28 July 2016

Riccardo Muti - conductor

Celebrated maestro shows no sign of slowing down


Riccardo Muti
Riccardo Muti
The brilliant conductor and musical director Riccardo Muti celebrates his 75th birthday today.

Since 2010, Muti has been conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra while retaining his directorship of the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra, a training ensemble for talent from Italian and other European music schools, based in Ravenna and Piacenza, which he founded in 2005.

Previously, Muti held posts at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Salzburg Whitsun Festival.

He was named principal conductor and music director for the Maggio Musicale when he was only 28 and stayed there 12 years.  He was at La Scala for 19 years from 1986 to 2005, his tenure ending amid rancour following a conflict with the theatre's general manager, Carlo Fontana.

Muti was born on this day in 1941 in Naples, although his childhood years were spent largely in the Puglian port city of Molfetta, near Bari. He entered the world in Naples, he says, at the insistence of his mother, Gilda, herself a Neapolitan, who travelled across the peninsula by train in the later stages of each of her five pregnancies in order that her children would also grow up as Neapolitans.  In his case, the trials of the journey had the extra dimension of it being wartime.

His father, Domenico, was considered the musical member of the family, possessed of a beautiful tenor voice but a doctor by profession.  He insisted his children - all boys - had a musical education and Riccardo, despite looking on enviously at his friends playing outside while he practised the violin, revealed his talent as early as seven years old.

Muti studied piano at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella in Naples, where he also studied philosophy.  He learned the art of conducting at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan.  His influences included the Italian composer Nino Rota, who would become most famous for his movie scores, the conductor Antonino Votto, who was principal assistant to Arturo Toscanini at La Scala, and the Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

The young Muti at the Guido Cantelli competition in Milan in 1967, which he won
The young Muti at the Guido Cantelli competition in
Milan in 1967, which he won
His career took off after he had won the Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition in Milan in 1967. Two years later, as well as accepting the role of musical director at Maggio Musicale, Muti married Cristina Mazzavillani, a young soprano he met at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory.

The couple exchanged vows at a tiny church in Ravenna, Mazzavillani's home town in Emilia-Romagna, with Rota and Richter among the witnesses.  Some 47 years on, they still regard Ravenna as their main home.  They have three children, sons Domenico and Francesco and a daughter, Chiara, a former model and actress who has also directed in the theatre.  Cristina is artistic director at the annual Ravenna Festival.

A prolific recording artist who has worked with most of the world's leading orchestras and many of the most famous opera singers, Muti is particularly associated with the music of Giuseppe Verdi.

It was during a performance, celebrating the 150th anniversary of Italian unification, of Verdi's Nabucco at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera in 2011, that Muti showed his political colours, interrupting proceedings to launch into a passionate speech denouncing severe cuts to arts funding announced by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was in the audience.

Muti had timed his outburst to follow the rousing chorus of Hebrew slaves 'Va, pensiero'. He resumed by inviting the audience to participate in an encore of 'Va, pensiero', which was delivered with such feeling that some of those onstage were moved to tears.  A week later, Berlusconi reversed the cuts.

Among many honours awarded to Muti is the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, which equates to a British knighthood.

Muti shows no sign of slowing down.  He planned to spend his birthday working with young musicians and conductors from his Opera Academy at the Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna, where they are performing Verdi's La Traviata. while his diary of engagements is full for many months ahead.  Next January, for example, he is scheduled to return to Teatro alla Scala for the first time since his controversial resignation, as leader of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The pretty harbour at Molfetta, on the Adriatic Coast in  Puglia, where Muti grew up
The pretty harbour at Molfetta, on the Adriatic Coast in
Puglia, where Muti grew up
Travel tip:

Molfetta is a port town situated around 35km north of Bari on the Adriatic coast. It has a pretty harbour and a well restored historic quarter full of narrow alleyways. The old cathedral - the Duomo di San Corrado - which overlooks the harbour is notable for two 20-metre towers, one of which served as a watchtower during the years in which Molfetta was an embarcation point for pilgrims heading for the Holy Land.

Travel tip:

Once the capital of the Western Roman Empire, Ravenna is notable for many elegant squares and a wealth of lavish Byzantine mosaics that can be found decorating many of the city's churches, including masterpieces studded with gold, emerald and sapphire renowned for their exquisite beauty. Look out in particular for the Galla Placidia Mausoleum, the Arian Baptistery and the Church of San Vitale.

More reading:


La Traviata - the world's favourite opera

How Italy mourned the death of Giuseppe Verdi

Toscanini's talent impressed even Verdi himself


(Photo of Riccardo Muti by Andreas Praefcke CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of the young Muti by Gbonaju CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Molfetta Harbour by Michele Zaccaria CC BY-SA 2.0)

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27 July 2016

Mario Del Monaco – tenor

Singer became famous for his interpretations of Otello


Mario del Monaco, dressed for his most famous role as Otello in Verdi's opera of the same name
Mario Del Monaco, dressed for his most famous
role as Otello in Verdi's opera of the same name
Opera singer Mario Del Monaco, who was renowned for the amazing power of his voice, was born on this day in 1915 in Florence.

