The Conductor
The Romanian realm has given great creating spirits to the world, in all fields of activity: philosophers, historians, sociologists, scientists that made epoch-making discoveries, inventors, writers (poets, prose writers, and dramatists), brilliant musicians, painters, and
A Hero Without His Right Wing
Far from his country, across the ocean, in 1957, while he conducted Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in New York, conductor Ionel Perlea had a heart attack. He had the courage and most of all the strength to go on conducting until he finished the Ode to Joy, after which he
I May Count Myself As Having Been Born Under A Lucky Star
As early as my years of instruction, while at The Academy of Music in Bucharest – as part of the group of the grand and incomparable professional singer and mentor Constantin Stroescu (Enrico Caruso's partner in Boston, 1915, in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci) – destiny
The Repertoire Of Conductor Egizio Massini
a. Works for the Stage (Operas, Comical Operas, and Ballets) Vincenzo Bellini: NormaVincenzo Bellini: I PuritaniGeorges Bizet: CarmenArrigo Boito: MefistofeleAleksandr Borodin: Prince IgorDomenico Cimarosa: Il matrimonio segreto Leo Delibes: LakmeGaetano Donizetti: Don
Echoes
Aida, March 17, 1920. I waited for it. With the justifiable, feverish impatience you feel before an ideal dream comes true!, wrote the Rampa magazine on March 18, 1920, hailing the opening of the first lyrical season. People liked the cheap, but very beautiful stage design,
Three Romanian Conducting Maestros In One
Of all the great 20th century conductors, Egizio Massini was the only one who distinguished himself equally in three different fields (opera, symphonic music, and fanfare). Even if he made tours abroad conducting all threes types of music, opera was the genre that distinguished
Recordings With RCA Victor In Rome (1966-1967)
– Gaetano Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia (integral opera); orchestra of the Rome Opera. Soloists: Montserrat Caballe, Alfredo Krauss, Shirley Verett, Enzo Flagelli. – Giuseppe Verdi: Rigoletto (integral opera)Soloists: Peters, Merril, Bjoerling, Tozzi. Recording with the
Letters
Enescu:Dear Georgescu,This is what I got from professor Hajak (Targu Mures). He plays well and it would be a good policy to have him play one of the concertos he proposed with the Philharmonic. I did not mean to bother you with this matter, but he insists, as you can see.
George Georgescu's Image In My Mind And Soul
Director of the George Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest At a certain point, the evolution of Romanian culture goes through a moment when, owing to strong personalities, the distance separating it from the level attained by the universal culture is suddenly annulled, and
Echoes
On 20 November 1921 an enthusiastic letter written by the poet Cincinat Pavelescu is published in Rampa, a letter which we see fit to transcribe in full: Dear Mr. Editor in Chief, My life's absorbing activities of incessant work at the head of a newspaper without any
The Lord Of Romanian Conducting
After almost a century of symphonic music in Romania (as early as in 1846-1848, the first symphonic concerts changed the artistic life of Bucharest), after three quarters of a century since the establishment of the first philharmonic in Bucharest (1868), a magician appeared
A Portrait In Smithereens
At night, when sleep is slow to come in a somewhat strange bed, you listen tensely to any sort of noise and try to decode the shades momentarily cast by car lights on the white of the walls. That is how I realized she was there, waiting on the threshold of the door. You