Alessandro Corbelli Interview with Bruce Duffie . . . . . . . . .

Baritone Alessandro Corbelli

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

Alessandro Corbelli (born September 21, 1952) is an Italian baritone. One of the world's pre-eminent singers specializing in Mozart and Rossini, Corbelli has sung in many major opera houses around the world, and has won admiration for his elegant singing style and sharp characterizations, especially in comic roles.

Corbelli was born in Turin, Italy and studied with Giuseppe Valdengo and Claude Thiolas. He made his debut in 1973 in Aosta, Italy as Monterone in Verdi's Rigoletto. Subsequently, he appeared at La Scala in Milan singing in all three of the Mozart/Da Ponte operas under conductor Riccardo Muti, and also in such cities as Turin, Verona, Bologna, Florence, and Naples, as well as major opera houses in Switzerland, France, Austria, Germany, England, Spain, Israel, and North and South America.

At the beginning of his career Corbelli sang lyric baritone roles, but his natural talent for comedy caused him eventually to be typecast in comic parts. Among the buffo roles he has performed and/or recorded are Dr. Bartolo in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, Taddeo in Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri, Don Geronio in Rossini's Il turco in Italia, Dulcamara in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, and the title role of Donizetti's Don Pasquale. He has frequently shown his versatility by singing two roles from the same opera, such as Figaro and the Count in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Leporello and the title role in Don Giovanni, Guglielmo and Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte, and Dandini and Don Magnifico in Rossini's La Cenerentola, among others.

Although primarily associated with Italian-language comic roles, Corbelli's résumé shows his wide-ranging interests and versatility, including French and German roles such as Sulpice in Donizetti's La fille du regiment, and Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Baroque opera including Seneca in Monteverdi’s L'incoronazione di Poppea, and a twentieth-century English-language opera, Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake's Progress. He has also sung roles in later Italian comic operas, including the title roles in Verdi's Falstaff and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. He is active in the concert hall as well, performing as a soloist in oratorios and vocal symphonies.

In the fall of 1988, it was my great pleasure to have a wonderful conversation with baritone Alessandro Corbelli. We gathered in a dressing room backstage at the Opera House on a day between his performances, and he was very cheerful throughout the meeting. Along with some serious observations about the state of the operatic situation, there were many smiles and much laughter.

As with so many of my encounters with Italian artists, my sincere thanks go to Marina Vecci, Production Administrator with Lyric Opera, for providing the translation for us. Names which are links on this webpage refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website.

Despite his propensity for portraying funny characters, during this visit to Chicago he was Ford in Falstaff. But knowing his full repertoire, I began with the obvious question...

Bruce Duffie:   Do you sing mostly comic roles, as opposed to serious roles?

Alessandro Corbelli:   For some years, I have specialized in opera comica, or opera buffa roles. I sing more Rossini, and Mozart, and Donizetti, but I get the chance, every once in a while, to sing serious and dramatic roles, such as Zurga in The Pearl Fishers, and Marcello in La Bohème, which is neither comic nor highly dramatic.

BD:   You used two different terms, opera comica and opera buffa. What is the difference, or is it just a subtle shade?

Corbelli:   I use them more or less in the same way, but I feel there is a difference between opera buffa and comedy. For instance, Falstaff is a comedy, and The Barber of Seville is an opera buffa. There is a lot more characterization, and a lot more that is ‘over-done’ in The Barber of Seville than in Falstaff.

BD:   How do you keep a comic part from becoming slap-stick, or ‘over-done’? [Note that the recording shown at right is the version by Paisiello, which pre-dates the Rossini by 34 years! Also, see my interview with Lella Cuberli.]

Corbelli:   I make sure that I do not over-act. But for instance, the critic in the Chicago Tribune has criticized me for my portrayal of Ford.

BD:   As being too funny?

Corbelli:   Too funny, too comic, too buffo. I don’t think so, but anyway... For me, there are two types of comic characters. One is where the situation itself is comic, and then there is the character which is comic. I believe that both Falstaff and Ford are two comic characters that try to be funny, because they are in a comic situation, not because they are themselves comic characters. They themselves believe that they are serious people, and act in a serious way. But then people mock them, or people deceive them.

BD:   Because of the situation?

Corbelli:   Just because of the situation, yes.

BD:   So, Ford and Falstaff in an unhappy situation would not react at all in the same way?