His family were musical and as a child he studied the violin but he developed a passion for singing as well.

He studied at the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro, where he first met and sang with the soprano Renata Tebaldi, who was to partner him regularly later in his career.

Del Monaco made a big impact with his debut performance as Lieutenant Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madam Butterfly in Milan in 1940.

He became popular with the audience at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the 1950s, making many appearances in dramatic Verdi roles.

He was one of the four Italian tenors at their peak in the 1950s and 1960s, sharing the limelight with Giuseppe Di Stefano, Carlo Bergonzi and Franco Corelli.

Del Monaco became famous for his interpretation of the title role in Verdi’s Otello, which, it is estimated, he sang hundreds of times.

Listen to the voice of Mario Del Monaco



He started making recordings for HMV in 1948 in Milan and was later partnered by Renata Tebaldi in a series of Verdi and Puccini operas recorded for Decca.

Del Monaco retired from the stage in 1975 and spent his last years living in a villa near Treviso in the Veneto with his wife, Rina, a former singer.

He died in Mestre, near Venice, in 1982 at the age of 67, having been in poor health since sustaining serious injuries in a road accident several years previously.  He was buried in Pesaro, where he grew up.  At his own request, he was laid to rest dressed in his favourite Otello costume.

Giancarlo Del Monaco, one of his two sons, followed him into opera as a director, making his debut in Siracusa in 1964 with a production in which his father starred, and going on to work at some of the world's top opera houses, including La Scala in Milan and the Met.

Travel tip:

Pesaro, where Del Monaco grew up and studied at the Rossini Conservatory, is a beautiful, traditional seaside resort on the Adriatic coast, renowned for its sandy beach. Rossini’s birthplace, at Via Rossini 34, is now a museum dedicated to the composer and there is also a theatre named after him. A Rossini opera festival is held in Pesaro every summer.


The statue of Mario del Monaco in Piazza Borsa in Treviso
The statue of Mario Del Monaco
in Piazza Borsa in Treviso
Travel tip:

Treviso’s municipal theatre in Corso del Popolo was renamed Teatro Comunale Mario Del Monaco after the tenor and operatic costumes he wore are on display there. Close by in Piazza Borsa there is a bronze statue showing him in costume.

More reading:


How Italy mourned the death of Giuseppe Verdi

The genius of Giacomo Puccini

Renata Tebaldi: the voice of an angel



(Photo of Mario Del Monaco as Otello by MDM 1915 CC BY-SA 4.0)

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26 July 2016

Francesco Cossiga - Italy's 8th President

Political career overshadowed by Moro murder



Francesco Cossiga served Italy as both Prime Minister and President
Francesco Cossiga
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga was born on this day in 1928 in the Sardinian city of Sassari.

Cossiga, a Christian Democrat who had briefly served as Prime Minister under his predecessor, Sandro Pertini, held the office for seven years from 1985 to 1992. He was the eighth President of the Republic.

His presidency was unexceptional until the last two years, when he gained a reputation for controversial comments about the Italian political system and former colleagues.

It was during this time that another heavyweight of the Italian political scene, Giulio Andreotti, revealed the existence during the Cold War years of Gladio, a clandestine network sponsored by the American secret services and NATO that was set up amid fears that Italy would fall into the hands of Communists, either through military invasion from the East or, within Italy, via the ballot box.

Cossiga, said to have been obsessed with espionage, admitted to have been involved with the creation of Gladio in the years immediately following the end of the Second World War.

This led to renewed speculation surrounding the kidnap and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978, an event that prevented a vote in the Italian parliament on the so-called 'historic compromise' whereby the Italian Communist Party, which was riding a peak of popularity at a time in which Italy seemed especially vulnerable to social unrest, would be given a direct role in government for the first time.

The event was a key moment in Cossiga's political career. As interior minister - effectively home secretary - in an Andreotti-led government, Cossiga was in charge of the operation to find and free Moro during the 55 days he was held captive.  He received a personal plea from Moro to negotiate with his captors, the ultra left-wing group Red Brigades, but the government's stance was not to talk with terrorists and Moro's pleas were ignored.

When Moro's body was discovered in the boot of a car parked almost exactly halfway between the Rome headquarters of the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communists, Cossiga rushed to the scene immediately and resigned the following day, declaring himself to be "politically dead".  Yet he returned within a year to be Prime Minister, his 14-month stint coinciding with another event that shook the Italian nation, when a bomb supposedly planted by terrorists from the extreme right killed 85 people at Bologna railway station.

Francesco Cossiga (right) pictured with Giulio Andreotti shortly after the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro
Francesco Cossiga (right) pictured with Giulio Andreotti
shortly after the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro
The Gladio revelations re-opened debate over the Moro affair, particularly over the question of how the authorities never located the Rome apartment where he was held, despite numerous tip-offs. As President, Cossiga survived an attempt by the Democratic Party of the Left to have him impeached but resigned in 1992, two months before his term of office was due to end.

Italy had no government at the time following the collapse of a third coalition led by Andreotti but Cossiga said he was unwilling to approve any more coalitions if he did not think they could tackle the problems of debt and organised crime, or prepare Italy adequately for monetary and political union with Europe.

