Trionfo for Tristan

Richard Wagner had a low opinion of Italian music (in Die Meistersinger, Hans Sachs stirringly denounces "Latin vapours and flummery"), but approved of Italian music lovers when they cheered his own work. Last week the Italians were cheering again, having staged what may well be one of the finest Wagner productions of the decade.

The opera: Tristan und Isolde. The occasion: Florence's Maggio Musicale. In charge: eccentric, peripatetic Conductor Artur Rodzinski (born a Pole in Yugoslavia, he is a longtime U.S. citizen, now lives in Italy). Among leading singers: Swedish Soprano Birgit Nilsson as Isolde, Cleveland's Mezzo-Soprano Grace Hoffman as Brangane, German Heldentenor Wolfgang Windgassen as Tristan.

Rodzinski has conducted Tristan more than 40 times, spent weeks before the Florence rehearsals restudying the score. He drilled his temperamental Italian orchestra mercilessly, rehearsed his cast, chorus and orchestra from 9 a.m. till midnight. Ruthlessly he excised musical sentimentalities, toned down the deathbed exuberance of handsome Tenor Windgassen ("You're practically dead. You can hardly talk, let alone sing"). On opening night last week, a big share of the applause went to Soprano Nilsson, who was compared to the great Kirsten Flagstad. But the star of the occasion was Rodzinski himself. Perched on a high stool in the pit, he mimed every emotion, sprang up repeatedly to sustain notes with sure baton sweeps. During breaks in the four-hour, 50-minute evening he changed dripping shirts, gave himself an alcohol rub, gulped

Cokes and vitamin pills. At the end, the Florence audience cheered through 17 curtain calls. After two years of mediocre Musicales, including a somewhat ragged Ring cycle last year, the May Festival had recouped its artistic losses, again ranked with the best in Europe. Said Florence's Mayor Giorgio La Pira, brushing aside news that two scheduled operas would have to be canceled because the Musicale had run out of credit: "We have no money now, but we have music!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.