Corbelli:   No, no, for sure. We don’t know anything about Ford, because he only exists in The Merry Wives of Windsor. But we know about Falstaff, because he’s there are the two parts of the Henry IV story. So we know other things about Falstaff, and he is never a buffo character in those.

BD:   What happens to Ford after the opera is over?

Corbelli:   Everything remains as it was before. Ford is a rich bourgeois. He has the money, he loves his wife, and his wife loves him. The only thing that went wrong in his life is this marriage that he wanted to arrange between his daughter and Dr. Caius, but everything else is okay.

BD:   Is he happy with the marriage between Nannetta and Fenton?

Corbelli:   We can’t find out, as there is too little time in the opera to find out whether he’s really happy or not. Obviously, he’s not very happy about it, but he accepts it willingly and with good grace. This is as it happens in many finales or endings of opera buffa. You just accept it!

BD:   Are there times when the baritone winds up with the girl?

Corbelli:   [Enthusiastically] Yes, yes, yes, yes! A few times. Sometimes the baritone does succeed! [Much laughter]

BD:   Do you wish you wound up with her more often?

Corbelli:   [More laughter] I am not particularly interested in that. I’m more interested in the characters that lose something, or who are the losers rather than the winners. For example, Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, is much more interesting to me than Figaro. The Count is a much more tormented character because he loses more, and the reason why he loses is because he’s not a clean man in his soul. He’s not a good man.

BD:   The Count is your part in The Marriage of Figaro?

Corbelli:   I have sung the Count, but I will sing Figaro at La Scala.

BD:   Is it difficult to sing a second part in the same opera?

Corbelli:   Yes, for the memorization, especially in the ensembles. [Much laughter]

BD:   Do you find yourself slipping into the other’s lines?

Corbelli:   Yes.

* * * * *

BD:   When you’re presented with offers for various roles, how do you decide which ones you will accept, and which roles you will decline or postpone?

Corbelli:   By now, after fifteen years of being in the business, and living on my fame, I have gained a reputation, so I can choose what I want. First of all, I have to consider whether is suits my voice or not. If they offer me a bass role, then I will refuse it, or if they offer me a low, half-tenor kind of role, I will also refuse, because there are some parts in my repertory that are ambiguous in terms of which voice is called for.

BD:   Such as?

Corbelli:   It happens a lot in eighteenth century music. I was offered very high roles in the past, almost tenor roles, and then way back I accepted doing those, because I was young and didn’t know the consequences. It was very hard for me to do those roles. Also, as far as the lower part of the voice is concerned, in Rossini and Mozart, there are many parts that are bass-baritone roles, and are not really defined. I have to pay attention, and not accept roles that are too low for me, because I am a baritone. With the exception of Figaro, almost all the Rossini roles are bass-baritone roles. I am still being offered the role of Masetto in Don Giovanni, and from the point of view of a career, after fifteen years of being in the business and doing leading roles, it’s not convenient for me to accept the role of Masetto. But apart from that consideration, Masetto is a bass role, both when I sing solo and in the ensembles. It’s more of a bass role than Leporello. Leporello has a lot more to do in the middle to higher range, and Don Giovanni is written for a true baritone.

BD:   Would you sing Don Giovanni?

Corbelli:   I will be singing it in 1990 in Israel with Claudio Abbado.

BD:   Is that as a concert or staged?

Corbelli:   As a semi-staged concert.

BD:   Is there a secret to singing Mozart? [Vis-à-vis the video shown at left, see my interviews with Daniela Dessì, Delores Ziegler, and Claudio Desderi.]

Corbelli:   [Emphatically] No! [Much laughter] There is no secret to singing the music of any certain composer. Otherwise there would be a secret for all of them. The secret for all the composers is in the voice production, being a musician, singing musically, being an artist, and then being very careful of your diction. Study it very well, and sing what is written, and do not sing what is not written! If there is a talent, this would come out from all of those. So much is said, particularly in Italy, about style — a Rossini style, a Mozart style, a whatever style — but I feel that the style is the man, and the style is what you have on the page. That’s open to everybody if you study it carefully, so as to know what the style is.

BD:   Do you have to work harder to project that style in a larger house as opposed to a smaller house?

