, I'll
just write this one opera, and then I'll start composing all my symphonies,
Masses and motets."
"I guess 'Amelia,' " he said after many
years and many operas, "was the beginning of my end."
Menotti enjoyed special success in
The opera, based on the life of Queen Juana (known as "Joan the
Mad"), was a 50th birthday gift for Beverly Sills. The work had its world
premiere in
Although he spent most of his adult life in
He returned to Spoleto every summer, and celebrated his 90th birthday at the
festival with a concert featuring Domingo and Renee Fleming.
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/
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