He did not disappear from politics. By the late 1990s, he had formed his own small centrist party, the Democratic Union of the Republic, which he hoped might pull together the various strands of Italy's centre-right. However, the party was dissolved in 1999.

Thus ended a political career that had begun with Cossiga's election to the Italian parliament as a deputy for Sassari in 1958.

Although his father was a director in a bank, politics was in the family. One of his cousins was Enrico Berlinguer, who would later become secretary-general of Italy's Communist Party, and he was related to another former Prime Minister born in Sassari, Antonio Segni.  He joined the Christian Democrats aged only 16.

After his election he quickly scaled the Christian Democrat ladder, serving as Under-Secretary for Defence from 1966 to 1970, and in 1974 taking the unlikely brief of a roving minister charged with reforming government bureaucracy.  He became Interior Minister in 1976.

In 1960, he married Giuseppa Sigurani, from whom he was divorced in 1998. They had two children, Anna Maria, a writer, and Giuseppe, who followed his father into politics, serving as junior minister for defence in Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia-led government between 2008 and 2011.

Cossiga senior suffered from depression in his later years.  He died in 2010 aged 82, following cardiovascular problems.

Sassari's elegant Piazza d'Italia lit up by night
Sassari's elegant Piazza d'Italia lit up by night
Travel tip:

Sassari, the second largest city in Sardinia with a population of 275,000 in the metropolitan area, is rich in art, culture and history, notable for beautiful palaces and elegant neoclassical architecture, examples of which can be found around Piazza d'Italia.  Also worth seeing are the Teatro Civico and the Fountain of the Rosello.

Travel tip:

Sardinia's white, sandy beaches and blue seas make it one of the most popular summer holiday destinations for Italian families as well as visitors from overseas, and is particularly crowded in August, when the population of many mainland cities decamp almost en masse for the cool of the mountains or the lure of the sea.  The Costa Smeralda, to the north-east of the island, remains a celebrity haunt and is consequently expensive, but there are plenty of less developed areas where the beaches are just as good.

(Photo of Francesco Cossiga courtesy of the Presidency of the Italian Republic)
(Photo of Piazza d'Italia in Sassari by Enigmatico27 CC BY-SA 3.0)

More reading:


How Enrico Berlinguer turned Italy's communists into a political force

The Red Brigades and the tragedy of Aldo Moro

Antonio Gramsci - Sardinian founder of the Italian Communist Party


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25 July 2016

Battle of Molinella

First time artillery played a major part in warfare


A scene from the Battle of Molinella depicted by the artist Il Romanino in frescoes at Malpaga Castle, near Bergamo
A scene from the Battle of Molinella depicted by the artist
Il Romanino in frescoes at Malpaga Castle, near Bergamo
An important battle in Italy’s history was fought on this day in 1467 at Molinella, near Bologna.

On one side were infantry and cavalry representing Venice and on the other side there was an army serving Florence.

It was the first battle in Italy in which artillery and firearms were used extensively, the main weapons being cannons fired by gunpowder that could launch heavy stone or metal balls.  The barrels were 10 to 12 feet in length and had to be cleaned following each discharge, a process that took up to two hours.

Leading the 14,000 soldiers fighting for Venice was the Bergamo condottiero Bartolomeo Colleoni. He was working jointly with Ercole I d’Este from Ferrara and noblemen from Pesaro and Forlì.

A portrait of Bartolomeo Colleoni by the Italian artist Cristofano dell'altissimo
A portrait of Bartolomeo Colleoni by the
Italian artist Cristofano dell'altissimo
Another condottiero, Federico da Montefeltro, led the army of 13,000 soldiers serving Florence in an alliance with Galeazzo Maria Sforza, ruler of the Duchy of Milan, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Giovanni II Bentivoglio, the ruler of Bologna.

Condottieri were professional military leaders hired by the Italian city-states to lead armies on their behalf.

The fighting took place between the villages of Riccardina and Molinella and so the event is also sometimes referred to as the Battle of Riccardina

It is not certain which side won, but as a result Colleoni abandoned his plans to conquer Milan. There were hundreds of casualties and it is thought up to 1,000 horses were killed.

The following year Pope Paul II managed to broker a peace between the two sides.

Travel tip:

Molinella is a small town to the north east of Bologna in Emilia Romagna and was of strategic importance because of its hilltop position between Bologna and Ferrara. It now has a railway station on the Bologna-Portomaggiore line.

Colleoni's castle at Malpaga, south of Bergamo
Colleoni's castle at Malpaga, south of Bergamo
Travel tip:

Bartolomeo Colleoni spent the last years of his life living with his family at his castle in Malpaga to the south of Bergamo, which has frescoes depicting scenes from the Battle of Molinella that are attributed to the painter Il Romanino. The castle is open to the public at weekends between March and November.

More reading:


Colleoni the honourable condottiero

Da Montefeltro used earnings from war to sponsor the arts

(Photo of fresco by Giorces CC BY-SA 2.5it)
(Photo of Colleoni portrait by Sailko CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of castle by Mercurioblu CC BY-SA 3.0)

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