Corbelli:   This is always a problem. In the course of the many years I have sung, I have learned one thing that everyone should learn — especially young singers — which is not to listen to one’s voice with the outside ear, but to listen to what you sing with the interior ear. This means to pay attention to the mechanics of the voice, and not so much the result, because the result is certainly different from what the singer hears, and from what the audience hears. When I heard from someone that my voice could be easily heard, even in an outdoor arena, this is enough for me to sing and know what my voice is like, and what my voice sounds like.

BD:   Then, do you scale it down for a small house like the Piccola Scala?

Corbelli:   I know how to pace myself in a smaller house versus a bigger place.

BD:   Do you work harder at your diction in Italy where they’re getting every single word?

Corbelli:   No, no, I do the same thing. I make the same commitment or even perhaps here in Chicago more effort in doing that, because there might be only one person that understands everything. A person might understand my intentions, though certainly not the reporter from the Tribune. [Gales of laughter all around]

BD:   Are you conscious of the audience when you’re singing? Do you play off the audience?

Corbelli:   [Thinks a moment] I have a certain amount of fear with his problem. Certainly, I feel when the audience is favorable, and when they’re not, but when I’m on the stage I just think of doing my best, and that’s it. There are houses, especially in comic opera, when one has to do it directly, with the audience as pawns. It becomes almost a dialogue, but not always. Sometimes comic things might just arise from a casual attitude, or something that happens casually. I always think of [silent film actor] Buster Keaton. [Silent film comedy is also discussed in my interview with Desderi.]

BD:   Do you feel that having the supertitles help the situation for the singer and for opera?
corbelli

Corbelli:   Yes, and no! Yes when it is clear, because obviously the audience can understand what’s going on, and no, because they are not synchronized with what happens on the stage. I remember a Bohème two years ago, and I had the very famous line of Marcello. He is hearing Musetta singing, and I know Musetta’s song is meant to seduce Marcello. But Musetta is with another man, and Marcello says with a very tense voice, “Tie me to the chair!” After he says that, then there is a line from Alcindoro, and the surtitles came for his line. So the audience was two lines behind when they laughed at us, and the effect had already gone! So, when people are reading the surtitles, and something else is already happening, which might be interesting, there’s delay, and this is the negative side of the surtitles.

BD:   It’s interesting that you would say that the surtitles are delayed, because usually I’ve heard from singers that they read the line first and they laugh, and then when they see it onstage, they laugh again.

Corbelli:   Yes, that’s also the case. It happens both ways. In Don Giovanni, I have noticed that the laugh comes before the line. I’m not sure what the answer is. Either we should have better coordination, or else the public should do some preparation and not need surtitles! In Europe they don’t have them, at least not in Germany or in England.

BD:   Would you sing some of your roles in translation? [Vis-à-vis the video shown at right, see my interview with Felicity Palmer.]

Corbelli:   No, I prefer not to. I prefer always to sing in the original language. Sometimes, I have had to sing foreign non-Italian operas in the Italian language.

BD:   Did it work?

Corbelli:   It works very well, especially for comic opera. For instance, I sang Papageno [Magic Flute] in Italian, and it works very well as far as the dialogue is concerned, but it doesn’t work so well as far as the music goes, because the original language in terms of sound is what works well for accent and for sound. I was once asked by the University of California, Irvine, to sing the part of Fra Melitone in La Forza del Destino, and I of course accepted very willingly and right away, because it was also sponsored by a Center for Verdi Studies. All the negotiations were underway, but in the end they told me that I had to sing it in English. Then I said no, because it makes no sense for an Italian to sing Melitone in English. There are too many plays on words, so I didn’t accept. But I have sung Britten’s War Requiem in English, which is the original and not a translation.

* * * * *

BD:   We’ve talked about singing in different houses. Do you sing differently in front of a microphone for recordings?

Corbelli:   Normally I don’t sing any differently, but in front of a microphone, I feel that I can sing less than I would just on the stage.

BD:   You produce less sound?

Corbelli:   Yes, less sound and perhaps doing different kinds of colors. When I started out ten or fifteen years ago, I had a very good voice for the microphone. My voice was not as big as it is now. Now that my voice has developed and gotten bigger, it is better for me to sing live in the theater. I have to be careful as to where the microphone is placed when I sing for the radio, because if it’s too close to me, there is some distortion of my voice and sound.

BD:   Are you pleased with the recordings that you have made so far?

Corbelli:   Yes, yes.

