Word: monaco
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Both are also the inspiration of the same person, Giancarlo del Monaco, one of the busiest directors around. Del Monaco, 51, is opera royalty: his father Mario was a thrilling heroic tenor of the 1950s. Giancarlo speaks--or more often shouts--five languages. He knows all the operas, even works such as Fedora and Francesca da Rimini, by heart because he spent his childhood in the wings. He also knows the stress points; when his father sang, his mother used to stand behind the boy with her hand on his shoulder; when the hard parts came, her grip tightened...
This utter fluency in the art may account for Del Monaco's range. As a young director in small German cities such as Ulm and Dortmund, he was radical; he set a Butterfly in Saigon (long before Miss Saigon) and a Forza del Destino in Spain during the Civil War. But he is best known for productions that are traditional in concept, modern in their psychological astuteness and, occasionally, rude in their action. At the climax of the love duet in the Met's Butterfly, Pinkerton begins stripping his bride, who throws back her head in ecstasy. On opening night...
...Monaco, the country and the opera house are often decisive when he chooses his approach. "I am a different director in Europe from America," he says. Especially in Germany, land of state subsidies and a public that may have seen 50 versions of Figaro, he may go the experimental route. In Bonn in April, for instance, he will produce a Manon Lescaut inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper. In the U.S., where opera must pay for itself, companies can rarely afford productions that may be one-year sensations. When Met general manager Joseph Volpe ordered up Butterfly, he wanted...
...enthusiastic, excitable man, Del Monaco is a hands-on operative with his casts. At a piano rehearsal for Boccanegra, a chorister who stepped in front of the hero received a genial tongue lashing. The hapless soprano assigned to cover for Kiri Te Kanawa should she get sick had a bad day, going left when she should have gone right, up the stairs when she belonged on the ground, picking a prop flower off cue. At the beginning of the glorious duet in which the heroine learns that Boccanegra is her father, she began playfully fingering his shirt. For the umpteenth...
...Monaco had to throw Boccanegra together in eight days-the chronically overbooked Placido Domingo was late in starting rehearsals; Vladimir Chernov, the Boccanegra, was silenced by flu; and Cheryl Studer, who was to sing Boccanegra's daughter, canceled. In a remarkable piece of last-minute luck, the Met was able to sign Te Kanawa. On opening night the ensemble came through under conductor James Levine's eloquent direction. Only the massive council-chamber scene looked tentative. Viva grand opera that is grand...