The main subject of today’s post is the adaptation of Carmen made by Oscar Hammerstein II in 1943 for an all-black cast, as revived by the Classic Stage Company here in New York for a run that has just ended. ^(I)First, though, I can’t resist bringing you a brief coda to the discussion of keyboard continuo playing we’ve had running over the last three posts (q.v.). Piano maven Gregor Benko called our conversation to the attention of his friend and colleague Frank Cooper, a retired professor, harpsichord collector, and expert in “harpsichordiana.” Prof. Cooper comments as follows:

“Missing from this highly informed exchange is the instrument itself which was used in all Italian opera houses and is depicted in the pits of some other countries—the thinly constructed Italian harpsichords made from cedar, with no lids to aim their product. Voiced properly, they radiate sound instantly, brightly, with pronounced ictus and rapid decay. Hence, they impart bite to the rhythmic impulse of the ensemble, give the pitches clearly, and thus are maximally utilitarian. They invite ornamentation to keep the sound alive—thus helping pitches to aid the singers who, in Baroque and Classical operas, sang from close to the lip of the stage and straight at the audience. Second best are early Flemish and German types; least best, the ubiquitous 18th Century French models with their suave sophistication. Now they do get lost as continuo instruments in pits. Chances overall for clarity come from so-called ‘authentic’ instrument ensembles for obvious reasons. Leather-plectra-ed Pleyels, Neuperts, Sperrhakes and their like in the once-modern vein were virtually inaudible without amplification against modern instrumental ensembles.”

To which Will Crutchfield responded:

“Every word [of Prof. Cooper’s commentary] is exactly right. He is talking about harpsichords, and describing, in much more specific detail, the types I was referring to in my very first answer about Don Giovanni. [At the Purchase performances of Mayr’s Medea and Rossini’s Tancredi] we were playing not a harpsichord but a piano, a replica of I can’t recall what original—I think it’s Viennese and circa 1800. We call such things fortepianos today. But that’s an arbitrary term to make a useful modern distinction. “Pianoforte” and “fortepiano” were synonymous alternatives at the time, and since the world settled on the former, the latter was revived when people wanted simply to describe an early version of the thing. The relevant point is that it can play either forte or piano depending on the physical force applied by the player, which is exactly what a harpsichord doesn’t do. On harpsichord the player creates more volume by throwing stops and playing a greater quantity of notes.

“‘Fortepianos’ also vary in strength. Ours wouldn’t be loud enough for playing any version of a concerto, but is very well suited to recit and continuo playing, and playing whatever in a living room.”

SAVE THE DATE!—For all who are in the New York City area: On Friday, Sept. 28, at 7:30 PM, I will be reading from my book, Opera as Opera/The State of the Art, in Marc Scorca Hall at the HQ of Opera America, 330 Seventh Avenue, NYC. The reading will be followed by a conversation with Marc Scorca, OA’s longtime CEO, and then by a Q & A session. This will be an evening that should interest all professionals and devotees alike. I will of course be posting reminders—but enter this in your event calendar now!

And now to the subjects at hand. You may recall that in my Don Giovanni articles (June 22 and July 6), one of the topics that reared its head was the function of the keyboard instrument. I took special note of the recitativo secco accompaniments as rendered on a modern piano in old Metropolitan Opera and Salzburg Festival performances under Bruno Walter (with the maestro himself, I am told, tickling the ivories), and the much more perfunctory ones, by an unidentified player, on the 1936 Glyndebourne Festival recording under Fritz Busch. And I contrasted this with the latterday performance-practice employment of any of several keyboard instruments (plus, in many cases, a low-string continuo instrument), and in particular the highly elaborated uses—sometimes participatory, sometimes ornamental—of the fortepiano in the Musica Aeterna recording led by Teodor Currentzis.

Among the reader responses to these posts was a particularly edifying one from Will Crutchfield, who has rare expertise in these matters, and my exchanges with him were extended by my attendance at a performance of Mayr’s Medea in Corinto by his Teatro Nuovo company (a bit on that  below). In his first commentary, Will picked up on three points contained in my posts. The first was my observation that the harpsichord requires amplification from the orchestra pits of our large theatres. I had based this on experience: at several performances of operas requiring continuo at the Met or the NY State (now Koch) Theatre, I had made my suspicious way down to the edge of the pit at intermission to eyeball the situation (once, this necessitated taking the elevator down four levels from the  Met Balcony), and on every one of those occasions, there was the microphone, its little water-moccasin head a-grin, set up alongside the keyboard. I know many operaphiles will say “Who cares, so long as the balance is right?”, and pragmatically speaking they would be on solid ground. But the amplification of any performance element in music written for acoustical instruments gets my slippery-slope goat. In any case, here’s what Will said:

“First, harpsichord does not need miking, even in a big theater, if it is a strong instrument with appropriate registrations available, favorably placed for acoustics, and played by someone who really knows how to get sound out of it.

“Also, we really have no idea whether Mozart’s operas were done with plucked instruments or what we now call ‘fortepianos,’ because the noun used in rosters and pay-sheets was almost always ‘cembalo,’ which is generic—it describes a function, not an instrument. Given the transitions in progress at the time, probably mostly hammers, not quills, by the time of the Da Ponte operas. (But meanwhile people did not necessarily rush to throw out an instrument that was holding up—Beethoven’s cello sonatas were published as for ‘pianoforte or harpsichord.’)”

˜ ˜ ˜

There’s nothing to really argue over here; good information, and I have no “alternative facts” to hand. I’d only note with respect to miking that I guess I’m still waiting for all those “ifs” to fall into place. (I can always go back to my in-your-face Wanda Landowska-with-RCA-engineer recordings.) And as I timidly noted in Don Giovanni, Part 1, and without plugging for a re-retrenchment, the modern piano requires none of the “ifs” except the strong player. Surely that’s the reason it came into use? That, and as with all the other arguable, but broadly accepted, improvements in orchestral instruments throughout the 19th Century, the fact that many people listened and said “Oh, that’s a more beautiful tone”?