BD:   Of the roles that you sing on recordings, are these all parts that you have sung on the stage?

Corbelli:   No, because my recordings are limited yet. I have done a few ‘second parts’ like Haly in The Italian Girl in Algiers and Alidoro in La Cenerentola, which are roles that I don’t do on the stage anymore, because normally I sing Taddeo and Dandini on stage. [Note that in the box below, both those early recordings are shown, as well as later recordings where he sang the larger roles.] There are a few live recordings of main leading roles that I have done. The last live recording was in Turin as Malatesta in Don Pasquale. [Note that the two videos of Don Pasquale shown at the top of this page feature Corbelli as the title character.]

See my interviews with Lucia Valentini-Terrani, Francisco Araiza, Jennifer Larmore, John Del Carlo, Jesús López-Cobos, and Carlo Rizzi

BD:   Is it frustrating to do a ‘second part’ on a recording?

Corbelli:   No, it’s not a problem. One has to see who does the ‘first roles’. [Note that in the first recordings of the two Rossini operas, the roles Corbelli would later sing were portrayed by Enzo Dara, who, incidentally, was Pasquale in the Turin recording just mentioned. Dara also sings Bartolo in the Barber by Paisiello shown above, and that is the role Corbelli sings in the Rossini version.] It is a very important decision in one’s career whether to do them or not, but it is less dangerous to do ‘second roles’ on a record than to do them in the theater, because my recording activity is at the beginning, but as far as the theater goes, I already have fifteen years’ experience in the theater.

BD:   Tell me about Malatesta. What kind of a man is he?

Corbelli:   What can one say? Malatesta is sort of a Figaro-like character, but he is less cynical than Figaro. He’s more friendly. He’s friends with Ernesto, Norina, and Don Pasquale, and that’s the reason why he sets up this deception. He wants Don Pasquale to lose this notion of getting married. Also, with Malatesta there is no money-interest involved, whereas Figaro acts out of money-interest and greed.

BD:   So Malatesta is just a nice guy? [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interview with Elena Zilio.]

Corbelli:   Yes, a nice guy. The legend in the Italian says Uomo faceto [facetious man], which is the best kind of guy! He’s a smart guy. He’s not a bad guy. He’s not a nasty guy, and he is not a cynical man. He’s a good guy with a good sense of humor. With Figaro, there is this interest in money, and an element of greed. He’s obviously a very sympathetic character but there is a darker side. He is much more a calculating man.

BD:   Do you like the new ideas of some of the stage directors these days?

Corbelli:   It depends on what ideas! I saw Tannhäuser here [produced by Peter Sellars, with Richard Cassilly, Nadine Secunde, Marilyn Zschau/Sharon Graham, Håkan Hagegård, Jan-Hendrik Rootering, Constance Hauman, Ben Heppner (as Walther), Donald Kaasch, and conducted by Ferdinand Leitner], and I thought it was a valid kind of production, but I wouldn’t do it that way. I would do it in a traditional way, because I do not like this trend of demythologizing things. I feel that myth and legend, as Tannhäuser is, should remain as legend, and one should make an effort to understand the myth and legend. Otherwise, there is no bettering of humankind. It will always remain at the same level if we always go to the taste of the audience. The same happens in comic opera. I have worked with Ponnelle a great deal, and he was truly a man of genius. I have loved his work. Both in Faust and most of all in Don Giovanni, there are moments that are too overdone to meet the audience’s taste, and kind of pander to the public. I don’t feel that one should be against the audience’s taste, or be an enemy of the audience, but one should also give the audience the chance of imagining, and thinking, and fantasizing.

BD:   Then let me ask a big philosophical question. What is the purpose of opera?

Corbelli:   I don’t know! [Both laugh] I don’t know, but if I put myself outside the world of opera for a moment, I think opera is one of the most absurd things that there can be. I found a great ally in this way of thinking in Karl Kraus, an Austrian writer whom I have just discovered. Looking at opera singers, I am always asked why they sing, and frankly I don’t know the answer to that! I sing because I love to sing. I like the music, and I like acting, and opera includes all of these things. But frankly, an opera performance is an absurdity.

BD:   Is it a good absurdity or a great absurdity?

Corbelli:   A good absurdity. Why not?

BD:   Is opera for everyone?

Corbelli:   Unfortunately, not, but it could be for everybody. Perhaps it would be necessary to start at school-level education to make opera for everyone. Music is for everybody, and theater is for everybody, but opera is a special thing between the two, so I don’t know if it’s quite for everybody.

* * * * *

BD:   What advice do you have for young singers coming along?

Corbelli:   I am myself a young singer, and young singers are full of enthusiasm. They immediately think that they are the top of the heap, and this is never true, even though they may have the voice, or talent, or even both. After fifteen years of being in opera, and after twenty years of studying, I can only now say that I am beginning to know my voice. I can almost say that my career really started only two years ago. Before that it was tense and full of trials. There was some talent, and so I studied music. I have always tried to act, but the vocal technique is getting perfected and coming out now. Having a technique is what lets you express. Technique is not a purpose or an aim, but is a means to an end. Now people say that there are no longer any good voices. Nowadays one doesn’t say, “What a beautiful voice!” or, “What a good artist!” They say, “What a good technique,” and this is a very dangerous thing, because technique should only be a means to an end. One should not realize that the singer has a good technique. Professionally one realizes that there is a technique, but it shouldn’t be apparent to the audience.

BD:   The audience should just see the finished product?

Corbelli:   Yes, of course. Once they used to say that it was an art. Now I don’t know what the situation is anymore! [Much laughter all around]

BD:   In opera, where should the balance be between the art and the entertainment?

Corbelli:   I don’t know. Usually, the idea of entertainment is more to do with the comic things than tragedy and drama. I’m not saying drama is entertainment, but a diversion for whatever might be there, which is a different concept than just the entertainment you get from a comic experience. I don’t really want to think of doing something for the sake of the audience. I like to do something trying to realize what the composer or the author had in mind. In other words, if I do my job well of reading and expressing what the composer wrote, this will reach the public. The great composers are great because they were geniuses, and the artists are only the means by which they express themselves through the composers. Naturally, every artist brings in their own personality, and their own talent, but I’m irritated by this desire to go towards the public at all costs.

BD:   I singing fun?

Corbelli:   When I feel good, yes!

BD:   But I assume you must sing on days when you’re not quite feeling up to it.

Corbelli:   [Laughs] As Beniamino Gigli used to say, in the course of a year, a singer perhaps is feeling perfectly well for one night, one evening.

BD:   Do you know ahead of time when that special evening is going to come, or do you only know after it’s finished?

Corbelli:   No I just feel it when I open my mouth and sing.

BD:   [With a wink] I hope that one evening is special.

Corbelli:   Perhaps most of the time in that very special evening, critics say very bad things! [More laughter] Also, when you’re trying to record, and especially when something doesn’t work, and you’re frustrated.

BD:   Do you have any advice for critics?

Corbelli:   [Laughs] This is a topic that is either going to be too long, or else I should not go into it. Seriously, I don’t really understand the function of the critic. It is a contradiction, because the critic should be an ultra-expert, but in reality, they can’t be because critics start writing when they’re very young, and normally they just go on writing all their lives. Therefore, what kind of an experience, both theatrical and musical, do they bring to this job? If they were artists, they’d be singing or playing, and they wouldn’t be writing criticism. I understand what they say is a partial view of things. It may be that some of the critics have very good ears, and a good sense in understanding what they see. But still, the question remains, what gives them the right to write those things? People say they would much rather read a faithful account of what happened on that evening rather than a judgment. But this is a kind of discourse that can go on and on. Some critics are really intelligent and very cultivated people, but how can they judge a singer, an instrument, or a conductor? It happened to me here in Chicago where two critics say exactly the opposite of each other. The same thing happened to me when I first did the role of Ford in Strasbourg. A French critic wrote that Mr. Corbelli is Ford with an ample and sonorous voice, and the other one wrote that I was small in figure and in voice! [More laughter] I wonder how can this possible? It’s ridiculous, and something is wrong. Who then should I believe?

BD:   Obviously the best one!

Corbelli:   Yes. [Still more laughter] Of course, it’s obvious one is hurt by the bad reviews and pleased by the good ones. But there is always the thought that those that are giving you a bad review might be right! It’s true that I’m not physically a giant, but I have a voice which is recognized all over the world. I also have a convincing way of acting and singing, so there should be a basic objectivity in what reviewers say. It’s kind of an agreement that one can accept just an opinion of someone. In Italy, there are two very famous actors. One is very old, and his name is Salvo Randone, and the other is somewhat less old, named Vittorio Gassman. I don’t like Vittorio Gassman, whereas I love Salvo Randone very much. But it’s not possible to say that Vittorio Gassman is not a great actor, even though I don’t like him. I can only say that I don’t like his way of acting, but he is a great professional actor.

BD:   [Sighs] It used to be worse here in Chicago, when we had four major daily papers [Sun-Times, with critic Robert C. Marsh, Tribune with critic Thomas Willis, and later John von Rhein, Daily News with critic Bernard Jacobson, and The American with critic Roger Dettmer. The first two were morning papers, the other two were put out in the evening, which eventually were folded into the early editions.]

Corbelli:   Thank goodness there are now only two! [Much laughter]

See my interviews with Ramón Vargas, and Luciana Serra

BD:   Do you have any advice for operatic managements?

Corbelli:   It’s not really my scene. I have a great admiration for this theater, and it’s not just a form of adulation when I say you’re all so nice, and how good you are. An artist here feels respected, which is a very important thing. Unfortunately, and especially in Italy, the artists are not respected. They come very last in a series of other interests in other things. Here, the first thing you come into is yourselves, and all the staff are very nice, and how nice you are to all of them.

BD:   Will you be coming back to Chicago?

Corbelli:   Yes, in 1991 for L’Elisir d’Amore. It’s not perhaps official yet... [This would be as Belcore, and then 18 seasons later, he would sing Dulcamara!]

BD:   I keep these details under my hat, as they say, until they are announced by the company. [The full list of his appearances in Chicago is in the box below.]

Alessandro Corbelli with Lyric Opera of Chicago

1986-87 La bohème (Marcello) with Ricciarelli/Daniels, Daniels/Brown, Polozov/Shicoff/Araiza, Washington, Capecchi; Tilson Thomas, Copley, Pizzi

1988-89 Falstaff (Ford) with Wixell, Daniels, Sandra Walker, Horne, Hadley, Swenson, Andreolli; Conlon, Ponnelle

1991-92 L'elisir d'amore (Belcore) with Gasdia, Hadley, Desderi, Futral (Giannetta); Pappano, Chazallettes

2005-06 Cenerentola (Magnifico) with Kasarova, Flórez, Hernandez, Doss, Curnow, Arwady; Campanella, Ponnelle/Asagaroff

2009-10 L'elisir d'amore (Dulcamara) with Cabell/Phillips, Filianoti/Lopardo, Viviani; Campanella, Chazalettes/Liotta

2013-14 Barber of Seville (Bartolo) with Gunn, Leonard, Shrader, Ketelsen, Cantin; Mariotti, Ashford, Pask

2015-16 Cenerentola (Magnifico) with Leonard, Brownlee, Priante, Van Horne, Newman, Rosen; Davis, Font

2017-18 Così fan tutte (Alfonso) with Martínez, Crebassa, Stensen, Hopkins, Tsallagova; Gaffigan, Cox/Ravella, Perdizolla

2019-20 Barber of Seville (Bartolo) with Crebassa, Brownlee, Baczyk, Edge; Davis, Ashford/Faircloth, Pask

2023-24 Fille du régiment (Sulpice) with Oropesa, Brownlee, Miller, Hermalyn; Scarapucci, Pelly/Räth.Thomas
Cenerentola (Magnifico) with Berzhanskaya, Swanson, Hopkins, Newton, Castillo, Maekawa; Lin, Ponnelle/Fortner

Corbelli: [Laughing] You’re only going to tell your millions of listeners!

BD:   [Re-assuringly] No, not about that! But I’m glad that you’re coming back. Thank you for spending some time with me today. It’s been very interesting.

Marina Vecci: Yes, he’s very interesting, and a very thoughtful person. He was a philosophy student before becoming an artist, so it’s no wonder that he thinks about these things.

BD:   [To Corbelli] Does your interest in philosophy make you delve a little deeper into each character?

Corbelli:   Yes, and that’s helped to create a method of studying and thinking about the character. I found my classical education of Latin and Greek to be very useful to understand operatic Italian, which is hardly modern-day Italian. It is not an easy thing, because we have to go and look up things in the dictionary. There are very unusual words in opera that are not used anymore. Falstaff uses very difficult words for an Italian. [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interview with June Anderson.]

BD:   [Surprised] Really??? That opera is not even a hundred years old.

Corbelli:   No, but Boito, the librettist, was a specialist. He made the effort in his libretto of recreating an equivalent of Shakespearian language in Italian. It’s a very rich and difficult language, and very different from modern-day English.

BD:   This is not the case with Cammarano or Romani?

Corbelli:   No. The case of Cammarano and Piave and Romani was that they wrote with the poetic language of their own time, which is different from Boito. With Mozart, if you read Da Ponte’s librettos, they are a lot closer to our way of speaking than Boito’s libretto.

BD:   Yet that’s another hundred years removed.

Corbelli:   Yes. Da Ponte was very modern for his time, whereas Boito preferred to try to go back.

BD:   Is there any way that you can make it a little easier to bring twentieth century audiences to these stories which are old, and perhaps more romanticized?

Corbelli:   When an opera is really a good opera, then the stories are never too old. The content of the opera is not old if it is a great opera.   If it is a great opera, it has universal values that can be communicated above all by the music, and sometimes also by the words. This is the case, of course, with Mozart and Da Ponte.

BD:   Is that what makes a great opera, this universality?

Corbelli:   Absolutely, for certain! I wouldn’t know how to explain how Mozart is great, but Mozart is great because it arrived to us in a manner whereby he communicates with us directly. In the case of Mozart and Da Ponte, that is a perfect collaboration, and an amalgamation of music and text.

See my interviews with Felicity Lott, Marie McLaughlin, Carol Vaness, Susanne Mentzer, Ryland Davies, and Sir Charles Mackerras

BD:   Without any specific names, are we getting any operas today that are on that level?

Corbelli:   I sing a lot of contemporary music in passing, but I don’t think so. In this century, we have very quickly lost the sense of poetry.

BD:   Is there any hope of getting it back?

Corbelli:   Perhaps if we could change our way of life, one could recapture it. Although, with no sociological expertise to give a diagnosis of this, I have the feeling that we are at a point of saturation with industrial, technological, and modern life. We need poetry in a bad way. We need to cry sometimes to be moved. We also need, of course, to laugh, but to laugh in a real sense. The other day I saw a very short film of Laurel & Hardy, and I just died laughing because of the simplicity, and their sense of comedy, and the beauty of it. It was nothing intellectual or highbrow, but it was just extremely funny. They are absolutely great, and in those two minutes, my wife and I just laughed to tears.

BD:   Is this what you try to bring on the stage?

Corbelli:   No, because this kind of laughter opera singers can’t get. I feel that in Italy people can’t laugh or can cry anymore. It’s not that people don’t try to make them laugh or make them cry, but especially when they use very vulgar ways of attracting laughter, this doesn’t help people to get a better sense of humor. I am too young to reminisce and complain about the good old times that are lost, but I notice these things because it’s very good for us, every once in a while, to really laugh, or to really cry sincerely about things. One cannot cry in Madam Butterfly if you set it in a brothel. The music is very poetic, but then to set it that way takes the poetry away. It is the same if you make La Bohème a story of drugs and drug abuse.

BD:   That kills it!

Corbelli:   Yes, that kills it. The music of Puccini is very poetic, and his librettists are too good for that kind of production. One can still cry at Bohème, but we shouldn’t take this poetry out of it, or lower it. If it’s done in an intelligent way, then one can relate that story to our own day. This is the reason why we cry at Bohème or Butterfly, or many others. Ken Russell thinks quite differently obviously!

Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was a British film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film, and for his flamboyant and controversial style. His films were mainly liberal adaptations of existing texts, or biographies, notably of composers of the Romantic era. Russell began directing for the BBC, where he made creative adaptations of composers' lives which were unusual for the time. He also directed many feature films independently and for studios.

Russell is best known for his Academy Award-winning romantic drama film Women in Love (1969, the historical drama horror film The Devils (1971), the musical fantasy film Tommy (1975), featuring the Who, and the science fiction horror film Altered States (1980) with music by John Corigliano. Russell also directed several films based on the lives of classical music composers, such as Elgar, Delius, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Liszt.

In the eighties, Russell directed a number of operatic productions. In 1985, he directed Gounod's opera Faust, loosely based on Goethe's play. The production was staged at the Vienna State Opera, conducted by Erich Binder with Francisco Araiza, Ruggero Raimondi and Gabriela Beňačková in the main roles. In 1986, he directed a production of Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele, also based on Goethe's Faust. The production was staged at Teatro Margherita in Genoa, conducted by Edoardo Müller.

No Ken Russell opera is complete without Nazis, and of course the production of La bohème was controversial. Cecilia Gasdia sang Mimì, and Elena Zilio was Musetta. The great-grandson of the composer threatened legal action, as had the great-grandson of Richard Strauss when Russell did Salome.

Five years after Russell filmed the Oscar Wilde play, he returns and directs Richard Strauss' opera of the same work. OPERA magazine (October 1993) said of the Bonn production, "The first-night audience did not enjoy the new work. Ken Russell returned thanks for their demonstration of displeasure in his own fashion, by bowing with his behind towards the audience". The singers were Emily Rawlins (Salome), Graham Clark (Herod), Helga Deresch (Herodias), David Pittman-Jennings (Jokanaan), and Marcus Haddock (Narraboth). Dennis Russell Davies conducted the Beethovenhalle Orchestra. The great-grandson of Strauss also threatened legal action.

Moving to Madama Butterfly, Russell said "I wanted to get across Puccini's message - the real clash between East and West. I feel the piece was prophetic. Why, for example, should Puccini have chosen to set in in Nagasaki? He could have chosen hundreds of other places in Japan. When I saw that, the rest just fell into place. I worked back from the bomb and ended up in a brothel". Russell's direction includes Butterfly putting a Mickey Mouse mask on her child to illustrate his Americanization, and at the wedding feast the sailors bring cans of beer.

John Gruen wrote in The New York Times on May 22,1983: "There is nothing predictable about Mr. Russell's handling of Madama Butterfly. While he is hardly the first director to tamper outrageously with an operatic masterpiece, his treatment of Puccini's opera is certain to produce some critical and public fireworks. For one, he has updated Butterfly to World War II, just prior to Pearl Harbor. For another, he has turned Cio-Cio San into a prostitute working in the red-light district of Nagasaki. Goro has become her pimp, while Lieutenant Pinkerton is a callous American opportunist. The opera ends with an elaborate simulation of the atom bomb falling on Nagasaki... And yet, despite Mr. Russell's bold updating of Puccini's 1904 plot (derived from a 1900 David Belasco drama), not a single note of the opera's score nor a word of its libretto has been changed and, indeed, the work is given in the original Italian. Still, there is no question that this is very much a Ken Russell ''Butterfly."

Donal Henahan in The New York Times writes about the direction taking over the music. "The choral and orchestral Intermezzo that ends the second act, when Cio-Cio-San and her child keep a sleepy vigil in expectation of Pinkerton's return, is one of opera's magical moments. During this evocative interlude, Mr. Russell puts on a comic-book pantomime in which Butterfly dreams of married joys to come, such as feeding her husband and child Corn Flakes out of an enormous box and Coca-Cola from a two-foot-high bottle. A hamburger of monstrous size and other touches of Americana add to the effect. The audience, understandably, laughed right through the music." Barry McCauley was Pinkerton in this production, and Richard Leech portrayed the naval lieutenant in Houston.

[Corbelli continuing] I feel that many directors have chosen opera to realize themselves, or to aggrandize themselves.

BD:   Are they abusing or insulting the public?

Corbelli:   No, not insulting the public, but the composer. It’s a very serious thing to do.

BD:   Despite this, are you optimistic about the future of opera?

Corbelli:   At the moment, no! In speaking about the Italian case, I feel that people have been technologized too much. There is too much industrialization, too much immorality, and too much consumerism. It’s time that people go back to some sounder and more primitive value, like farming and agriculture, because that’s what the country was originally. Italy has always been a poor country but it’s rich in its agriculture. The same way I hope that in the world of opera, one goes back to the original values of opera, the poetic values which make us feel good and make us better.

BD:   Thank you for helping to enrich us, and for this conversation.

Corbelli:   Oh, yes! Nice to meet you!

See my interview with Bernadette Manca di Nissa

This conversation was recorded in Chicago on November 15, 1988. Portions were broadcast on WNIB the following year, and again in 1991, 1997, and 1998. This transcription was made in 2025, and posted on this website at that time. My thanks for Marina Vecci, Production Administrator with Lyric Opera for providing the translation. Also, my thanks to British soprano Una Barry for her help in preparing this website presentation.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here. To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

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Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.